“War drum!” said the Cherokee; and the hands of all three reached for their weapons.
CHAPTER II
THE COMING OF TECUMSEH
The three youths stood there, at their lonely camp-fire, in the heart of the Muscogee wilderness, with darkness all about them, listening to the steady, monotonous beat of the drum.
“That’s kind of a new thing to me,” said Jack Davis. “Sounding a war drum must be a new fashion, eh, Running Elk?”
“Heap big medicine!” replied the young Cherokee. “Big war! Much pow-wow!”
Jack kicked apart the embers which made their small fire; then he trod them out after the manner of an experienced woodsman.
Frank Lawrence, after a space of listening, said:
“There is something unusual in that sound, then, is there, Jack? Out of the ordinary?”
“Never heard it before except in an Indian village when some kind of a ceremony was going on.”
“Before I left Richmond,” said Frank, and there was some concern in his voice, “the newspapers were full of Indian news; reports of all sorts were going about; it seems that the savages had finally put their heads together, and were planning a league of tribes to resist the advance of the white man.”