vily.

The Sacs built opposite, on the Illinois shore, from Rock River down.
They called themselves Saukees, from their word O-sa-ki-wug, or Yellow
Earth People. They were larger and better looking than the Foxes, and
not so tricky; but their bravery was never doubted.

These two nations together drove out the other Indians in this new
country. They whipped even the Sioux, who claimed the northern Iowa
hunting grounds; they whipped the Omahas, Osages and Pawnees of the
west, the Mascoutins to the south, and the Illinois tribes. They were
here to stay.

While the men hunted and fished and went to war, the women raised great
crops of beans, squashes, melons, potatoes and Indian corn, and
gathered the wild rice of the lakes.

Among the Sac leaders was Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak--Big-black-breast,
or Black-hawk. Like Little Turtle of the Miamis he had not been born a
chief; but he was of the Thunder clan, the head clan of the Sacs.

His father was Py-e-sa, a warrior of the rank of braves, and keeper of
the tribal medicine-bag. His grandfather was Na-na-ma-kee, or
Thunder--also a brave.

Black-hawk was born in 1767, in Sauk-e-nuk, the principal Sac village,
where Rock Island, Illinois, now stands, north of the mouth of the Rock
River.

He won the rank of brave when he was only fifteen years old. He did
this by killing and scalping an Osage warrior, on the war-trail against
these head-takers. After that he was allowed in the scalp-dances.

He went against the Osages a second time. With seven men he attacked
one hundred, and escaped carrying another scalp. When he was eighteen,
he and five comrades pierced the Osage country across the Missouri
River, and got more scalps. When he was nineteen, he led two hundred
other braves against the Osages, and killed five Osages with his own
hand.

By his deeds he had become a chief.

In a battle with the Cherokees, below St. Louis, his father Pyesa fell.
Young Black-hawk was awarded the medicine-bag--"the soul of the Sac
nation."

In the early spring of 1804 a man of the Sac band then living on the
Missouri, near St. Louis, to hunt and trade, killed a white man. He
was arrested. The Sacs and Poxes held a council and chose four chiefs
to go to St. Louis and buy their warrior's freedom with presents. This
was the Indian way.

The chiefs selected were Pa-she-pa-ho, or Stabber, who was head chief
of the Sacs; Quash-qua-me, or Jumping Fish; Ou-che-qua-ha, or Sun Fis