A short time after the ’83 tragedy–“a few moons,” as he puts it–Black Hawk was leader of a party of seven which attacked a band of one hundred Osages, killed one of their number and retreated without loss, Black Hawk taking the credit for this fatality to his personal valor. His taste for war, coupled with his prowess, attracted notice from others, and very presently he was found marching at the head of one hundred and eighty braves against the Osage village on the Missouri. Finding it deserted, the greater number of his young followers became dissatisfied, abandoned the enterprise and returned home, but Black Hawk continued, and, with but five followers, came upon the Osages, killed and scalped one man and a boy and then returned home. In consequence of this mutiny he has told us he was not again able to raise sufficient force to move against the Osages until his nineteenth year, during which interim, it was claimed, the Osages committed many outrages on his nation. In 1786 his restless spirit had planned another attack of a retaliatory nature against the Osages. Setting out with two hundred followers, he met a party of the enemy about equal in strength, which for a time stubbornly resisted Black Hawk’s attack, but, unable to maintain an unequal contest with the fierce Sac fighters, the Osages were finally routed and the band almost annihilated. One hundred of them were killed outright and the remnant which remained was left to be scalped while helplessly wounded, or driven from the country, while, on the other hand, Black Hawk’s loss was but nineteen men. Six of the enemy were killed by Black Hawk–five men and one squaw–and in alluding to this he adds these words: “I had the good fortune to take all their scalps.” In recording his glorious enterprise his interpreter doubtless insisted that the murder of a female by a great warrior was not creditable, for, once the enormity of his offense is cited, he pleads in extenuation that the squaw was accidentally killed; yet he scalped her. The severe cost to the Osages of this battle brought about a treaty of peace between the belligerents which lasted for a considerable period, as peaceful times between Indian nations seem then to have been reckoned. The stormiest periods of Black Hawk’s life were all born of tranquil times, and this interval of peace served to incubate a plan of campaign against his ancient and inveterate enemy, the Cherokees, which was to be fraught with consequences more serious than all his former campaigns together.