ay any attention to the west, and the hinterland
posts remained as they were, feebly guarded and, except for Detroit,
administered by French creoles. The Indians, it is true, were
friendly to the British, but the crushing defeat they had received
at the hands of Lewis and the humiliating terms they were forced
to make with Dunmore left them impotent. They once more began their
raids, but they were incapable of concerted action; and when in
1778 George Rogers Clark, with a feeble force of less than two
hundred men, advanced against the British posts at Kaskaskia and
Cahokia on the Mississippi and Vincennes on the Wabash, they were
unable to hinder his march. These posts fell into the hands of the
Americans, and the Indians, as we shall see, were doomed.

After the battle of Point Pleasant, Cheeseekau, Tecumseh's eldest
brother, led his father's warriors back to the village of Piqua,
where the disasters of the fight were recounted. Still covered with
the stains of battle, Cheeseekau related to his mother and his
awestruck brothers and sisters the manner of his brave father's
death. The dark shadow of mourning fell upon the survivors. Throughout
the village rose the wail of the death-song, Methoataske's voice
mingling in the dirge of the widows; and so a new and tragic scene
was imprinted upon the young Tecumseh's plastic mind.

A father's task now fell upon Cheeseekau, who took much pride in
instructing his younger brother in the art of war and in hunting,
and how to endure fatigue and to perform feats of agility and
daring. He gave him lessons in woodcraft and forest lore, showing
him how to snare the fish, to stalk the wary deer, to guide the
frail canoe through treacherous rapids, and, with tightly fastened
snow-shoe, to traverse the wintry waste. Tecumseh, of course, had
learned to swim almost as soon as he could walk; in running it is
said that he could easily out-distance his companions; while his
skill with the bow excited their admiration and envy. His greatest
delight, however, was to muster his playmates into rival bands for
mimic warfare.

The history of Tecumseh's nation was not recorded in cold print
between the covers of a book; it lived in the memories of the elders
and on the lips of orators and sachems. In impassioned language
and with graphic gesture the deeds of the past were conjured up
before the minds of the listeners. By the light of the camp-fire
the stripling heard, with kindling eye and throb