Kenneth Gwynne rode beside the ubiquitous "Judge" Billings, who cheerfully and persuasively sought to "swap" horses with him when not otherwise employed in discoursing upon the vast inefficiency of certain specifically named officers who rode in all their plump glory at or near the head of the column. He was particularly out of sympathy with a loud-mouthed lieutenant.
"Why," said he, "if the captain was to say 'halt' suddenly that feller'd lose his mind tryin' to think what to do. No more head on him than a grasshopper. And him up there givin' orders to a lot of bright fellers like you an' me an' the rest of us! By gosh, I'd like to be hidin' around where I could see the look on the Indian's face that scalps him. The minute he got through scrapin' a little hide an' hair off of the top o' that feller's head he'd be able to see clear down to the back of his Adam's Apple."
Historians have recorded the experiences and achievements of this gallant troop of horse. It is not the intention of the present chronicler to digress. Suffice to say, the expedition moved sturdily westward and northward for five or six days without encountering a single Indian. Then they were ordered to return home. There were two casualties. One man was accidentally shot in the arm while cleaning his own rifle, and another was shot in the foot by a comrade who was aiming at a rattlesnake. Nine or ten days after they rode out from Lafayette, the majority of the company rode back again and were received with acclaim. Two score of the more adventurous, however, separated from the main body on Sugar Creek and, electing their own officers, proceeded to Hickory Creek and on to the River O'Plein in Northern Illinois, without finding a hostile redskin.
As a matter of fact, Black Hawk was at no time near the Indiana border. His operations were confined to Northwestern Illinois in the region of the Mississippi River. Subsequently a series of sanguinary battles took place between the Indians and strong Illinois militia forces supported by detachments of United States troops under General Brady. It was not until the beginning of August that Black Hawk was finally defeated, his dwindling horde almost annihilated, and the old chieftain, betrayed into the hands of the whites by the Winnebagos, was made a prisoner of war. And so, summarily, the present chronicler disposes of the "great Black Hawk war," and returns to his narrative and the people related thereto.
Kenneth Gwynne did not go back to Lafayette with the main body of troops; he decided to join Captain McGeorge and his undaunted little band of adventurers. Gwynne's purpose in remaining with McGeorge was twofold. Not only was he keenly eager to meet the Indians but somewhere back in his mind was the struggling hope that, given time, Rachel Carter's reserve would crack under the fresh strain put upon it and she would voluntarily, openly break the silence that now stood as an absolutely insurmountable obstacle to his marriage with Viola. Not until Rachel Carter herself cleared the path could they find the way to happiness.
He would have been amazed, even shocked, could he have known all that transpired in Lafayette on the day following his departure. He was not to know for many a day, as it was nearly three weeks after the return of the main body of troops that McGeorge and his little band rode wearily down through the Grand Prairie and entered the town, their approach being heralded by a scout sent on in advance.
Kenneth searched eagerly among the crowd on the river bank, seeking the face that had haunted him throughout all the irksome days and nights; he looked for the beloved one to whom his thoughts had sped each night for communion at the foot of the blessed elm. She was nowhere to be seen. He was bitterly disappointed. As soon as possible he escaped from his comrades and hurried home. There he learned from Rachel Carter herself that Viola had gone away, never to return to Lafayette again.
Mid-morning on the day after the troops rode away, Rachel Carter appeared at the office of her lawyer, Andrew Holman. There, in the course of the next hour, she calmly, unreservedly bared the whole story of her life to the astonished and incredulous gentleman.
She did not consult with her daughter before taking this irrevocable step. She put it beyond her daughter's power to shake the resolution she had made on the eve of Kenneth's departure; she knew that Viola would cry out against the sacrifice and she was sorely afraid of her own strength in the presence of her daughter's anguish. "I shall put it all in the paper," she said, regarding the distressed, perspiring face of the lawyer with a grim, almost taunting smile, as if she actually relished his consternation. "What I want you to do, first off, Andrew, is to prepare some sort of affidavit, setting forth the facts, which I will sign and swear to. It needn't be a long document. The shorter the better, just so it makes everything clear."
"But, my dear Mrs. Gwyn, this—this may dispossess you of everything," remonstrated the agitated man of law. "The fact that you were never the wife of Robert—"