"Sir: Upon receipt of your discurtious and cowardly reply to my challenge I realized the futility of expecting on your part an honourable and gentlemanly settlement of our difficulties. My natural inclination was to seek you out and force you to fight but advice of friends prevailed. I have decided to make it my business to verify the story which has come to my ears regarding the Gwynne and Carter families. In pursuit of this intention I am starting immediately for your old home town in Kentucky where I am convinced there still remain a number of people who will be able to give me all the facts. If I was misled into making statements that were untrue in my last meeting with your sister I shall most humbly apologize to her. If on the contrary I find that what I said to her was true I will make it my business to bring all the facts to the notice of the people of Lafayette and let them decide what to do in the matter. In any case I shall return in about a month or six weeks at which time I shall renew my challenge to you with the sincere hope that you may accept it and that I may have the belated pleasure of putting a bullet through your cowardly heart. I must however in the meantime refuse to sign myself "Yours respectfully "BARRY LAPELLE." CHAPTER XXVIII THE TRYSTING PLACE OF THOUGHTS The turmoil and excitement over the Indian outbreak increased during the day. A constant stream of refugees, mostly old men, women and children, poured into Lafayette from regions west of the Wabash. By nightfall fully three hundred of them were being cared for by the people of the town, and more were coming. Shortly after noon a mounted scout rode in from Warren County with the word that the militia of his county was preparing to start off at once to meet the advancing hordes; he brought in the report that farther north the frontier was being abandoned by the settlers and that massacres already had occurred. There was also a well-supported rumour that a portion of the Illinois militia, some two hundred and fifty men in all, had been routed on Hickory Creek by Black Hawk's invincible warriors, with appalling losses to the whites. He bore a stirring message from his commanding officer, urging the men of Tippecanoe to rouse themselves and join Warren County troops in an immediate movement to repel or at least to check the Sacs and Miamis and Pottawattomies who were swarming over the prairies like locusts. The appearance of this messenger, worn and spent after his long ride, created a profound sensation. Here at last was official verification of the stories brought in by the panic-stricken refugees; here was something that caused the whole town suddenly to awake to the fact that a real menace existed, and that it was not, after all, another of those rattle-brained "scares" which were constantly cropping up.