s,
to listen to a fool, who speaks not the words of the
Great Spirit, but those of the devil and of the British
agents. My children, your conduct has much alarmed
the white settlers near you. They desire that you will
send away those people, and if they desire to have
the impostor with them, they may carry him. Let him
go to the lakes; he can hear the British more distinctly.

Tecumseh was absent from Greenville when this message
was received, and it fell to the Prophet to make a reply.
He was sorry, he said, that his father listened to the
advice of bad birds. He denied that the Indians had any
intercourse with the British, or that they desired anything
but peace and to hear the words of the Great Spirit.

Early in the spring of 1808 Tecumseh and the Prophet,
with their band of followers, left Greenville and set
out in a westerly direction, across what is now the state
of Indiana. Land had been granted to them by the Potawatomis
and Kickapoos on the banks of the Tippecanoe, near its
junction with the Wabash, and here they intended to make
a new town, which should be the headquarters of their
proposed confederacy. No more desirable spot could have
been chosen. It was almost central in relation to the
tribes they were endeavouring to bring together, and it
had convenient communication with Lake Erie by means of
the Wabash and Maumee rivers, and with Lake Michigan and
the Illinois country by way of the Tippecanoe and other
connecting waters. On one side an almost impenetrable
stretch of wilderness formed a natural defence. From
this position, also, Tecumseh was able to watch carefully
the country from which he wished to exclude white settlers.

The Prophet's influence soon extended Among the neighbouring
tribes, and the American authorities again became alarmed,
the more so as they learned that among his followers
warlike sports were now being practised along with
religious rites. To counteract the effect of such reports
the Prophet sent a message to Governor Harrison to say
that he had been misrepresented, and followed it up by
a personal visit along with a number of his followers,
to explain his attitude towards the Americans. The visit
lasted for a fortnight and frequent conferences took
place between Harrison and the Prophet. The governor also
questioned many of the Indians, but could learn nothing
from them derogatory to their leader. Desiring to know
to what extent the Prophet's teachi