The Shawnees were a Southern people, once.
The mother's name was Me-tho-a-tas-ke.

Tecumseh had five brothers and one sister. Two of his brothers were
twins, and at least two, besides his father, fell in battle while he
was still young.

He had not been old enough to go upon the war trail with his father and
Head Chief Cornstalk; but his elder brother Chee-see-kau went, and
fought the Long Knives at Point Pleasant. When he came back he took
little Tecumseh in charge, to train him as a warrior.

When Tecumseh was nineteen, he and Chee-see-kau, with a party of other
braves, went upon a long journey of adventure south to the Cherokee
country of Tennessee. It is said that the mother, Me-tho-tas-ke,
already had left, to return to the Cherokees. Likely enough the two
brothers planned to visit her.

They swung far into the west, to the Mississippi, and circled to the
Cherokees. Here Ohee-see-kau was killed, while helping the Cherokees
fight the whites.

He was glad to die in battle--"I prefer to have the birds pick my
bones, rather than to be buried at home like an old squaw."

Tecumseh stayed in the South three years, fighting to avenge his
brother, who had been a father to him, and whose spirit still urged him
to be brave. He got home to Ohio just in time. In league with the
Little Turtle Miamis, War Chief Blue-jacket's Shawnees had defeated the
American general Harmar, and every warrior was needed.

Tecumseh had left as a young brave; he returned as a young chief. He
was sent out with a party to spy upon the march of the gray-haired
general, Saint Clair. He did good work, but he missed the big battle.
But he was at the Fallen Timbers.

Here, in the excitement when the American infantry came scrambling and
cheering and stabbing, through the down trees, he rammed a bullet into
his rifle ahead of the powder, and had to retreat.

"Give me a gun and I will show you how to stand fast," he appealed, to
the other Indians. He was given a shot-gun. The white soldiers were
too strong, his younger brother Sau-wa-see-kau was killed at his side,
and he must fall back again.

This hurt his heart. When the treaty with General Wayne was signed,
the next year, he did not attend. Blue-jacket, his chief, afterwards
sought him out and told him all about it: that the Indians had
surrendered much land.

For some years the peace sun shone upon the Ohio country. Tecumseh was
careful to cast no red shadow. He bore himsel