days and have many days of travel still before them.

Here and there a strapping brave bestrode a horse, while his squaw
trudged beside him, sharing with a black slave the burden of household
goods. But for the most part ceremony had given way to necessity and the
warriors went afoot, leaving the horses and mules to carry the old men,
aged squaws, and young children, who were too feeble to walk.

This was a band of Red Stick Indians who had left forever the camping
grounds of their fathers on the Chattahoochee River, to escape the
oppression of their powerful kinsmen, the Creek Indians. They had
rebelled against the rule of the Creeks, because the Creeks refused them
their share of plunder in battle, and laid claim to their lands and
their slaves. The Red Sticks hated the Creeks so bitterly that they
could no longer live near them. They were resolved to leave altogether
the territory that the United States government recognized as belonging
to the Creeks, and seek homes with the Seminoles or runaways in Florida.

[Illustration: CREEK INDIANS]

The Red Sticks had left the Creek country far behind them, and had
arrived, as we have seen, in northern Florida. The land into which they
had come was uncultivated, wild, and sweet. The lakes and rivers were
full of fish; the forests were full of game; fruits and berries grew in
abundance. Everything seemed to invite the wanderers to tarry there and
build themselves homes. Still they marched on over rich brown fields,
past dancing lakes and streams, over fertile hillsides shaded with live
oak and magnolia. No spot, however beautiful, could induce them to pause
for more than a few days' rest. Their object was not to find a pleasant
camping ground but to escape the hated Creeks. They were bound for a
distant swamp. On the borders of the Okefinokee marsh they planned to
make their homes. There they would be reasonably safe from the enemy,
and even if the Creeks should follow them there, the swamp would afford
them a secure retreat.

But this goal was still many miles away, and the fugitives were now
pressing toward a little hill, where they expected to make a short halt.

The young men were silent but alert. Now and again one raised his bow
and brought down a goose or a wild turkey, and some youngster plunged
into the thicket to find it and fetch it to his mother. Here and there
were groups of women burdened with kettles and pans and bundles of old
clothes, or carrying small