Returning from the war, Black Hawk said, as he was approaching his village he saw a column of smoke curling over a hilltop near by, which so excited his curiosity that he visited the spot alone (fortunate intuition). There he found his old friend sitting in sorrow upon the ground. Being revived by some water, the old man related to Black Hawk the story of the murder of his son near Fort Madison, whither they had gone to pass the winter and hunt under permission of the commandant. The story continues that the young man started one day, as usual, for a day’s hunting. At nightfall he had not returned and the father passed a sleepless night. The following morning the boy had not come back and the father sent the mother to rouse the neighborhood. (Why was she not then present to minister to him?) Footsteps upon the snow soon brought the party to the spot where the boy was found to have shot and skinned a deer and hung it upon a branch. Here tracks indicated the presence of white men who had come upon and taken him prisoner. Following their trail, the body of the boy was soon found, the face shot, the body pierced with dagger thrusts and the scalp removed, while his arms had been pinioned at his sides. As the old man related this story, a great storm rose which lasted for a long time, as though the heavens were angered at the offense and threatening revenge. The old man died, and as the storm subsided Black Hawk wrapped his blanket around the body, and, kindling a fire, sat by it during the night. Were this story true, the act were too dastard to find any explanation, but, as already stated, neither contemporaneous history nor tradition from the many who love to tell such tales confirms this weird invention. On the contrary, Fort Madison had been finally besieged by Indians during the preceding year (1813), the garrison starved to shadows, and only by stratagem were the officers and men enabled to escape, which was accomplished by digging a trench to the river, when, after firing the buildings, they descended the river in boats.[22] Therefore, if the winter just passed, which is the only inference deducible from Black Hawk’s account, was the winter referred to, the father and son got no permission from the commandant, because there was no fort remaining and no commandant, and, in view of the hostility of the Indians, no settlers remained about the locality, unprotected as they would have been. If by any juggling of dates the winter referred to had been the one of ’12-’13, the peaceful Indians had by their own request been removed far to the southwest, the garrison had just gone through the first long siege before mentioned and only escaped butchery by the plot which the Indian maiden had exposed.