exact no terms of a conquered and
helpless people but those to which they should accede. Whatever they may
be it would now be folly and madness to oppose them. If they are
opposed, you shall find me among the sternest enforcers of obedience.
Those who would still hold out can only be influenced by a mean spirit
of revenge. To this they must not and shall not sacrifice the last
remnant of their country. You have told us what we may do and be safe.
Yours is a good talk, and my nation ought to listen to it. They _shall_
listen to it."[1]

[Footnote 1: For these speeches of Weatherford's and for other
historical details I am indebted to a valuable and interesting book,
"Romantic Passages in South Western History," by A. B. Mull, Mobile, S.
H. Goetzsl & Co. publishers, which is now, unfortunately out of print.
The speeches are well authenticated I believe.]

Jackson was too generous and too brave a man to remain unmoved under
such a speech from a man who thus placed his own life in jeopardy for
the sake of his people. He bade the chieftain return home, and promised
peace to his people, a promise faithfully kept to this day. All this
however occurred nearly two months after the time of which I write, and
it is introduced here merely by way of explaining the things which
happened to Sam on the morning of the rash resumption of his journey.

This man Weatherford, the fiercest enemy the whites had, with a party
of about twenty-five Indians, bivouacked, the night before, in the edge
of the woods, and when Sam mounted his horse that morning the Indians
were lying asleep immediately in his path as he rode blindly out of the
thicket. The first intimation he had of their presence was a grunt from
a big savage who lay almost under his horse's feet. Coming to himself in
an instant, Sam took in the whole situation at a glance, and with the
rapidity and precision which people who are accustomed to the dangers
and difficulties of frontier life always acquire, he mentally weighed
all the facts bearing upon the question of what to do, and decided. He
saw before him the savages, rising from the ground at sight of him. He
saw their horses browsing at some little distance from them. He saw a
rifle, on which hung a powder-horn and a bullet-pouch, standing against
a bush. He saw that he had already aroused the foe, and that he must
stand a chase. His first impulse was to turn around and ride back, in
the direction whence he had come; but in t