“Give Mr. Mason a chance, Bob,” he said. “Don’t you see he is tired and wants to rest? Perhaps he doesn’t want to tell us about it anyway.”
“Yes, I do, too,” exclaimed Mason. “First of all, though, I want to say we got our dispatches to Fort Armstrong safely and didn’t even seen an Indian on the way.”
“We didn’t either,” said Joseph. “We came back here without a bit of trouble.”
“I see you are safe and sound. How is the wounded leg?”
“As good as ever,” replied Joseph and he executed a war dance to prove the truth of his statement.
“Good for you,” cried John Mason. “Now, are you ready to hear about the fight?”
“I am,” exclaimed Robert quickly.
“All right then,” said Mason. “Here goes. I had been sent to Fort Hamilton from Fort Armstrong and was there on the fourteenth of June. That was just about a week ago. Word came to us on the next day that a scouting party of Sacs had killed five men the day before at the Spafford farm. The farm lies on the Pekatonika River, not far from Fort Hamilton. Colonel Henry Dodge was in command of the brigade stationed at the fort and at once started in pursuit of the Indians. Never being willing to be left out of anything I asked to be allowed to go along and received the desired permission.
“We set out with all possible speed and soon came upon the trail of the Indians. In fact we were so close to them at one time that we could see some of the warriors. We had no chance to shoot, however, and the Indians fled with amazing speed. They crossed and recrossed the Pekatonika several times, but we pressed them closer and closer, and at length when they saw that escape was impossible they made a stand. We immediately dismounted and cautiously picked our way forward. The Sacs had taken up their position in a dense thicket and were waiting for us.
“Colonel Dodge intended that we should fire a volley and then charge. The Indians, however, were on the lookout for us and fired first. One of our soldiers, a man named Apple, was killed, and a man named Jenkins was wounded. We never let up on them for a moment, however, and several were shot as they attempted to escape by swimming the river. When the fight started I think our forces were about equal in strength, but the Indians had been in the river so much that many of them had got their powder wet and so their guns were useless.”