“You know him personally, Bill?” Tom asked.
“That I do. Did a lot o’ scoutin’ fer him, some five years ago, at the time o’ the Winnebago War, ’way up in the Wisconsin forests, when the great chief, Red Bird, hit the Tomahawk trail.”
Without further talk the trio now headed for the fort gate, determined to see the new commander, and to lay before him the startling story of the conspiracy that wily Black Hawk was forming against the pale-face usurpers.
They had not gone a dozen paces, however, when a jagged rock, nearly the size of a man’s fist, went hurtling past their heads and struck the log pickets with a thud.
Quick as a flash, Bill Brown bounded across the road, pistol in hand, toward a cluster of sheds and shanties, which seemed to be the direction from which the missile had been thrown. He was just in time to see a hulking, blue-coated figure dodge away among the maze of buildings, where he was lost from view.
“Looked a heap like that cowardly skunk, Fagan,” scowled Bill, as he came back to the angry boys, “but I warn’t sure ’nuff to risk a pot-shot at him. Well, if the ornery critter wants trouble, we ain’t the fellers to dodge it.”
CHAPTER 5
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At Fort Dearborn