Py-e-sa, Black Hawk’s father, the hereditary medicine man of his tribe, had held the medicine bag for many years and his ability as a discreet, fearless and upright man cannot be controverted. Regarding a campaign by the young men so far from home as hazardous in the extreme, he joined this expedition, and with his people paddled his canoe night and day down the Mississippi River until the enemy was reached upon the Merameg River, south of St. Louis, in vastly superior forces. The battle which followed was stubbornly waged, but in it, as in so many others, the ferocity of the attack put the Cherokees to flight, leaving twenty-eight of their number dead upon the field, while the Sacs lost but seven braves. But one of those seven was Py-e-sa, whose loss was never thereafter supplied to the great Sac nation. Had he been spared to treat of subsequent questions with the whites, his moderation had unquestionably sustained Keokuk’s position and the campaigns of 1831 and 1832, with their trains of slaughter, would have been averted. In this engagement Black Hawk himself killed three outright and wounded many more. By the death of Py-e-sa, Black Hawk fell heir to the medicine bag, with its attendant responsibility. He immediately returned to his village, blackened his face and remained tranquil for the succeeding five years of his life, with no more stimulating employment than hunting, fishing and meditation. During this period of inaction, Black Hawk maintains, the Osages were constantly harassing his people by incursions into his country, carrying with each invasion a predatory warfare extremely distressing and galling. These became so frequent and offensive that, as Black Hawk has told us, “the Great Spirit took pity on them” (the Sacs), upon which event he took to the field. Here, at the head of a small party, he overtook a few struggling Osages, so feeble that he simply made them prisoners and handed them over to the Spanish father at St. Louis. With this famous act of clemency he continued his plan of total destruction of the offending Osages.