"He surrendered, an' they sent him to Jefferson Barracks, an' when I saw him he was draggin' a ball an' chain around like any common thief. Afterward, though, they let him off on his agreein' to go to Iowa."
"Was he a good general?" Uncle Job persisted.
"Yes; like a lightnin'-bug on a dark night in battle. First here an' then there, an' so quick you couldn't git a bead on him. He never slept in a campaign, some claimed. Torpid Liver an' Split Ear, our Injun scouts, said he could go a week without sleepin', though I didn't believe that; but in the chase from Stillman's Run to Bad Axe he couldn't have slept more'n an' hour a day. Except for his copper color, he was as fine a lookin' man as I ever saw; an' when he put his eyes on you 'twas as if two coals of fire was just droppin' into your stomach, they were so fierce an' hot-like. For all that, he wasn't cruel, an' didn't drink, an' was agin scalpin' an' torturin' white prisoners, or deviltry like that, though when fightin' other Injuns he follered the custom of his people."
"I saw such an Indian once," I spoke up, remembering the chief who had rescued my father and mother. "He looked like a king, and his eyes burned you."
"You never saw any one like Black Hawk unless it was him, for there ain't any other such Injun," Blott answered.
"What else happened in the war?" Uncle Job asked, lighting a fresh cigar.
"Nothin', except such things as always happen in Injun wars. Shootin' an' burnin' an' skirmishin' here an' there, day an' night, an' women an' children scart to death, though mostly without cause," Blott answered, making a furtive dive at some object before him.
"Were you hurt in any way?"
"No, 'cept I got the malary; an' for months I didn't do nothin' but take quinine an' whisky, first one an' then the other."
"The other mostly, I fear," Uncle Job interrupted, drily. "When you got well why did you not quit drinking?"