Both Abe and Harry suffered from hunger and sore feet before they reached Peoria where they bought a canoe and in the morning of a bright day started down the Illinois River.
They had a long day of comfort in its current with a good store of bread and butter and cold meat and pie.

The prospect of being fifty miles nearer home before nightfall lightened their hearts and they laughed freely while Abe told of his adventures in the campaign.

To him it was all a wild comedy with tragic scenes dragged into it and woefully out of place.

Indeed he thought it no more like war than a pig sticking and that was the kind of thing he hated.

At noon they put ashore and sat on a grassy bank in the shade of a great oak, to escape the withering sunlight of that day late in July, while they ate their luncheon.
"I reckon that the Black Hawk peril was largely manufactured," said Abe as they sat in the cool shade.