as a moment of great peril to
the white people. A military guard of twelve men, under some trees a
short distance off, was ordered up. A friendly Indian, who had secretly
loaded his pistol while Tecumseh was speaking, now cocked it to shoot
the chief. The guards were also about to fire when Harrison restrained
them and prevented a bloody encounter. The interpreter, whom all the
Indians respected, told Tecumseh that he was a bad man. The council was
broken up. Tecumseh expressed regret that his violent temper had gotten
the better of him; but prudent men knew from his conduct that war was
inevitable.

In the spring of 1811, the hostile savages began to roam over the Wabash
region, in small parties, plundering the white settlers and
friendly Indians.

Soon after the council at Vincennes, Tecumseh went South among the
Creeks to extend the confederacy of the people of Indiana among them.
There is a tradition among the Tuckabachees that Tecumseh, failing to
enlist them in his enterprise, in his wrath said:

"When I return to the North, I will stamp on the earth and make it
tremble." When the effects of the earthquake of New Madrid were felt,
the Tuckabachees said:

"Tecumseh has reached the North."

The hostile demonstrations on the part of the Indians in Indiana alarmed
the people of that territory, and General Harrison therefore took
measures to increase his regular force. He warned the Indians to obey
the treaty at Greeneville; but at the same time he prepared to break up
the prophet's establishment if necessary. In September, the prophet sent
assurances to the governor that his intentions were pacific. About the
same time, he dispatched a message to the Delawares, who were friendly,
asking them to join him in a war against the United States, stating that
he had taken up the tomahawk and would not lay it down but with his
life, unless their wrongs were redressed. The Delaware chiefs
immediately visited the prophet to dissuade him from commencing
hostilities and were grossly insulted. On the 6th of November, 1811,
Governor Harrison, with about nine hundred and fifty effective troops,
composed of two hundred and fifty of the 4th Regiment U. S. Infantry,
one hundred and thirty volunteers and a body of militia, being within a
mile and a half of the prophet's town, was urged to make an immediate
assault upon the village; but this he declined, as his instructions from
the president were positive not to attack the Indians