The Prophet's band at Greenville increased to four hundred—Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Chippewas, and others; a regular hodge-podge.
Captain William Wells, who was the Indian agent at Fort Wayne, asked them to have four chiefs come in, to listen to a message from their Great Father, the President.
On a sudden Tecumseh took the lead, as head chief.
"Go back to Fort Wayne," he ordered of the runner, a half-breed Shawnee, "and tell Captain Wells that my fire is kindled on the spot appointed by the Great Spirit above; and if he has anything to say to me, he must come here. I shall expect him in six days from this time."
Captain Wells then sent the message. The President asked the Indians to move off from this ground which was not theirs. He would help them to select other ground.
Tecumseh replied hotly, in a speech of defiance.
"These lands are ours; no one has a right to remove us, because we were the first owners. The Great Spirit above knows no boundaries, nor will his red people know any. If my father, the President of the Seventeen Fires, has anything more to say to me, he must send a big man as messenger. I will not talk with Captain Wells."
"Why does not the President of the Seventeen Fires send us the greatest man in his nation?" demanded the Prophet. "I can talk to him; I can bring darkness between him and me; I can put the sun under my feet; and what white man can do this?"
This month of May, 1807, fifteen hundred Indians had visited the Prophet. They came even from the Missouri River, and from the rivers of Florida. A general up-rising of the tribes was feared.
Governor Harrison worked, sending many addresses. He could not stem the tide set in motion by the Prophet and kept in motion by Tecumseh.