“Fight,” cried another, “and the whites shall be scattered like leaves by the wind.”
“Know you the number of the pale faces?” inquired the first warrior who had spoken—“they are like grains of sand on the shore of the big Lake:—they are like leaves on the trees.”
“Yes,” said his companion, “but the leaves on the trees sometimes fall.”
“They do”—chimed in Tecumseh. “But when the old leaves fall, new ones come; so is it with the pale faces. This country cannot hold us both, and when we battle again, it must be until they, or we, no longer struggle for dominion.”
“Before the treaty,” said the warrior who last spoke, “the red men went to battle, and the ground was covered with the whites;—will it not be so again?”
“It shall be so:”—said Tecumseh, “but the time has not yet come. When we again gather our warriors, the pale faces shall fly—we shall trample them down—and the wild beasts shall feed upon them. Did not the Great Spirit give these hunting grounds to his red children?”
While thus conversing, they were interrupted by a messenger from Netnokwa, who bore a bundle of presents, and said to Tecumseh, “the Red Sky of the morning wishes to make her appearance.”
“Let the messenger retire, while I hold converse with my warriors,” said Tecumseh; then calling them more closely around him, “Tecumseh would hold a talk with his brothers,” said he. “The pale faces are cleaning their guns and sharpening their knives. They wish to drive us from the hunting grounds of our fathers. Tecumseh never will go;—his thoughts are for his country; he has no time for a wife, and would have his brothers tell him the best way to refuse Netnokwa's daughter.”
“Netnokwa,” said a warrior, “is chief of the Ottawas; you had better tear a cub from a bear in its den, than refuse the offered hand of her daughter.”
“Netnokwa is great;” said Tecumseh. “She is a woman, and I fear her. Her tongue is like a knife. But before another moon we may go to battle. What would Tecumseh do with a wife?”