318 WILD S POETS IN THE SOUTH. 



skin asleep, and in a minnit there was forty atop me. 

 ' Hold up !' sez I ; ' I'm Injin, don't you know me ? I'm 

 come mtli a letter from the great white chief,' and I 

 held up an old bit of paper that Jake had given me 

 at S'Gustine, with the writin' on about bringing some 

 stores. They swallered the bait, and I sot there half an 

 hour readm' off in Injun the cussedest lot of nonsense 

 you ever heard tell on. Then they wrote this answer, 

 and I started fur here ? Didn't I make dirt fly for the 

 first ten miles betwixt me and them !" 



Having rattled off his account of the adventure, that 

 left no more mark on his danger-loving mind than an 

 every day encounter would have done, he tossed his rifle 

 in the hollow of his arm, and lounged over to the cabin 

 occupied by Colonel Worth. 



The missive he delivered was on clear white bii'ch- 

 bark, and pictured a broken hatchet, and a half-circle of 

 Indians sitting around a council fire. Being translated, 

 it read : " We have broken our weapons of war, and are 

 now consulting about peace ; only half our chiefs are 

 here — we are waiting for them at the council." 



This message was on a par with many others that were 

 constantly passing between the Indians and white leaders, 

 always on the part of the Indian procrastinating and 

 guarded. 



From Potter we learned many items of news from, the 

 east coast, but none that served to interest us so much 

 as the information of Lou Jackson. It seemed that a 

 month before Lou Jackson had been in St. Augustine, 



