HOW WE CONQUERED HALLECK TUSTENTTGGEE. 315 



inches. Through the grass are seen winding channels 

 made by the prevailing currents and lagoons, from whose 

 black muddy bottom grows the pond-lily and other float- 

 ing grasses which intersect the prairie and turn back the 

 pedestrian. It would seem as if the rolling of the sea had 

 built an embankment of sand around all the coast, shutting 

 in this low-lying tract as does the cushion on a billiard- 

 table, so that it could be only drained by evaporation, or 

 settling in the shallow lakes and lagoons. 



Through this Stygian pool the hunted Indian doubled 

 and wound, or turned to strike pursuing soldier whose 

 toilsome march he had been watching for days, or he 

 disappeared into its mirage with his family, like ghosts, 

 without a trail and beyond all successful pursuit. 



The story of this war has yet to be written. On the 

 one side were Generals Scott, Clinch, and Worth, names 

 that were dear to us, and millions of money, and loving 

 chroniclers of our gallant deeds. We hunted the In- 

 dians with troops, boats and dogs, and renegade spies 

 crueller than the hounds, and we entrapped their chiefs 

 at the council board, and broke up the organization of 

 their bands. On the other side was a people deriving 

 their weapons only from their foes, insufficiently provid- 

 ed and suffering every want. They resisted our attack 

 with patriotism and battled in swamp, and water, 

 and reedy fastness, for thrice as many years as we were 

 fighting the War of Independence, and no historian to 

 record their protests, their prayers, their councils, their 

 sufferings, or heroic deeds. We know that Molly Starks 



