By the not very mild assistance of Cooney Joe the Indian was seated on a stool, with his back to the wall, and sat with drunken gravity waiting to be questioned.
“Go on with yer story, you red nigger,” cried Joe. “And see yer, the minnit you begin to lie—and oh, Lord, how he kin lie when he lays his tongue to it!—that minnit I jump on you and yer ha’r comes off.”
“Little Fox will speak with a straight tongue,” replied the savage, drawing himself up. “Give injun more rum, and he talk heap fast.”
Cooney Joe poured out a very mild dose of rum and gave it to the savage, who gulped it down at once, and would have asked for more but that the expression of Joe’s face taught him that such a measure would bring down upon his head the wrath of the hunter, and he prudently refrained.
“Black-Hawk much mad,” he said. “See—white man take his village and plant corn among the graves. That no right in white man.”
“No moril reflections, bummer,” said Joe. “Git on with yer yarn, or off goes yer sculp.”
“Black-Hawk has a great army,” said the Indian. “His braves are coming in from the plains and their faces are painted for war. The white men must not sleep or they will all die.”
It is needless to follow word by word the disjointed narrative of the drunken savage, interrupted as it was by appeals for rum, which was doled out to him in very small quantities by Cooney Joe, who feared that he would get too drunk to articulate. He sat swaying unsteadily to and fro, and told a tale which confirmed their fears. Messengers had been sent out to the various tribes, and all had agreed to follow the standard of Black-Hawk and assist him in driving out the invaders of their land. Nearly all the principal chiefs except Keokuk had given in their adhesion, and bands of warriors were already on their way to the place of rendezvous, not far from Rock Island, where there was a Sac village and a fort. Doubtless the Indian misrepresented the plans of Black-Hawk, but he told enough truth to make his story tally with the preconceived ideas of the whites, and they looked at one another in silent dismay.
“This is very serious,” said the captain of scouts. “This Indian has earned his reward, and if he will come into the village to-morrow he shall have the liquor; the rifle and blankets I can give him now.”
He went out and brought in a very good rifle and two blankets, which he had obtained from the men. A flask of powder was added, and a mold to run bullets, and Little Fox staggered away, happy as a lord, little knowing that the possession of these articles would prove his death-warrant. With the weapon in his hands he staggered toward the village, where he was met by a young warrior of the Sac nation, whom, in his drunken blindness, he did not recognize as the youngest son of Black-Hawk, who was lurking about for information.