g morning the
Americans awoke to find their camp surrounded by whooping savages.
A frightful slaughter ensued. General Butler and many of the officers
were slain, together with nearly half the troops. The remainder
fled in disorder. General St Clair himself escaped on a pack-horse
after having had three horses killed under him in the battle.

The next winter, when the snow lay deep in the forest, Tecumseh,
while on a hunting expedition with ten warriors and a boy, made
his camp near Big Rock, not far from Piqua. One morning after
breakfast, as they sat about the fire smoking and discussing plans
for the day, they were suddenly assailed by a storm of bullets. A
party of whites, three times their number, under Robert McClelland,
had attacked them. Instantly the Indian war-cry rang out on the
clear, frosty air. Tecumseh called to the boy to run to shelter,
and he and his companions returned the fire of their assailants.
Black Turkey, one of the Indians, took to his heels and was running
away at full speed, but in obedience to Tecumseh's angry command
he halted and returned to join in the battle. On came the whites
with challenging shout, answered by defiant war-whoops. The
assaulting party was finally beaten back; and Tecumseh, with his
men, pursued them through the woods, driving them from every
sheltering tree and cover.

Shortly after this, Tecumseh, with a party of chiefs and warriors,
established his headquarters on a southern tributary of the Little
Miami. From this point they made frequent inroads upon the property
of white settlers, plundering flat-boats on the Ohio, and capturing
some of the finest horses belonging to Kentuckians. It was here
that Tecumseh had more than one encounter with Simon Kenton, the
well-known American pioneer. Hearing of the exploits of the marauders,
Kenton quickly mustered thirty-six men and set out to punish them.
He came upon the Indians at night, divided his force into three
detachments, and surrounded the encampment. That night Tecumseh
had flung himself down by the camp-fire. The flickering light threw
into fitful relief the bark tents of his sleeping companions. It
did not penetrate, however, the gloom where lurked the watchful
Americans. One of the Indians rose to stir the smouldering embers.
A rifle cracked sharply, and the warrior fell forward into the
fire. At the same moment a body of the Americans made a rush for
the camp. Tecumseh leaped up and called loudly to his compan