But Black Hawk was too old a savage to learn respect for treaties or
resignation under fancied wrongs. He was already approaching the
allotted term of life. He had been a chief of his nation for more than
forty years. He had scalped his first enemy when scarcely more than a
child, having painted on his blanket the blood-red hand which marked
his nobility at fifteen years of age. Peace under any circumstances
would doubtless have been irksome to him, but a peace which forbade
him free access to his own hunting-grounds and to the graves of his
fathers was more than he could now school himself to endure. He had
come to believe that he had been foully wronged by the treaty which
was his own act; he had even convinced himself that "land cannot be
sold," a proposition in political economy which our modern socialists
would be puzzled to accept or confute. Besides this, the tenderest
feelings of his heart were outraged by this exclusion from his former
domain. He had never passed a year since the death of his daughter
without making a pilgrimage to her grave at Oquawka and spending hours
in mystic ceremonies and contemplation. He was himself prophet as well
as warrior, and had doubtless his share of mania, which is the
strength of prophets. The promptings of his own broken heart readily
seemed to him the whisperings of attendant spirits; and day by day
these unseen incitements increased around him, until they could not be
resisted even if death stood in the way.

He made his combinations during the winter, and had it not been for
the loyal attitude of Keokuk, he could have brought the entire nation
of the Sacs and Foxes to the war-path. As it was, the flower of the
young men came with him when, with the opening spring, he crossed the
river once more. He came this time, he said, "to plant corn," but as a
preliminary to this peaceful occupation of the land he marched up the
Rock River, expecting to be joined by the Winnebagoes and