268 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



the border into a debatable ground, like the Valley of 

 the Shadow of Death. The white settler, at a distance 

 from relief, and guarding his cabin only by force of arms, 

 regards the sullen, wary, crouching foe with a bitter 

 hatred that he bestows on no other enemy, and his hatred 

 is handed from father to child, and perpetuated by tradi- 

 tion and song, and many a vacant place by the fireside. 

 The chieftain looks back over a life of battles that were 

 always disastrous to him, and that has left his tribe a 

 handful of broken men, and recalls the peace that was 

 more injurious than war, the worthless bargains, hollow 

 promises, poisonous gifts, discordant counsels, mock cere- 

 monies, and cloaked hatred. 



Little wonder is it, then, that when some chiefs of 

 shrewder foresight than others come to power among 

 the Indian tribes, they form combinations, recount their 

 wrongs, and, urged on by the national enthusiasm, make 

 one bitter burst for revenge and immortality I Such a 

 chief was Halleck Tustenuggee, and such was the history 

 of his people ; and the settlers on the Gulf and the ver- 

 dant bottoms of the Suwanee remember his last charge, 

 so unexpected and so bloody, as the fishermen of the 

 Mexican Gulf remember the tornadoes that come ou$ 

 from the south in the middle of the summer afternoon, 

 and go wailing and wrecking all that was basking in the 

 tropical stillness. 



Tustenuggee had consulted with all the divisions of the 

 Seminoles. Runners had come and gone, some in canoes 

 and some on foot, to all the different outlying parties. 



