Raoul reined up Banner in the very center of the rings of dark, silent Indian houses. Armand Perrault, Levi Pope, Hodge Hode and Otto Wegner stopped beside him. He did not know whether he was relieved or disappointed. His cap-and-ball pistol drawn, the hammer pulled back, he drew angry breaths and glared about him. He felt exposed, realizing that at any time an arrow aimed at his heart could come winging out of one of those long loaf-shaped bark and frame Winnebago lodges. Because of Raoul's experience in the skirmishing around Saukenuk last year, General Henry Atkinson had commissioned him a colonel and put him in command of the advance guard, known as the spy battalion. He enjoyed the prestige of leading the spies, but he felt a constant tightness in his belly. He reached down for the canteen in the Indian blanketwork bag strapped to his saddle, uncorked it and took a quick swallow of Old Kaintuck. It went down hot and spread warmth from his stomach through his whole body. He cooled his throat with water from a second canteen. For three weeks now, slowed by heavy spring rains that swelled creeks to nearly impassable torrents, the militia had followed Black Hawk's trail up the Rock River. To the whites' disappointment, the Indians had bypassed Saukenuk, doubtless aware that the militia had come out against them. Instead, Black Hawk's band had trekked twenty-five miles upriver, reportedly stopping at Prophet's Town. Now, they were not here either. Raoul hated the Indian village on sight. Built on land that sloped gently down to the south bank of the Rock River, it surrounded him, threatened him, lay dark, sullen and sinister under a gray sky heavy with rain. It reminded him too vividly of the redskin villages where he'd spent those two worst years of his life. He saw no cooking fires, no drying meat or stacks of vegetables by the dark doorways, no poles flaunting feathers, ribbons and enemy scalps. That characteristic odor of Indian towns, a mixture of tobacco smoke and cooking hominy, hung in the air but was very faint. He figured the Indians had left here days ago. "Otto," Raoul said, "ride back to General Atkinson and report the enemy has abandoned Prophet's Town." Wegner gave Raoul a strenuous Prussian salute, pulled his spotted gray horse's head around and rode off. The two hundred men of the spy battalion were trickling in behind Raoul, hoofs pattering on the bare earth. In their coonskin caps and dusty gray shirts and buckskin jackets, the men didn't look like soldiers, but they had taken the oath and were under military discipline till their term of enlistment was up at the end of May. The men called to one another and laughed as they gazed around at the empty lodges. They were enjoying themselves immensely, Raoul thought. This time of year most of them would be breaking their backs doing spring plowing and planting. Now they could earn twenty-one cents a day while going on something like an extended hunting trip.