His easy, genial tone was suddenly gone, and his words cracked out like the snap of a whip-lash. A strange light came into the one, gleaming eye of the wily Winnebago. It was clear that he had a presentment of what was to come.
“But you do speak with a forked tongue!” continued the officer sternly.
“How so, oh Big Knife?”
“The camp of Black Hawk is not three suns away. It is less than one sun away.”
“What magic tells you that?”
“No magic at all, Kaukishkaka. Last night I sent out scouts, who slipped through the swamps and spied out the Sac ambush.”
“I know nothing of ambush,” said the Crow shiftily. “Mayhap the accursed Hawk has seen fit to move his camp. He does not tell me of his comings and goings.”
“Faugh!” exclaimed Dodge angrily, “I denounce you as a lying, scheming rascal. You are in league with Black Hawk. But for the diligence of my scouts, we might have been caught in your clever snare. Take him away, guards! When we march again, fasten ropes to his legs under his horse’s belly. He is a slippery eel, so watch him well.”
The stormy scene between the irate Dodge and the dissembling White Crow was scarcely over with, when three army couriers rode into the ranger camp bearing dispatches from General Atkinson. Riding to the northwest they had luckily cut the rangers’ trail this side of the Four Lakes, and had then tracked them down.
It was now learned that Atkinson’s army had left Dixon’s Ferry on June 27, as planned. It consisted of four hundred regulars and nearly two thousand volunteer troops. On the thirtieth, the force crossed the Illinois-Wisconsin boundary at the famous turtle village of the Winnebagoes, whose inhabitants had flown at the approach of the column. From here, the White Beaver and his men pressed up the Rock River, following the Sac trail with the vehemence of blood-hounds.