lack Hawk war, of their own sufferings, exploits, hardships, and
adventures. Father Dixon, as he was called, did not choose to talk
much about himself, for he was a modest old gentleman, and was not
given, as they used to say, to "blowing his own horn," but his memory
was a treasure-house of delightful anecdotes and reminiscences of
those old times; and young and old would sit around the comfortable
stove of a country store, during a dull winter evening, drinking in
tales of Indian warfare and of the "old settlers" that had been handed
down from generation to generation.

It is easy to see how boys brought up in an atmosphere like this, rich
in traditions of the long-past in which the early settlement of the
country figured, should become imbued with the same spirit of
adventure that had brought their fathers from the older States to this
new region of the West. Boys played at Indian warfare over the very
ground on which they had learned to believe the Sacs and Foxes had
skirmished years and years before. They loved to hear of Black Hawk
and his brother, the Prophet, as he was called; and I cannot tell you
with what reverence they regarded Father Dixon, the white-haired old
man who had actually talked and traded with the famous Indians, and
whose name had been given him as a title of respect by the great Black
Hawk himself.

Among the boys who drank in this sort of lore were Charlie and
Alexander Howell and their cousin Oscar Bryant. Charlie, when he had
arrived at his eighteenth birthday, esteemed himself a man, ready to
put away childish things; and yet, in his heart, he dearly loved the
traditions of the Indian occupation of the country, and wished that he
had been born earlier, so that he might have had a share in the
settlement of the Rock River region, its reclamation from the
wilderness, and the chase of the wild Indian. As for Alexander,
commonly known as "Sandy," he had worn out a thick volume of Cooper's
novels before he was fifteen years old, at which interesting point in
his career I propose to introduce him to you. Oscar was almost exactly
as many years and days old as his cousin. But two boys more unlike in
appearance could not be found anywhere in a long summer day. Sandy was
short, stubbed, and stocky in build. His face was florid and freckled,
and his hair and complexion, like his name, were sandy. Oscar was
tall, slim, wiry, with a long, oval face, black hair, and so lithe in
his motions that he was