226 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



Indian to gain time to recruit and purchase a stock of ammunition. 

 At such times the precinct of a fort was the scene of a pageant. 

 The chiefs came in under the white flag, without their arms, bring- 

 ing their wives and children, and pitching their camps right under 

 the guns of the fort, and the sutlers traded with them as with the 

 soldiers. These chiefs retained all their stoic dignity of manner 

 and gaudiness of dress. Regarding themselves as in a measure in 

 council, they dressed with care, and studied to impose on the 

 respect of the whites or each other. Some of them were men of 

 much influence and honour among their own people, nearly all of 

 them were objects of great curiosity to the troops who had been so 

 many months in their pursuit, and who connected each of their 

 names with some bloody massacre, or hard-fought battle. 



The leader of the present band was our old friend Halleck 

 Tustenuggee, who had left the marks of his black fingers at Far 

 Away on our last visit there. He was standing at the gateway as 

 we came in, the war-paint washed from his face, and his heavy 

 black hair drawn back from his head, and plaited down behind 

 with the feathers of the roseate spoonbill ; a heavy blue blanket 

 hung from one shoulder, in which was wrapped one arm, and the 

 other hung freely at his side. His bearing was noble, his words 

 were few, and if there had not been in his eye the glittering cruelty 

 of his race, something akin to the fascination in the tiger's eye that 

 stops you as you pass his cage, he would have stood with credit 

 for a Roman general. His wife and children were with him, and 

 two subordinate chiefs with their wives. The main body of his 

 band, twenty-five in number, were a few miles distant, near the 

 camp at Warm Springs, participating with all the abandon of the 

 native character in games of ball and quoits, wrestling and dancing. 

 Nothing was omitted on the part of the officers to make the truce 

 pleasant. Provisions were distributed and presents made, and, 

 to crown all, a great feast was prepared, to which all the warriors 

 were invited. When at the table, at Warm Springs, the command- 

 ing officer announced to those there gathered that they were 

 prisoners; the soldiers, already instructed, sprung to their arms, 

 and the band, that no force could conquer, were bound prisoners 

 for life. 



