enfeebled women could no longer carry, and the dead
bodies of famished papooses and old people.

[Illustration: THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN CROSSED THE RIVER]

About four o'clock in the afternoon, the rear guard of the Sauks was
overtaken a few miles from the river. This was on the 21st day of July,
and the troops had made a forced march of eighty miles in three days
from the Rock to the Wisconsin, much of the way through swamps and dense
forests. Until dark a series of skirmishes was maintained, the Indians
skilfully forming new lines and holding the enemy back while the women
and children were crossing the river. Black Hawk directed the fight
while sitting on his pony, his stentorian voice reaching every part of
the field. He always counted this battle as most creditable to his
military genius, and there is reason for the claim, for he delayed the
whites till the passage of the river was secured. Jefferson Davis, who
was present, says that the squaws tore the bark off the trees and made
little canoes in which to float their papooses and utensils across the
river; and that half the braves swam the river holding their rifles in
the air, while the rest kept the whites back, and then, having landed,
fired on the whites from the other side, while the remaining braves
crossed. Davis pronounced it the most brilliant defensive battle he ever
witnessed.

The next morning the Indians had disappeared, but during the night they
had constructed a raft upon which a large number of the women and
children and old men were placed and set adrift, hoping that they would
be allowed to go down the river unmolested, and reach their late village
in Iowa. But Colonel Dodge sent word ahead, and the soldiers at Fort
Crawford lay in wait for them; and when the raft approached they fired
upon the helpless creatures, killing a large number. A few were taken
prisoners, but the rest were drowned or swam ashore and afterwards
perished of hunger in the woods.

Late in the night after the fight at Wisconsin Heights, a loud, shrill
voice was heard from the eminence which Black Hawk had occupied during
the conflict. It caused consternation at first among the whites, as it
was thought to signify a night attack. But the voice continued in
strong, impassioned harangue for more than an hour, eliciting, however,
only jeers and an occasional rifle shot. It was afterwards learned that
the orator was Neapope, speaking in the Winnebago tongue. He had seen a
few W