Procter's position was now doubly desperate. He was cut off from supplies. At a council with the Indians, though Tecumseh, the chief, was for fighting to the bitter death, it was decided to retreat up the Thames to Vincent's army near modern {365} Hamilton. All the world knows the bitter end of that retreat. Procter seems to have been so sure that General Harrison would not follow, that the Canadian forces did not even pause to destroy bridges behind them; and behind came Harrison, hot foot, with four thousand fighters from the Kentucky backwoods. October first the Canadians had retreated far as Chatham, provisions and baggage coming in boats or sent ahead on wagons. Procter's first intimation of the foe's nearness was a breathless messenger with word the Americans just a few miles behind had captured the provision boats. Sending on his family and the women with a convoy of two hundred and fifty soldiers, Procter faced about on the morning of October the 5th, to give battle. On the left was the river Thames, on the right a cedar swamp, to rear on the east the Indian mission of Moraviantown. The troops formed in line across a forest road. Procter seems to have lost both his heart and his head, for he permitted his fatigued troops to go into the fight without breakfast. Not a barricade, not a hurdle, not a log was placed to break the advance of Harrison's cavalry. The American riders came on like a whirlwind. Crack went the line of Procter's men in a musketry volley! The horses plunged, checked up, reared, and were spurred forward. Another volley from the Canadians! But it was too late. Harrison's fifteen hundred riders had galloped clean through the Canadian lines, slashing swords as they dashed past. Now they wheeled and came on the Canadians' rear. Indians and Canadians scattered to the woods before such fury, like harried rabbits, poor Tecumseh in the very act of tomahawking an American colonel when a pistol shot brought him down. The brave Indian chief was scalped by the white backwoodsmen and skinned and the body thrown into the woods a prey to wolves. Flushed with victory and without Harrison's permission, the Kentucky men dashed in and set fire to Moraviantown, the Indian mission. As for Procter, he had mounted the fleetest horse to be found, and was riding in mad flight for Burlington Heights. It is almost a pity he had not fallen in some of his former heroic raids, for he now became a sorry figure in history, reprimanded {366} and suspended from the ranks of the army. The only explanation of Procter's conduct at Moraviantown is that he was anxious for the safety of his wife and daughters, perhaps needlessly fearing that the rough backwoodsmen would retaliate on them for the treachery of the Indians tomahawking American prisoners of war. [Illustration: TECUMSEH]