"Well, we lined up there finally, with Black Hawk’s warriors an’ twelve hundred Injun women an’ children in the willows on the water’s edge between us an’ the river. When we’d got ’em cornered they wanted to surrender, but this our fellers wouldn’t have, an’ disregardin’ the white flag, as before, shot ’em down like rabbits whenever one showed his head." "That was cruel." "Yes, but clean-like an’ satisfyin’ to our boys, who didn’t want any prisoners, but was in for finishin’ it onct for all." "Was there no outcry?" "Not a cry. The men an’ squaws just dropped in their tracks like lead when we shot ’em down, them as was only hurt tryin’ to creep away into the swamps." "Did the Indians show fight?" "When they saw they was bein’ shot like pigeons, an’ no attention was paid to the white flag, they fired back, an’ so a lot of our fellers was killed that needn’t have been. Some of the Injun women tried to swim the river with their little ones, but the men on the steamboat killed or drove ’em back. Some did git over, though, but the Sioux killed an’ scalped these, I heard." "Did you take any prisoners?" "Yes; some women an’ children, but not many men." "It is shameful that white men will be so cruel, even in the heat of anger," Uncle Job exclaimed, puffing out great clouds of smoke. "Mebbe, but that’s the way they fight Injuns. ’Tain’t as if one man was fightin’ another, but like he’d fight a panther or wildcat." "Was Black Hawk in the battle?" "No. He was up the river with some warriors, tryin’ to git our army to chase him, so’s to give his squaws an’ children a chance to git across; but our people was too smart for that." "Was Black Hawk a brave man?" Uncle Job asked. "Yes; a badger to fight an’ a fox to git away if need be." "What became of him when the war was over?" "He surrendered, an’ they sent him to Jefferson Barracks, an’ when I saw him he was draggin’ a ball an’ chain around like any common thief. Afterward, though, they let him off on his agreein’ to go to Iowa." "Was he a good general?" Uncle Job persisted. "Yes; like a lightnin’-bug on a dark night in battle. First here an’ then there, an’ so quick you couldn’t git a bead on him. He never slept in a campaign, some claimed. Torpid Liver an’ Split Ear, our Injun scouts, said he could go a week without sleepin’, though I didn’t believe that; but in the chase from Stillman’s Run to Bad Axe he couldn’t have slept more’n an’ hour a day. Except for his copper color, he was as fine a lookin’ man as I ever saw; an’ when he put his eyes on you ’twas as if two coals of fire was just droppin’ into your stomach, they were so fierce an’ hot-like. For all that, he wasn’t cruel, an’ didn’t drink, an’ was agin scalpin’ an’ torturin’ white prisoners, or deviltry like that, though when fightin’ other Injuns he follered the custom of his people."