“Let us start at once!”
At Dodge’s command, the stirring notes of the trumpet sounded on the quiet morning air. Three hundred men quickly mounted and filed out on the trail, behind their coppery guides. As the Crow had stated, the path led straight to the east; and the trail, for some miles, was good, over an open, gently rolling country, interspersed here and there with groves of hardwood. The rangers, in a rather close group, followed the Indians, all of them looking attentively as they rode to saddle and girth, musket, pistol and knife.
For two days, travel was unbroken and uneventful. Camp was made that second night at a place where the aspect of the country was beginning to change. Vast marshlands could be seen ahead, from the summit of the low hill where the stop was ordered.
“Looks like we’re getting into the great swamps of the Koshkonong,” ventured Tom Gordon, as he appraised the region to the east.
“That we are, lad,” nodded Bill Brown. “From here to the Big Rapids o’ Rock River, much o’ the goin’ ’ll be slow an’ treach’rous.”
“Big Rapids of Rock River?” questioned Colonel Dodge surprisedly. “You seem to have an idea, Brown, just where we are heading.”
“I reckon I have, Colonel.”
“You’ve traversed this trail before?”
“Yep, goin’ from the Four Lakes to Mil-wa-ke.”
“And the swamps are very bad?”