Having shortly after this returned to my home, I assumed the position of under-sheriff to my parent, and lived for several months somewhat quietly, being lionized in no small degree by my friends and neighbors on account of the capture of Jackson. In a few months, however, Pinkerton, who had evidently considered me a good "utility" man in the detective line, wanted my services again. He was engaged in ferreting out a gang of counterfeiters and horse-thieves, who had been circulating bad notes, and thinning out the stables above Chicago. Their base of operations had been made by them at the foot of Little Dalls, now called Dallton. This was some twenty miles above Portage City.
Excitement was the only thing I lacked while under my father's wing, and consequently, in spite of his remonstrances, I determined upon accepting the offer of employment which Pinkerton made me.
Starting at once, after seeing my chief, I joined the party with whom I was to work, at Madison. Here, after laying our plans, or rather, arranging for the execution of those Pinkerton had laid out for us, we separated, with the understanding that wherever we met, we were to proceed as if we had been strangers. The following day, myself and a companion found ourselves at Big Bull Falls. It would be unnecessary to trace out our after-route from place to place. For some time we discovered nothing which might afford any clue to the object of our search. At last we arrived at Grandfather Bull Falls, when something occurred which convinced us we had continued too far in that direction. We consequently returned, and took a straight line towards Black River Woods.
By the bye, the man who gave them this name must have had a hide tanned to the toughness of a leather boot, or he certainly never would have omitted to commemorate the plague of the mosquitoes which infest it.
Of all sections of the country populated with this delightful insect, that I have ever crossed, this is decidedly the worst. So much so, that I believe it must have been that part of it, in which the man we have heard of, took refuge from these winged atrocities under an old steam-boiler, amusing himself while in his fancied security by clamping their murderous beaks, with an old hammer he chanced to have with him, to the iron shell through which they were penetrating. The result of this style of proceeding was perfectly unforeseen by him. In some hour and a half, the muscle of the trapped mosquitoes was sufficiently strong for them to raise the iron shell and fly off with it.
Be this as it may, it is a complete purgatory. You, in vain, try to smash one mosquito whose fangs you feel in your forehead. While doing so, another fastens on your nose, and half a dozen more upon either cheek. The amount of profanity they caused on the tongue of myself and my companion, I even now look back upon, with considerable contrition.
The whole of this portion of the country, as far as Black River, was under Mosquito dominion; and when we quitted it, it was with the sincere hope, upon my part, that nothing might oblige me to revisit it.
When we once more met the balance of our party at Stevens Point, which had been as unsuccessful as ourselves in tracking out the game, it is now a question to me how our swollen and disfigured faces could be at all recognizable.