"I saw such an Indian once," I spoke up, remembering the chief who had rescued my father and mother. "He looked like a king, and his eyes burned you." "You never saw any one like Black Hawk unless it was him, for there ain’t any other such Injun," Blott answered. "What else happened in the war?" Uncle Job asked, lighting a fresh cigar. "Nothin’, except such things as always happen in Injun wars. Shootin’ an’ burnin’ an’ skirmishin’ here an’ there, day an’ night, an’ women an’ children scart to death, though mostly without cause," Blott answered, making a furtive dive at some object before him. "Were you hurt in any way?" "No, ’cept I got the malary; an’ for months I didn’t do nothin’ but take quinine an’ whisky, first one an’ then the other." "The other mostly, I fear," Uncle Job interrupted, drily. "When you got well why did you not quit drinking?" "I never got well, or if I felt better, the fear of the thing kept me from quittin’. Oh, it’s awful!—the malary, I mean; an’ I feel it comin’ on now, an’ if you’ll excuse me I’ll go an’ git somethin’ to head it off afore it gits the start." Saying which, Blott rose to his feet and hurried away before Uncle Job could ask him another question. "Poor devil, he will never overcome his malaria as long as there is whisky to be had," Uncle Job remarked, as we watched him disappear down the stairway. *CHAPTER XXII* *ROLLAND LOVE* Cloudless days and nights scarcely less brilliant added to the pleasure of our journey, and this fortunately, for we were, throughout, greatly delayed by reason of low water and drifting sands and shifting currents. These, however, are ever obstacles in the summer months on the upper river, but at the time of which I speak the stream was little known, and the pilots, in the main, ignorant of the courses of the river, so that we were hindered more than would be the case at the present time. The delay, however vexatious it might have been under some circumstances, only added to the pleasure of the many who, like myself, were abroad in the world for the first time, and so little or nothing was thought of it.