“Black Hawk’s people?”
“Yep, an’ the chief is fumin’ with rage at the whites, fer settlin’ his ol’ stampin-ground along Rock River. He’ll be comin’ back ’cross the Mississippi any day now. Pale-face scalps ’ll soon be flutterin’ on his lodge pole.”
“Bill, I can’t believe it.”
“You’d better believe it, Major. Time is runnin’ powerful short.”
“But you offer no definite proof.”
“Oh, I ain’t got a letter from ol’ Black Hawk hisself, settin’ forth his hostile intentions,” admitted the borderer, with a tinge of resentment in his voice.
“I hardly expected that,” chuckled Whistler.
“But I have trustworthy Injun friends in adj’inin’ tribes. They tell me that Black Hawk’s runners has been amongst ’em, passin’ the red wampum, an’ proddin’ ’em to sign up fer the comin’ war with the pale-faces.”
“It may well be so, Bill,” pondered Whistler worriedly, “but I can hardly order out the troops on such slender evidence as that. Why, a cry would go up from the eastern press that I’m persecuting the poor, innocent savages.”
“What’s more, sir,” continued Brown, pressing his point, “how do you explain it that Black Hawk’s not been here fer the big Injun council?”