They went up the river into present day Winnebago County and built a cabin in a Winnebago village at the present site of Hononegah Forest Preserve. Mack's sojourn there was peaceful until the outbreak of the Black Hawk War when a party of Black Hawk's braves raided his cabin searching for his supply of gunpowder (which Mack succeeded to hide). On May 9, 1832, Mack was run out of his cabin, and he and Hononegah fled to Chicago. Edson Carr relates a romance in which Mack met Black Hawk, and after the villagers advised Mack that they could not protect him, Mack took refuge on Webber's Island, and Hononegah provided him with food and fresh water daily until the threat was passed. Carr seems not to have believed the story, and modern research has also cast doubt on it.