THE COMING OF TECUMSEH
The three youths stood there, at their lonely camp-fire, in the heart
of the Muscogee wilderness, with darkness all about them, listening to
the steady, monotonous beat of the drum.
“That’s kind of a new thing to me,” said Jack Davis. “Sounding a war
drum must be a new fashion, eh, Running Elk?”
“Heap big medicine!” replied the young Cherokee. “Big war! Much
pow-wow!”
Jack kicked apart the embers which made their small fire; then he trod
them out after the manner of an experienced woodsman.
Frank Lawrence, after a space of listening, said:
“There is something unusual in that sound, then, is there, Jack? Out
of the ordinary?”
“Never heard it before except in an Indian village when some kind of a
ceremony was going on.”
“Before I left Richmond,” said Frank, and there was some concern in his
voice, “the newspapers were full of Indian news; reports of all sorts
were going about; it seems that the savages had finally put their heads
together, and were planning a league of tribes to resist the advance of
the white man.”
“Yes; we’ve had the leaders of that thing down here,” said Jack. “But
the movement was not among the tribes here on the southwestern border.”
“Ugh!” said Running Elk; and there was that about his exclamation which
said he was not quite sure upon the point in question.
“Suppose,” said Frank, “we leave our horses tied here, and move a
little nearer to the Indian camp. There may be something going on that
will be worth knowing.”
“All right,” agreed Jack, willingly enough. “I’m always curious to
learn what the reds are up to myself.”
So the boys saw to their mounts, and the pack animal; then with their
long rifles in the hollows of their arms, and Running Elk with his bow
ready strung and his quiver of arrows handy for use, they moved quietly
forward in the direction of the now intermittent sound.
There was no moon that night; the sky was without stars; nevertheless
there came a soft coppery glow through the low hanging clouds which
enabled them to make their way along without any great difficulty. But
finally the beat of the drum ceased.
“We’ll locate them by the camp-fire,” whispered Jack Davis to Frank.
“See, there it is, ahead among the trees.”
Softly their moccasined feet padded the earth; carefully, noiselessly
they advanced, flitting from tree to tree, from bush to bush. Because
they were in the heart of their own country, the Creeks evidently had
no fear of attack; therefore they had placed no sentinels about the
camp. And because of this the boys found it possible to approach near
enough to get a good view of the encampment through the open places in
the tangle of brush.
In a circle sat a score of savages, each wearing a highly ornamental
head-dress of colored feathers; their faces were streaked with paints
of various colors and they passed a long stemmed, ornamented pipe from
one to the other.
“Hello,” breathed Jack, his accustomed eye taking in the unusual
features of the scene at a glance. “What does this mean?”
One splendid looking savage, by features evidently a half-breed,
attracted the attention of Frank Lawrence.
“That looks like a chief,” said he, in the same low tone as his comrade.
“Heap much chief,” spoke Running Elk. “Him Weatherford.”
This name, dreaded along the entire border, caused a thrill to run
through Jack Davis.
“The Red Warrior!” He stared at the famous leader of the Creeks, who
sat like a grimly carven statue within the fire-lit circle. “What in
the world can he be doing here?”
Frank’s eyes left Weatherford and curiously roved over the remainder of
the band; two who sat side by side, and whose commanding personality
and different head-dress made them stand out from the others, now
claimed his notice.
“They must be out of the ordinary, too,” said he. “They look different,
somehow.”
Jack’s eyes went to the two.
“They are not Creeks,” said he, for he was well acquainted with the
head-dress of that tribe. “They are strangers.”
“Shawnee,” spoke Running Elk. “One great chief. Other much medicine.”
Frank Lawrence, who stood beside Jack, felt him start suddenly, and
heard him draw in a long breath.
“Shawnees!” said Jack in a whisper. “One a great chief, the other
a medicine man!” His hand went out and closed upon the arm of the
friendly Cherokee. “What more do you know of them, Running Elk?”
“They come to the villages of the Cherokee before last harvest moon.
They are from the north. The chief is Tecumseh and the medicine man is
Elskwatawa.”
“By Jingo!” Jack’s voice was lifted to such a pitch that Frank quickly
grasped him by the shoulder to recall him to a sense of their position.
Then in a lower tone, the frontier youth continued: “Then the thing
_is_ spreading! These two are down here again trying to get the Creeks
and other tribes into the league against the whites!”
Tecumseh, which, translated, means “Wild-Cat-Springing-on-its-Prey,”
was a Shawnee, and perhaps one of the most famous and sagacious of
all the savage chieftains who figure in the stirring history of the
border. At the time in which the boys saw him beside the camp-fire in
the Alabama wilderness he was about forty-five years of age. He was the
son of a Shawnee chief, but his mother had been a Creek; his birthplace
was Old Piqua, near where the town of Springfield, Ohio, now stands.
Elskwatawa, which means “the Loud Voice,” was his brother, a Shawnee
sorcerer of great fame and known throughout the frontier of that day
as the “Prophet.” These two, shrewd and able far above their race, saw
that if the advance of the white men were not stopped the power of the
Indian would be stripped from him forever.
So they set about forming a confederation of all the tribes, and in
a solid body striking a desperate blow to regain the hunting grounds
wrested from them by the paleface.
The fame of the Prophet, as has been stated, was very great; the
credulous red man looked upon him with awe, and never for a moment
thought of doubting any utterances he saw fit to make. Tecumseh
shrewdly saw the value of this; with mystic jargon, with religious
mummery, the superstitions of the tribes were played upon until the
confederation became a thing of fear to the scattered whites in the
border settlements. From near and far the savages vowed to follow
the commands of the “Great Spirit” as voiced by the Prophet; the
Delawares, the Wyandottes, the Ottawas, the Kickapoos, the Winnebagoes
and Chippewas had been dancing and preparing for the great blow at the
white interloper for many months; and evidently not satisfied with
this, the two leaders had secretly made their way south a second time,
and were now, most likely, engaged in trying to arouse the Creeks and
other nations against the settlers.
All this passed through the minds of Frank and Jack; for they were well
acquainted with the force behind the movement; indeed, it had been the
one topic talked of in the lonely cabins or the little hamlets at which
they halted during the journey through the forest.
“Well, if Tecumseh’s got down here again, and the Prophet with him,
there’s likely to be an outbreak,” spoke Jack, with assurance. “For the
Creeks have been acting ugly for some time, and it’ll not take much to
set them on the war-path.”
Frank turned to Running Elk.
“How did they do with your people?” he asked.
The young savage lifted his taut strung bow.
“Cherokee is friend to paleface,” said he. “Tecumseh he go away much
mad.”
“Good!” said Frank. “I hope it happens the same way with the Creeks.”
“Tecumseh is Creek on his mother’s side,” said Jack. “That’ll weigh
heavily in his favor--if anything is needed to turn the scale.”
All this talk had been carried on in the most hushed of whispers; and
not for a moment had the three taken their eyes from the painted and
warlike circle in the glare of the camp-fire. That the Indians were
also talking was evident; but the boys were too far away to hear what
was being said. After a little while Jack’s curiosity mastered him.
“I wonder if we couldn’t get a little closer without much danger,”
whispered he. “Seems to me there must be lots of things in that talk
that we ought to know.”
Apparently the other two were of the same mind, for they at once
agreed. So softly, and with slow, pantherish steps they parted the
brush and moved nearer the savage camp-fire. Not a branch was permitted
to rustle, not a twig nor dead leaf to crackle under foot. Jack went
first, and the young Cherokee was second; Frank Lawrence stepped as
nearly in their tracks as he was able and imitated their movements as
nearly as he could make them out in the partial darkness.
By great good fortune, a large green tree had fallen quite close to the
spot where the Creek camp was pitched; the three boys, snugly ensconced
behind this, had now a vastly improved view of the scene, and, what was
of equal interest, could hear almost all that was said. Weatherford was
speaking, and Jack, who had a practical acquaintanceship with a number
of Indian dialects, had no trouble in understanding the deep-voiced,
solemn utterance.
“Word has reached the Muscogee villages of the doings of their
brothers, many suns to the north. And the news made us glad.” A murmur
went up from the other savages of the Creek nation; it was one of
approval of the words of the Red Warrior; and Weatherford proceeded:
“Swift runners reached us from the far country of the Shawnees.
The Muscogee was glad to hear that the great chief Tecumseh, and
Elskwatawa, who speaks the words of wisdom, were once more journeying
through the forests to visit their brothers. We have journeyed to
meet them; we have smoked the pipe of friendship. Let Tecumseh and
Elskwatawa speak.”
For a space after the sonorous voice of Weatherford had died away there
was a silence. The circle of fantastically painted and befeathered
Indians remained as still as graven images; then the Shawnee chieftain
spoke:
“We are glad that the great chief Weatherford speaks with the voice of
welcome. We are glad that the chiefs and the old men of the Muscogee
greet us with kindness. It is well; for the blood of the Muscogee runs
warm in my veins. Many suns have passed since we left the hunting
grounds of our tribe to seek council with our brothers; the trails
have been long, the rivers swift, the mountain passes hard; but we are
here, and we are heavy with the message of the red man’s wrongs.”
Again there was a silence, and then Tecumseh went on:
“It is well that my voice is only for the ears of the old men. For
they are wise, and will judge well of what I have to say. Young men
are quick, but they have no wisdom; they are strong when the war-whoop
sounds, for their knives and tomahawks are keen, and their arrows
straight. But in the council they are like young bears. My words are
the wisdom of the Muscogee; let the old men give ear.”
Elskwatawa sat silently while his brother spoke. As became a
wonder-worker, he was decked with the teeth and claws of bears and
hill-cats; a string made up of skulls of squirrels hung from his neck.
Totems and charms were plentifully distributed about his person; a
broad band, made of the skin of a rattlesnake, was bound about his
brow. The lank hair of this sinister looking savage hung down over his
shoulders; his eyes were keen and restless. While those of all the
others who made up the savage circle were fixed upon Tecumseh, his were
darting here and there, restlessly. More than once they shifted in the
direction of the fallen gum tree; and each time Running Elk warningly
nudged the white boys crouched at his side.
But Jack Davis feared no danger; he noted from time to time the
wandering glance of the Prophet; but he felt sure that the savage,
no matter how keen his vision, could not penetrate the thick shadows
thrown by the branches and stem of the fallen tree.
Tecumseh began to speak in a sing-song voice; item by item he took
the aggressions of the paleface; wrong by wrong he took the deeds
against his people. On the bravery of the red man he dwelt fervently;
of the treachery and evil-doing of the whites he spoke with a tongue
of scorn. Bit by bit the tide of his anger grew; key by key his voice
lifted until it was shrill with fury. His savage audience was stirred
profoundly by his recital; their customary stoicism was gradually
shaken off; his rage infected them; they swayed their bodies to and
fro, their plumes nodding in the fire-glow.
The interest and attention of Jack Davis was almost equal to that
of the Creeks; he leaned forward, drinking in the utterances of the
Shawnee eagerly.
“And now,” spoke Tecumseh, “at last the end has come. Suns have risen
and gone down upon the white man’s advance, and the red man’s retreat
before him. Moons have begun and moons have ended, and more and more
the forest rings with the stroke of the axe which means death to the
hunting grounds of our fathers. The march of the white man is the march
of an evil spirit; the red man must stop this march or his day is
done; he must stop it or he will find his grave on the great plains, in
the shadow of those mountains beyond which lies another sea.”
The sound of the last word still lingered in the air when the Prophet
suddenly leaped erect; his tomahawk was snatched from his belt, his
right arm went back like lightning. There was a whistling hum of the
weapon as it flew through the air; then the sharp blade bit deep into a
branch of the gum tree close to Jack Davis’ head.