The squatters, relying for protection on the troops near by, perpetrated outrages of the most exasperating character. They turned their horses into the Indian cornfields, threw down fences, whipped one young woman who had pulled a few corn suckers from one of their fields to eat, while on her way to work, and finally two ruffians met Black Hawk himself one day as he was hunting on the river bottom and accused him of shooting their hogs. He indignantly denied it, but they snatched his rifle from his hand, wrenched the flint out, and then beat the old man with a hickory stick till the blood ran down his back, and he could not leave his house for days. Doubtless this indignity surpassed all other outrages in the proud old chief's estimation, and we can imagine him sitting in his cabin on the highest ground in the village, looking over the magnificent landscape, brooding upon the blight which had fallen upon the beautiful home of his tribe, and harboring thoughts of revenge. Still he refrained from open resistance till the spring of 1831. [Illustration: BLACKHAWK AND THE TWO RUFFIANS] It was the custom of the tribe to spend the winter months hunting and trapping in northeastern Missouri, returning in the spring to Saukenuk. This time they found the whites more aggressive than ever. They had fenced in the most of the cultivated land, plowed over the burying ground, and destroyed a number of houses. They received the Indians with hostile looks, but Black Hawk at last did what he ought to have done at first, ordered the squatters all off the peninsula. He then went to an island where a squatter sold liquor and had paid no heed to his entreaties not to sell to the Indians, and with a party of his braves knocked in the heads of the whisky barrels and poured their contents on the ground. The liquor vendor immediately hurried to Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, with his tale of woe and represented that Black Hawk was devastating the country with torch and tomahawk. Governor Reynolds at once issued a flamboyant proclamation calling for volunteers, and asked the United States authorities at Saint Louis for aid. A considerable body of regulars was dispatched up the river and reached Saukenuk before the volunteers. Black Hawk told his people to remain in their houses, and not to obey any orders to leave Saukenuk, for they had not sold their home and had done no wrong. But when he saw the undisciplined, lawless and wildly excited volunteers, who came a few days later, he told the people that their lives were in danger and they must go. Accordingly the next morning at an early hour all embarked in their canoes and crossed the Mississippi. They were visited there by the officials, and Black Hawk entered into an agreement to remain west of the river.