no fox-hunter could leap more wildly, no swordsman more surely swing the sharp steel home. At the sight young Tennesseeans and Kentuckians, Virginians of the border and Pennsylvanians of lifetime battle, were eager for the fray.
About midsummer, 1794, Wayne moved out with his Legion, twenty-six hundred strong, and halted at Fort Greenville for sixteen hundred Kentucky cavalry. Brigades of choppers were opening roads here and there to deceive.
"This General that never sleeps is cutting in every direction," whispered the watchful Shawnees. "He is the Black Snake."
For a last time Wayne offered peace. His messengers were wantonly murdered.
The issue at Fallen Timbers lasted forty minutes,—the greatest Indian battle in forty years of battle. Two thousand Indians crouching in the brush looked to see the Americans dismount and tie their horses as they did in St. Clair's battle,—but no, bending low on their horses with gleaming sabres and fixed bayonets, on like a whirlwind came thundering the American cavalry.
"What was it that defeated us? It was the Big Wind, the Tornado," said the Indians.
Matchekewis was there from Sheboygan with his warriors, the Black Partridge from Illinois, and Buckongahelas. The Shawnees had their fill of fighting that day; Tecumseh fell back at the wild onset, retreating inch by inch.
William Clark led to the charge a column of Kentuckians and drove the enemy two miles. But why enumerate in this irresistible legion, where all were heroes on that 20th of August, 1794.
Wayne's victory ended the Revolution. Ninety days after, Lord St. Helens gave up Ohio in his treaty with Jay, and England bound herself to deliver the northwestern posts that her fur traders had hung on to so vainly.
Niagara, Michilimackinac, Detroit, keys to the Lakes, entrepôts to all the fur trade of the Northwest, w
