of order. Then he picked up a rifle which had
been thrown away, and which he found his bullets would fit, and renewed
the fight. It was a very cold November morning, and his fingers became
so stiff that he could not hold the bullets, which he had to keep in his
mouth, and feed into his rifle from it. At one time he was behind a very
small tree, and two Indians fired on him at such close range that he
felt the smoke of their guns and gave himself up for dead. But both had
missed him, and he got away from the battlefield unhurt.

Another Kentuckian, a young ranger named William Kennan, was one of
the first riflemen driven back by the overwhelming force of Indians. He
tried to hide in the tall grass, but found that his only hope was in
his heels. The savages endeavored to cut him off, but he distanced all
except one, who followed him only three yards away. Kennan expected him
every moment his tomahawk at him, and he felt in his belt for his own.
It had slipped from its place, and he found himself wholly unarmed, just
as he came to a tree which the wind had blown down, and which spread
before him a mass of roots and earth eight or nine feet high. He
gathered all his strength, bounded into the air, and cleared it, while a
yell of wonder rose from the baffled Indians behind him. A little later
he came upon General Madison of Kentucky sitting on a log, so spent with
the day's work and loss of blood from a wound, that he could no longer
walk, and waiting for the Indians to come up and kill him. Kennan ran
back and caught a horse which he had seen grazing, put Madison on it,
and walked by his side till they were out of danger. The friendship thus
begun lasted through their lives.

[Illustration: The escape of Kennan 109]

This is one of the few softer lights in the picture whose darker
features we must not fail to look upon. One of the grimmest of them
was the war chief of the Missasagos, Little Turtle, who planned the
surprise, against the advice of all the other chiefs, and who merits
the fame of the awful day. To the Americans who saw him then, he was a
sullen and gloomy giant, who fought with his men throughout the battle,
arrayed in the conspicuous splendor of a great war, chief, with silver
ornaments dangling from his nose and ears. Hardly less terrible than the
figure of this magnificent butcher is that of the Chickasaw warrior who
accompanied the American army, to glut the hate of his nation for the
Northern tribesmen.