A body of about three hundred and forty rangers, not of the regular army, under Major Stillman, asked to go ahead as scouts, to look for a body of Indians under Black Hawk, rumored to be about twelve miles away.  The permission was given, and on the night of the 14th of May Stillman and his men went into camp.  Black Hawk heard of their presence.  By this time the poor old chief had discovered that the promises of aid from the Indian tribes and the British were false, and, dismayed, he had resolved to recross the Mississippi.  When he heard of the whites near he sent three braves with a white flag to ask for a parley and permission to descend the river.  Behind them he sent five men to watch proceedings.  Stillman’s rangers were in camp when the bearers of the flag of truce appeared.  The men were many of them half drunk, and when they saw the Indian truce-bearers, they rushed out in a wild mob, and ran them into camp.  Then catching sight of the five spies, they started after them, killing two.  The three who reached Black Hawk reported that the truce-bearers had been killed as well as their two companions.  Furious at this violation of faith, Black Hawk “raised a yell,” and declared to the forty braves, all he had with him, that they must have revenge.  The Indians immediately sallied forth, and met Stillman’s band of over three hundred men, who by this time were out in search of the Indians.  Black Hawk, too maddened to think of the difference of numbers, attacked the whites.  To his surprise the enemy turned, and fled in a wild riot.  Nor did they stop at their camp, which from its position was almost impregnable; they fled in complete panic, sauve qui peut, through their camp, across prairie and rivers and swamps, to Dixon, twelve miles away, where by midnight they began to arrive.  The first arrival reported that two thousand savages had swept down on Stillman’s camp and slaughtered all but himself.  Before the next night all but eleven of the band had arrived.

Stillman’s defeat, as this disgraceful affair is called, put all notion of peace out of Black Hawk’s mind, and he started out in earnest on the warpath.  Governor Reynolds, excited by the reports of the first arrivals from the Stillman stampede, made out that night, “by candle-light,” a call for more volunteers, and by the morning of the 15th had messengers out and his army in pursuit of Black Hawk.  But it was like pursuing a shadow.  The Indians purposely confused their trail.  Sometimes it was a broad path, then it suddenly radiated to all points.  The whites broke their bands, and pursued the savages here and there, never overtaking them, though now and then coming suddenly on some terrible evidences of their presence—­a frontier home deserted and burned, slaughtered cattle, scalps suspended where the army could not fail to see them.