peech, enlarging his English vocabulary, and reading to him from the Bible.
"Promise me, Tecumseh, never, never will you permit the massacre of helpless women and children after capture." Tecumseh promised.
"And be kind to the poor surrendered prisoner."
"I will be kind," said Tecumseh.
But time was fleeting,—game was disappearing,—Tecumseh was an Indian. His lands were slipping from under his feet.
It was useless to speak to the fair Rebecca. Terrified at the fire she had kindled, she saw him no more. Enraged, wrathful, he returned to his band. Tecumseh never loved any Indian woman. A wife or two he tried, then bade them "Begone!"
When Lewis and Clark returned from the West, Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, were already planning a vast confederation to wipe out the whites.
Jefferson heard of these things.
"He is visionary," said the President, and let him go on unmolested.
"The Seventeen Fires are cheating us!" exclaimed Tecumseh. "The Delawares, Miamis, and Pottawattamies have sold their lands! The Great Spirit gave the land to all the Indians. No tribe can sell without the consent of all. The whites have driven us from the sea-coast,—they will shortly push us into the Lakes."
The Governor-General of Canada encouraged him. Then came rumours of Indian activity. Like the Hermit of old, Tecumseh went out to rouse the redmen in a crusade against the whites. Still Jefferson paid no heed.
About the time that Clark and his bride came down the Ohio, the distracted Indians were swarming on Tippecanoe Creek, a hundred miles from Fort Dearborn, the future Chicago. All Summer, whisperings came into St. Louis, "Tecumseh is persuading the Sacs, Foxes, and Osages to war."
"I will meet the Sacs and Foxes," said Lewis.
Clark went out and quieted the Osages. Boone's son and Auguste Chouteau went with him.
