"'I am going to send you back to your chief, though I ought to kill you for running away a longtime ago, after I had adopted you as a son, but Black Hawk can forgive as well as fight. When you return to your chief I want you to tell him all my words. Tell him that Black Hawk's eyes have looked upon many suns but they shall not see many more, and that his back is no longer straight, as in his youth, but is beginning to bend with age. The Great Spirit has whispered among the tree-tops in the morning and evening, and says that Black Hawk's days are few, and that he is wanted in the spirit land. He is half dead, his arm shakes and is no longer strong, and his feet are slow on the warpath. Tell him all this, and tell him, too,' continued the untutored hero of the forest, with trembling emotion and marked emphasis, 'that Black Hawk would have been a friend to the whites, but they would not let him, and that the hatchet was dug up by themselves and not by the Indians. Tell your chief that Black Hawk meant no harm to the palefaces when he came across the Mississippi, but came peaceably to raise corn for his starving women and children, and that even then he would have gone back; but when he sent this white flag the braves who carried it were treated like squaws and one of them inhumanly shot. Tell him, too,' he concluded with terrible force, while his eyes fairly flashed fire, '_that Black Hawk will have revenge,_ and that he will never stop until the Great Spirit shall say to him, Come away.' "Thus saying, he loosened the cord that bound my arms, and after giving me particular directions as to the best course to pursue to my own camp, bade me farewell and struck off into the trackless forest, to commence that final struggle which was decided against the Indians." Although the Winnebagos and the Pottawatomies had resolved to take no part in the war, yet a few young warriors from each of these tribes, emboldened by Black Hawk's easy victory over Stillman's raw recruits, decided to join his band. These committed many depredations among the settlements along the Fox and Illinois rivers. When the warriors returned from their hunting expedition, Black Hawk concentrated his entire force, consisting of about five hundred warriors, according to his own statement, at a point between the Rock and Wisconsin rivers. General Atkinson, with a force of nearly two thousand men, pressed on to meet him. But the wily chief declined to risk a battle with such odds and withdrew into the wilderness. General Atkinson followed, incurring the danger of an ambuscade, but Black Hawk could not be brought to a stand. When Black Hawk reached the Mississippi River, he let most of his women and children descend it in canoes, but a majority were captured by the whites and quite a number drowned. With the main body of his warriors he approached the river, intending to cross, but was met at this point by the steamboat Warrior.