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THE BOYHOOD OF TECUMSEH

Three Indian figures stand out in bold relief on the background of Canadian history--the figures of Pontiac, Brant, and Tecumseh. The Ottawa chief Pontiac was the friend of the French, and, when the French suffered defeat, he plotted and fought to drive the English from the Indian country. Brant, the Mohawk, took the king's side against the Americans in the War of Independence, and finally led his defeated people to Canada that they might have homes on British soil. And Tecumseh threw in his lot with the British in the War of 1812 and gave his life in their service. But, while Pontiac fought for the French and Brant and Tecumseh for the British, it was for the lost cause of their own people that all three were really fighting; and it was for this that they spent themselves in vain.

Tecumseh, whose story we are to tell in this volume, sprang from the Shawnees, an energetic and warlike tribe of Algonquian stock. The Algonquins, whose tribal branches were scattered from Labrador to the Rockies and from Hudson Bay to North Carolina, believed that a deity presided over each of the four cardinal points of the compass. Shawan was the guardian spirit of the South; and, as the tribe to which Tecumseh belonged formerly lived south of the other tribes, its members became known as Shawanoes, or Shawnees--that is, Southerners.

Little is known of the history of the Shawnees, for they were restless bands, greater wanderers even than the generality of Indians, and their continual change of settlement baffles historical research. Upon the southern shores of Lake Erie, on the banks of the Ohio, and along the broad Mississippi, at different times they pitched their tents. The name of the river Suwanee, or 'Swanee,' corrupted from their own, marks their abode at one time in Georgia and Florida.

The Shawnees were originally divided into twelve clans, each clan adopting as its totem a reptile, bird, or animal that at some time had been regarded as a benign spirit. As a result of continual wars and wandering, however, the twelve clans had dwindled to four. Only the Mequachake, Chillicothe, Piqua, and Kiscopoke remained. In the first of these, which conducted all tribal rites, the chiefship was hereditary; in the other three it was the reward of merit.

To the Kiscopoke clan belonged Tecumseh's father, Puckeshinwau . He had been elevated to the rank of chief by his brother-warriors, and at the time of Tecumseh's birth was a powerful leader among his people. The panther was the totem of his clan. Tecumseh's mother, named Methoataske , is said to have been noted for wisdom among the women of her tribe, and her name shows that she belonged to the clan having the turtle as its totem. After much wandering, Puckeshinwau settled down in the Ohio country with his family and the band that accompanied him in his migrations. It was in the old Indian village of Piqua, about six miles south-west of the site of the present city of Springfield, Ohio, and within sound of the rushing waters of the Mad River, that he set up the wigwam in which, in the year 1768, Tecumseh first opened his eyes. We are told that a rich, wide plateau, gemmed with wild flowers, extended between the village and the river, and that precipitous cliffs rose on one side, while rolling hills crowned with tall trees completed the circle of the village.

Tecumseh was the fourth child of a family of seven. His elders were Cheeseekau, the eldest son, Tecumapease, the only daughter, and Sauwaseekau; the younger children were Nehasumo, Laulewasikaw, and Kumshakaw. The two last were twins; and twins were held in superstitious awe by the Indians, who feared them as possessed of occult power, and frequently put one or both to death. In this instance no such fate befell the children. Kumshakaw evinced none of the dreaded attributes, and lived to a ripe old age, but Laulewasikaw, by his practice of magic and claims of supernatural knowledge and power, as we shall see later, bore out the ancient belief.

Tecumseh in his early days was left largely to the care of his sister, Tecumapease. Thus between the two there arose a strong attachment which lasted until Tecumseh's death. From the well-known Indian practices in relation to the bringing up of young children we can imagine how the days of his infancy were passed. When not rolling on the ground, the child would be closely confined in his curious cradle, a sack made from the skin of an animal and bound to a thin, straight board, somewhat larger than his body. Great care would be taken to keep straight the infant limbs, that their symmetry might be preserved in later life. This was the first stage in the making of an Indian stoic. Every part of the cradle was symbolical. That the child's life might be preserved, the heart of a tree was used for the cradle board. Along the wooden bow above the child's head, which symbolized the sky, zigzag furrows were cut to represent lightning, the power of which was designated by suspended arrows. Through holes in the upper part of the board was threaded a leather thong, or burden-strap, which Tecumapease passed about her forehead when carrying the papoose on her back, or which the mother fastened to the pommel of her saddle when making long journeys. It served also to hang the cradle to the branch of a tree, when the child swayed backwards and forwards with the motion of the bough while the wind crooned him to sleep. The cradle would sometimes be placed upright against a tree-trunk, so that Tecumseh's eyes might follow Tecumapease as she helped to grind the corn in a hollow stone or sift it through baskets; or, again, while she mixed the meal into cakes, and carefully covered them with leaves before baking them in the ashes.

Sometimes Tecumapease would carry Tecumseh on her back to where Methoataske worked in the field with the other women of her tribe. Like them, from bearing heavy burdens and doing the drudgery of the camp, Tecumapease was strong and sturdy rather than graceful. Her hair, black and glossy as a raven's wing, hung below her waist in a heavy braid. The short, loose sleeves of her fringed leather smock gave freedom to her strong brown arms. A belted skirt, leggings, and embroidered moccasins completed her costume. On special occasions, like other Indian women, she adorned herself with a belt and collar of coloured wampum, weaving strands of it into her hair; and sometimes a necklace of polished elk-teeth gleamed on her dusky throat. When Tecumseh had learned the use of his legs, he would romp about the camp with the other black-eyed children of his tribe. He watched his father, Puckeshinwau, make the flint arrow-head and split the wooden shaft to receive it, bind it firmly with a thong, and tip the other end of the shaft with a feather to wing it on its flight; and saw the men build the birch canoe, so light that one man could shoulder it, yet strong enough to carry a heavy load.

It was we who so kindly received Europeans on their first arrival into our own country. We took them by the hand and bade them welcome, to sit down by our side and live with us as brothers; but how did they requite our kindness? They at first asked only for a little land on which to raise bread for their families and pasture their cattle, which we freely gave them. They saw the game in the woods which the Great Spirit had given us for our subsistence, and they wanted it too. They penetrated into the woods in quest of game, they discovered spots of land which they also wanted, and because we were loath to part with it, as we saw they already had more than they had need of, they took it from us by force and drove us to a great distance from our homes.

At this time there was not community of interest or united action among the colonies. Pennsylvania and Virginia each claimed authority in the Indian country. The Pennsylvanians viewed the country from a trading point of view; the Virginians viewed it as a field for settlement. So bitter was the feud between the two colonies that for a time civil strife was imminent. And while this family quarrel was at its height, the Indian scalping raids grew in frequency and violence; and the memory of the Pontiac War was still fresh in the minds of the frontiersmen. Many Pennsylvanians in the west became alarmed, and soon the passes of the Alleghanies were filled with fugitive settlers returning to their former homes. The Virginians of Kentucky were made of sterner stuff. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, was ambitious for his colony, and determined to make good by the sword Virginia's claim to the region of which Fort Pitt was the centre; and, under leaders like the veteran borderers, Michael Cresap and Daniel Boone, and the youthful and audacious hunter and surveyor, George Rogers Clark, the Virginians strengthened their fortified villages and led successful raids against the tribes north of the Ohio.

For some time the Shawnees had been at peace, but in the latter part of April 1774, when two Indians suspected of horse-stealing were put to death near Wheeling, on the Ohio, they threatened war. A little later a party of Virginians fired upon a band of Indians, and killed several. Again, thirty-two white men, hitherto friends of the Indians, set out to attack a hunting-party of warriors camped on the Ohio. A friendly squaw warned them to return, as the Indians, who were carousing, had vowed vengeance for the death of their tribesmen. But the white men had determined to destroy the band; and by the promise of more rum they enticed a number of the Indians to cross the river to their camp, where they put all to death, with the exception of one child, not even sparing the kindly counsellor. Other Indians across the river, alarmed by the sound of shooting, sent two canoes to the rescue, but the whites drawn up on shore fired upon their occupants, killing twelve and wounding several more. The Indians were further incensed by the murder of Bald Eagle, a sachem of the Delawares, who was attacked and scalped while returning from a visit to a fort at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and whose body, placed in an upright position in his canoe, was found drifting down the Ohio by his enraged followers. Even Silver Heels, a favourite Shawnee chief, barely escaped death. While guiding some white settlers along unfamiliar trails on their way to safety, he was severely wounded by the bullets of other whites waiting for him in ambush.

Such deeds as these urged on the inevitable war, for which the Indians now openly prepared. Even the mighty Mingo chief, Logan, who had ever extended the hand of friendship to the white man, now appeared with uplifted tomahawk to avenge the unprovoked murder of his friends. Some eight hundred warriors were soon assembled, thirsting to avenge these recent murders, and eager to establish their right to the disputed territory. Logan, Elenipsico, Red Eagle, and Puckeshinwau were to lead the Indians, with Cornstalk, 'the mighty sachem of the Shawnee, and king of the northern confederacy,' in supreme command.

So it happened that in 1774, when the eastern colonies were on the verge of revolution, the west was in the throes of an Indian war. When Lord Dunmore learned that the Shawnees had declared war, he at once proceeded to raise in Virginia an army of fifteen hundred men; and he instructed General Andrew Lewis to go to Kentucky and recruit among the borderers there an army of the same numerical strength, and march to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, where the two armies would meet. Meanwhile Dunmore advanced to Fort Pitt; but here he changed his plan, marched to the Scioto, and entrenched his force not far from the Indian town of Old Chillicothe.

The 9th of October found Lewis with his troops encamped at Point Pleasant, where the Great Kanawha pours its waters into the Ohio, when a messenger arrived with new orders directing him to cross the Ohio and join Dunmore on the Scioto for an advance against the Indian towns to the north. Next morning the camp was astir at daybreak, and the soldiers were busily preparing for their intended march, when a scout returned with news that, about a mile away, a large body of Indians lay in ambush.

These were Cornstalk's warriors, who had arrived at the Great Kanawha the night before. Advised by active scouts of every movement of the enemy, Cornstalk's Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes, and Ioways had crossed the Ohio on the 9th and had lain all night ambushed in the wet woods, impatiently awaiting the dawn. Shortly after sunrise they perceived the Americans advancing to the attack in two detachments, one at some distance from the Ohio, the other along its bank. Presently Cornstalk gave the signal to attack both bodies simultaneously, and the piercing war-cry resounded through the forest as the Indians rushed upon the advancing foe. In the first furious onset the Americans were beaten back, several of them being killed and an officer fatally wounded. Cornstalk's commanding voice rose high above the clash of arms, cheering on his followers; but the Americans, reinforced from their camp, and fighting desperately, finally drove the Indians from the field. Tecumseh's father, Puckeshinwau, and others among the ablest warriors, had fallen in the early onrush.

Cornstalk led his defeated warriors to the valley of the Scioto. Here a council-fire was kindled and the chiefs gathered about it. Into the middle of the circle stepped Cornstalk with gloomy countenance but majestic bearing. Searching the faces of those he had led through the long day of battle, he gave voice to the question that was in the mind of all--'What is now our course?' The only response was the crackling of the fire as its fitful light played on the dusky warriors. 'The Long Knives are coming upon us by two routes,' he continued. 'Shall we fight them--Yes or No?' The only answer was the harsh, ominous cry of a night-bird. 'Shall we kill all our women and children and then fight until we ourselves are killed?' The chiefs still maintained a gloomy silence. Cornstalk wheeled suddenly about; his tomahawk gleamed in the firelight and then sank quivering into the war-post which stood in the midst. 'Since you are not inclined to fight, I will go and make peace!' he exclaimed.

Runners bearing belts of white wampum were at once dispatched by the Indians to inform Lord Dunmore, who was now encamped not far from the Shawnee settlement, of their desire for peace. A conference was arranged, only eighteen chiefs, with unarmed escorts, being permitted to attend. Logan, although not averse to peace, had refused to be present. But as the consent of such an influential chief was necessary to any Indian treaty, Dunmore sent a special messenger to him in the person of Colonel Gibson. Gibson met Logan in the forest, and there Logan gave vent to his pent-up feelings with passionate eloquence.

I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men. Colonel Cresap, the last spring and in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.

Gibson recorded the words of Logan, and they were duly presented to Dunmore. A treaty of peace was drawn up, by which the Indians agreed to give up all white prisoners and stolen horses and to surrender all claim to the land south of the Ohio.

The effect of Lord Dunmore's war was to make peace in the hinterland, a matter of vast importance to the Americans on the eve of the Revolution. Great Britain by the Quebec Act had placed the country north of the Ohio and extending to the Mississippi under the government of Canada. But Great Britain was soon too busy with the war in the east to pay any attention to the west, and the hinterland posts remained as they were, feebly guarded and, except for Detroit, administered by French creoles. The Indians, it is true, were friendly to the British, but the crushing defeat they had received at the hands of Lewis and the humiliating terms they were forced to make with Dunmore left them impotent. They once more began their raids, but they were incapable of concerted action; and when in 1778 George Rogers Clark, with a feeble force of less than two hundred men, advanced against the British posts at Kaskaskia and Cahokia on the Mississippi and Vincennes on the Wabash, they were unable to hinder his march. These posts fell into the hands of the Americans, and the Indians, as we shall see, were doomed.

After the battle of Point Pleasant, Cheeseekau, Tecumseh's eldest brother, led his father's warriors back to the village of Piqua, where the disasters of the fight were recounted. Still covered with the stains of battle, Cheeseekau related to his mother and his awestruck brothers and sisters the manner of his brave father's death. The dark shadow of mourning fell upon the survivors. Throughout the village rose the wail of the death-song, Methoataske's voice mingling in the dirge of the widows; and so a new and tragic scene was imprinted upon the young Tecumseh's plastic mind.

A father's task now fell upon Cheeseekau, who took much pride in instructing his younger brother in the art of war and in hunting, and how to endure fatigue and to perform feats of agility and daring. He gave him lessons in woodcraft and forest lore, showing him how to snare the fish, to stalk the wary deer, to guide the frail canoe through treacherous rapids, and, with tightly fastened snow-shoe, to traverse the wintry waste. Tecumseh, of course, had learned to swim almost as soon as he could walk; in running it is said that he could easily out-distance his companions; while his skill with the bow excited their admiration and envy. His greatest delight, however, was to muster his playmates into rival bands for mimic warfare.

THE BAPTISM OF FIRE

The populous Indian village of Piqua on the Mad River had prospered during six years of peace. The fertile plains about it had been cultivated in the rude fashion of the Indian, and the corn now stood ripening in the August sun with promise of an abundant harvest. Amid such a scene Tecumseh and his young companions, tired of their play, threw themselves down one evening to listen to the exciting tales of the warriors who lounged smoking in the cool shade. The women busied themselves about the camp-fires cooking the game just brought in by the men. The voices of the Indian girls rose and fell in monotonous song as with nimble fingers they deftly wove the rushes into mats, while keeping a watchful eye upon the little ones who played near by. The few years of peace had given the inhabitants of Piqua a feeling of security, and they did not know that the dark cloud of war even then overshadowed them.

The agents of the British commandant at Detroit had been busy among the Indians seeking to enlist their aid against the revolutionists. And in May of this year a party of six hundred warriors from the country north of the Ohio, accompanied by a few Canadians, had raided a number of villages in Kentucky, slain many settlers, and carried off horses and prisoners. George Rogers Clark, now holding the rank of colonel in the American army, was on a visit to Kentucky. The frontiersmen rallied about him; and with a body of 970 crack riflemen he crossed the Ohio and advanced on the town of Old Chillicothe. The Indians there had been warned and the town was deserted. The Americans burnt it to the ground and continued their march to Piqua.

At this time there were in Piqua about two hundred warriors and two British agents, Simon Girty and his brother, who had fought under Dunmore against the Shawnees in 1774, and who were now known to the Kentuckians as 'the white renegades.' The appearance of Clark and his raiders on the outskirts of the village took the inhabitants completely by surprise. At the first note of alarm, the women, wild with terror, snatched up their infants and fled shrieking to the woods. Tecumseh and the older children followed, hastily gathering a few treasured possessions. The warriors, awakening the forest echoes with their defiant war-cries, took up their position in an old fort which commanded the river. From the opposite side the Kentucky rifle-men assailed the fort, which, in its decayed and ruinous condition, offered but poor shelter. The Indians quickly evacuated it, but not before several had been killed. While the defenders were occupied by the attack from across the river, a detachment of the enemy crept round through the wood and suddenly emerged at the rear of the village. The red men rushed to the defence of their wigwams, and kept the enemy at bay for some time; but the whites being vastly superior in number, the Indians were defeated with great loss, and the whites applied the torch to the village.

At length, when the cry of battle and the sound of firing had ceased, the women and children ventured to creep forth from their forest shelter. The enemy had gone, but had left a scene of desolation behind. The village was a heap of smoking ruins, and the corn in the fields was laid waste. Bodies of dead warriors strewed the ground, many of them lying stretched before their own wigwams, which they had defended so bravely. A scene of smiling peace had indeed been turned into one of deepest mourning. Content and happiness had fled before the ruthless destroyer, and he had gone forward to the next Indian village on his mission of destruction.

The feud between the Indians and the whites continued with unabated fury. Cheeseekau was now as noted a warrior as his father had been, and became the leading spirit in many fierce frontier encounters. At the camp-fire Tecumseh listened eagerly as his brother told his thrilling tales. So persistent was Tecumseh's plea to be allowed to go on the war-path that Cheeseekau promised to let him taste real fighting in an attack on a party of whites encamped a few miles south of Piqua. The youth, impatient for the fray, set out bravely with Cheeseekau and his warriors, but when the actual horrors of war, with its blood and confusion, burst upon him, he fled from the field. It may be recalled that Frederick the Great, when first under fire, did the same.

The time soon came when, according to Indian custom, Tecumseh must undergo the solemn ordeal of initiation. He must establish his personal relationship with the unseen world before taking rank as a warrior in his tribe. For this purpose he must go into the solitary woods or ascend some lonely mountain, where, by virtue of fasting, he should receive supernatural help and a revelation of the unknown. He entered alone into the green gloom of the forest. Wild things at which he had been wont to draw his bow now peered at him from the bushes and crossed his path unharmed. For many days he saw the rising sun shine through the dewy woods and watched it sink in splendour below the tree-tops. He slept the tired sleep of youth, and woke refreshed to resume his sacred quest. One day, weary with continual wandering and exhausted from persistent fasting, he threw himself down where a little stream poured its waters into a rocky basin. Lulled by the music of the waterfall, he fell asleep. Then in a dream was revealed to him the unseen world. Suddenly, out of a cluster of stars shot one, brighter than the rest, with shining train. Its brilliance startled him from sleep. About him were the familiar trees, and placid moonlight silvered the waterfall. Across his passive mind flitted half-remembered tales of strange monsters of the sky. The flaming meteor now assumed the crouching shape of a panther about to spring on its prey; now that of a dragon taking its flight across some midnight sky to seek the dark waters of a lake, where it was condemned to dwell, lest it should set the world on fire. Wooed by the slumberous music of the fall, sleep once more closed the dreamer's heavy eyes. Scarcely had he crossed the threshold of this unknown world when the bright symbol again traced its path. So often did the strange messenger appear that he accepted it as the radiant guardian of his destiny. When he returned to his people they were filled with rejoicing that his dream had been of things above, for this augured well. Henceforth they called him 'the shooting star,' or, in their own soft tongue, 'Tecumtha.'

When the elaborate religious ceremonies customary to the initiation of a warrior had been performed, Tecumseh's power of physical endurance was put to a severe test. He presented himself for public torture before the chiefs and warriors of his tribe. Sharp skewers were thrust through the muscles of his back, and from these he was suspended by thongs to a pole. Had he flinched or evinced any sign of anguish during this painful ordeal, he would have been rejected as unworthy to take his place among his tribesmen. With stoic fortitude, however, he endured the torture, and when it was ended took a warrior's rank among his people.

While Tecumseh and his companions were making ready for war, Cheeseekau withdrew to fast and thus to prepare himself to consult worthily the sacred talisman of the tribe. The future was revealed to him in a trance. He saw the Cherokees and his own band, brightly painted for war, move forward to battle under the leadership of a ghostly semblance of himself. Suddenly a musket rang out and a bullet sped from the enemy's line. His wraith was struck full in the forehead and fell to earth in the agony of death. On rejoining his comrades he related his vision and foretold that in the battle about to take place he should meet death. He said also, however, that, if the Indians fought on, victory would crown their efforts.

Cheeseekau remained undaunted by his evil vision, and when the day of battle arrived led his warriors forth as usual. Incited by the Shawnees, the Cherokees fought stubbornly, and success seemed about to be achieved. But at the hour foretold, in the thickest of the fight, the fatal bullet found its mark, and Cheeseekau fell pierced through the forehead. The second part of the prophecy was unheeded. Deaf to Tecumseh's loud avenging cry, and heedless of his rallying shout, the superstitious Indians fled in a panic.

Tecumseh felt keenly the death of his noble brother, who had guided his youthful mind in all things, and deeply his followers mourned the loss of their dauntless leader, who had directed them safely through all their wanderings. Tecumseh was now chosen leader unanimously. For nearly two years he and his comrades remained in the south, taking an active part in many forays.

In the end the adventurers turned their faces homeward. They travelled through West Virginia, crossed the Ohio near the mouth of the Scioto, and visited the Indian villages scattered along that river. And as the verdure of summer was changing into the tints of autumn in the year 1790, they passed familiar scenes along the Great Miami. Tecumseh, who had gone out as a follower of his brother but was now leader, brought eight survivors back to Piqua, where he was received with clamorous rejoicing.

A LEADER AMONG HIS PEOPLE

After the feast of welcome at Piqua the villagers gathered round the camp-fire and plied the adventurers with many questions. The wanderers recounted the exciting exploits of their band and told of Cheeseekau's summons to the spirit-world and of his brave death on the distant battlefield. Then they in turn listened eagerly as an old chief rose and dramatically related the important events that had taken place in their absence. He told how General Harmar, with three hundred troops of the Thirteen Fires and eleven hundred Kentucky volunteers, had advanced into the Miami country and laid waste all their cornfields; how he and his followers had watched from a distant hill the soldiers at their work of destruction; and how Colonel Hardin, spying them in the distance, had suddenly turned and attacked them. With rapid gestures the chief described the pretended flight of the Indians. He told how, when out of sight of the enemy, they had divided their force and marched back some distance on either side of their trail. Assuming a crouching attitude and cunning mien, he pictured them as they crept back through the tall grass towards the place where they waited for the enemy. Then he recalled their loud, triumphant yells as they rushed upon the foe. He snatched his tomahawk from his belt to go through the movements of the Indians striking and cutting down the white men on all sides, and told how the white leader escaped with but a handful of his men. He depicted further victories of the Indians. Colonel Hardin had returned with five hundred militia and sixty regulars to take vengeance on his savage foes. The regulars remained at the village, while the militia, bent on revenge, routed the few Indians whom they found lurking about. But the Indians were not really beaten. Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Little Turtle of the Miamis concealed their assembled warriors in another ambush. At the critical moment the Indians rushed from their ambuscade, fell upon both regulars and militia, and pitilessly drove them ever farther back.

Tecumseh had not long to wait for the time when he should again embark on active service. In the autumn of 1791 news came that Generals St Clair and Butler were advancing from the south with an army of some fourteen hundred men. Tecumseh was placed in command of a party of scouts to watch the movements of the enemy. On November 3 he discovered the American army encamped at the upper waters of the Wabash about twenty miles north of Greenville. At once he dispatched runners to tell the war chiefs Blue Jacket and Little Turtle of the enemy's position. On the following morning the Americans awoke to find their camp surrounded by whooping savages. A frightful slaughter ensued. General Butler and many of the officers were slain, together with nearly half the troops. The remainder fled in disorder. General St Clair himself escaped on a pack-horse after having had three horses killed under him in the battle.

The next winter, when the snow lay deep in the forest, Tecumseh, while on a hunting expedition with ten warriors and a boy, made his camp near Big Rock, not far from Piqua. One morning after breakfast, as they sat about the fire smoking and discussing plans for the day, they were suddenly assailed by a storm of bullets. A party of whites, three times their number, under Robert McClelland, had attacked them. Instantly the Indian war-cry rang out on the clear, frosty air. Tecumseh called to the boy to run to shelter, and he and his companions returned the fire of their assailants. Black Turkey, one of the Indians, took to his heels and was running away at full speed, but in obedience to Tecumseh's angry command he halted and returned to join in the battle. On came the whites with challenging shout, answered by defiant war-whoops. The assaulting party was finally beaten back; and Tecumseh, with his men, pursued them through the woods, driving them from every sheltering tree and cover.

Shortly after this, Tecumseh, with a party of chiefs and warriors, established his headquarters on a southern tributary of the Little Miami. From this point they made frequent inroads upon the property of white settlers, plundering flat-boats on the Ohio, and capturing some of the finest horses belonging to Kentuckians. It was here that Tecumseh had more than one encounter with Simon Kenton, the well-known American pioneer. Hearing of the exploits of the marauders, Kenton quickly mustered thirty-six men and set out to punish them. He came upon the Indians at night, divided his force into three detachments, and surrounded the encampment. That night Tecumseh had flung himself down by the camp-fire. The flickering light threw into fitful relief the bark tents of his sleeping companions. It did not penetrate, however, the gloom where lurked the watchful Americans. One of the Indians rose to stir the smouldering embers. A rifle cracked sharply, and the warrior fell forward into the fire. At the same moment a body of the Americans made a rush for the camp. Tecumseh leaped up and called loudly to his companions. He felled his first assailant with his war-club and dealt savage blows to all within reach. A shower of bullets rained upon the tents, but the Indians were now aroused and ready to return the fire. Presently reinforcements came from the Indians of a nearby camp who had heard the yelling and shooting; and the whites were dispersed.

Tecumseh's next skirmish with Kenton was in 1793. He was hunting in the Scioto valley with a few followers and their families. Shortly before dawn, when it was supposed that the Indians would not be on their guard, Kenton's men surrounded the camp and cautiously closed in upon it. The loud barking of a dog gave the alarm to the Indians. When the whites charged, the Indians sought shelter behind trees. Though Tecumseh was surrounded by a superior force, he maintained his presence of mind. He ordered some of his men to bring up the horses while he and others defended the camp. In the end the Indians adroitly managed to escape with their women and children. In the engagement they had sustained a loss of but one warrior.

In July the American army was reinforced by two thousand Kentucky volunteers under Major-General Scott, and Wayne was now ready to strike. He manoeuvred as though he intended to attack the Miami villages to the south, but, suddenly changing his course, he marched his troops northward, straight into the Indian settlements on the Au Glaize. At the mouth of this river, where it enters the Maumee, he built Fort Defiance.

The Indians had followed Wayne's march down the Au Glaize, hovering on the flanks of his army, and they were now mustered some two thousand strong on the Maumee river. From Fort Defiance Wayne sent them a final offer of peace; but, without waiting for an answer, he marched his forces down the Maumee and encamped at the foot of the rapids, about fifteen miles from the site of the present city of Toledo.

The war chiefs of the Miami, Potawatomi, Delaware, Shawnee, Chippewa, Ottawa, and Seneca tribes held a great council to consider the proposal of peace sent them by the general of the Long Knives. Little Turtle of the Miamis advised peace. 'We have beaten the enemy twice,' said he. 'We cannot expect the same good fortune always to attend us. The Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps. The day and night are alike to him, and he has been ever marching upon our villages, notwithstanding the watchfulness of our young men. We have never been able to surprise him. Think well of it,' he cautioned; 'there is something that whispers to me it were well to listen to his offers of peace.'

Profound silence followed this speech. Then rose Blue Jacket, the Shawnee, who commanded the entire Indian forces. Blue Jacket strongly favoured battle; and his counsel prevailed. The chiefs decided on war. A plan of action was quickly formed. The Indian forces were to be drawn up in three detachments within supporting distance of each other behind the Fallen Timbers. This was a place some distance up the river from Wayne's encampment, where the forest had been levelled by a hurricane, the fallen trees forming a natural barricade.

On August 20, 1794, shortly after daybreak, Wayne ordered his troops to advance. He was still uncertain whether the Indians were hostile or friendly. But before he had proceeded far his soldiers were fired upon by a body of red men secreted in the tall grass. In the battle which followed Tecumseh led the Shawnees, and, with two of his brothers, was in the advance-guard when the fighting began. The Indians fought stubbornly, but to no purpose. The American force of mounted volunteers advanced, while the infantry with fixed bayonets drove the red men from cover and compelled them to retreat. In the latter part of the action Tecumseh lost the use of his gun by having, in his excitement, rammed a bullet into it before putting in powder. Falling back until he met another body of Shawnees, he secured a fowling-piece, and then fought on bravely until again forced to give ground. In spite of his desperate efforts to rally his followers, the Indians were beaten and were fleeing in disorder through the woods. When night fell and the Indians stole back to bury or hide their dead, Tecumseh gazed on the familiar features, now fixed in death, of Sauwaseekau, his second brother to fall in battle; and another battlefield, in which Cheeseekau had in like manner beheld the silent face of his father, arose before his mind. He remembered his eldest brother's return from the battle, with tidings that had burned into his very soul, while he was yet too young to take up arms in defence of his race.

The Indian warriors were defeated and scattered, and the Americans proceeded to lay waste their villages and cornfields in the valley of the Au Glaize. The blow to Indian power was irrevocable. On August 3 of the following year, 1795, was concluded the Treaty of Greenville, by which large tracts of Indian territory in what are now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan were surrendered to the Americans. The treaty was signed by Blue Jacket for the Shawnees, by Little Turtle for the Miamis, and by chiefs representing the Wyandots, the Delawares, the Ottawas, the Potawatomis, and other tribes. Tecumseh, however, had refused to attend Wayne's council, and when he heard from Blue Jacket of the terms of the treaty, he disputed its validity. Indian land, he said, was common property; all the chiefs had not been consulted, and many of them would refuse to accept the loss of their lands.

THE PROPHET

Tecumseh was now pondering a great plan. Year after year he had seen his people pushed farther and farther back from their streams and hunting-grounds. When he looked into the future, he saw that the red race was doomed unless a strong and united effort was made to check this aggression. He did not at once take his followers into his confidence, but meditated long on a plan to gather the tribes into one great confederacy to oppose the encroachments of the whites and to prevent the extermination of the Indian race. Pontiac, that towering figure in Indian speech and legend, was ever in his mind. Before Tecumseh's birth Pontiac had formed an Indian confederation against the English in America. But his was only a temporary union of the Indians, while Tecumseh planned to unite the tribes in a great and permanent empire.

To further his great plan of bringing about a confederation of the tribes, Tecumseh resolved to take advantage of the superstitions of the people. An Indian familiar with the lore of his tribe believes himself to be continually surrounded by spirits, of whose power he is in constant dread. He sees them dimly in visions and recognizes them in many signs and omens--in gliding snake, flying bird, the lightning, the wind, the rustling of leaves, the noise of the tempest, the roaring cataract, the sound of thunder. To the hunter roaming through the forest the trees take on weird shapes, and ghostly shadows lurk in dark defiles. At twilight he sees gnomelike figures dancing before him and anon swallowed up in the darkness; again he sees them, holding their elfin revels on some moonlit cliff. Thus it is that the Indian imagination peoples the gloom of the ancient forests.

It has been mentioned that Tecumseh had a younger brother named Laulewasikaw, who had been born a twin, and, in consequence, would be supposed by the Indians to possess supernatural power. One day, while Laulewasikaw was smoking in his wigwam, his pipe dropped from his hand, and he fell prone upon the ground. His body remained so long without sign of life that his friends assembled to administer the last rites for the dead. Suddenly, however, he awoke from his deathlike trance, and announced to the startled mourners that he had been transported to the spirit-world, where marvellous things had been revealed to him. After this he frequently retired to secret places to hold converse with the Great Spirit, and from his knowledge of the spirit-world he became an object of reverence and awe to his fellow-tribesmen.

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