The hunting-shirt men, not at all sentimental, lift up their voices in favor of slaying the chief. At that the General steps in between.
“The man who would kill a prisoner,” he cries, “is a dog and the son of a dog. To him who touches Weathersford I promise a noose and the nearest tree.”
The General leads his hunting-shirt men by easy marches back to that impatient plenty which awaits their coming on the Cumberland. The public welcomes him with shout and toss of hat, while the blooming Rachel gives her hero measureless love and tenderness. The General's one hundred and fifty slaves, agog with joy and fire water, make merry for two round days. They would have enlarged that festival to three days, but the stern overseer intervenes to recall them to the laborious realities of life.
As the General begins to have the better of his fatigue and sickness—albeit that Benton-wounded left arm is still in a sling—a note is put in his hands. The note is from the War Department in Washington, and reads: “Andrew Jackson of Tennessee is appointed Major General in the Army of the United States, vice William Henry Harrison, resigned.”
CHAPTER X—FLORIDA DELENDA EST
THE General, at the behest of the blooming Rachel, rests for three round weeks, which seem to his fight-loving soul like three round years. Then the Government sends him to Fort Jackson to dictate terms of peace to the broken Creeks.
The latter assemble, war paints washed off, in a deeply thoughtful, if not a peaceful, mood.