phet's people refused to
move off. The Great Spirit had told them that the Indians were to hold
all property in common; therefore no tribe might sell land without the
consent of all the tribes.

Tecumseh was absent, on a visit to other tribes. He asked the Wyandots
and the Senecas to come to Prophet's Town on the Tippecanoe. But the
Wyandots and the Senecas had no wish to offend the United States again.
They remembered that the British had not opened the gates of the fort
to them, when the "Big Wind" was blowing them backward--"You are
painted too much, my children," they accused the British of saying--and
they were wary of Tecumseh.

He asked the Shawnees of the upper country, also, to join him and the
Prophet. But they declined to meddle. Old Black Hoof, a chief whose
memory extended back ninety years, advised against it.

The Prophet was more clever than Tecumseh. The Wyandots were the
keepers of the great belt which had bound the Ohio nations together in
Little Turtle's day. The Prophet asked them if they still had it, and
if they, the "elder brothers," would sit still while a few Indians sold
the land of all the Indians.

They replied they were glad to know that the belt had not been
forgotten. Let the Indians act as one nation. They passed the belt to
the Miamis--and the Miamis were forced to obey.

Governor Harrison was told that there were eight hundred warriors at
the Prophet's Town, and that Vincennes was to be attacked.

News of Tecumseh came from here, there, everywhere. He seemed to be
constantly traveling, carrying the words of the Prophet his brother.
Something was going on, underneath the peace blanket. Governor
Harrison and others of the whites read the puzzle in this wise:

The peace blanket spread by the Prophet to cover all red nations and
make them one, concealed a hatchet, as the blanket of Pontiac concealed
a gun. The Indians were to be increased and strengthened by right
living and good habits, until fitted to stand on their feet without
aid. Then, all together, as one nation, they could strike for their
country, from the Ohio River west to the Missouri.

Tecumseh was to be the Pontiac who would lead them. It was a scheme so
wonderful, so patient and so shrewd, that the Western whites might well
gasp before it.

The governor and Tecumseh had never met. The Prophet had been in
Vincennes several times, to explain that he preached only peace--which
was true. But the town a