“A noble race! but they are gone, With their old forests wide and deep, And we have built our homes upon Fields where their generations sleep.” BRYANT. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NO. 82 CLIFF STREET. 1836. [Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.] WILLIAM H. COLYER, _Printer_, No. 104 Beekman-street. ELKSWATAWA; OR, THE PROPHET OF THE WEST. CHAPTER XIII. “His was the strength the weak that sways, The glance the servile herd obeys, The brow of majesty, where thought And care their deepest lines had wrought.” YAMOYDEN. The circumstances which we have detailed in the last chapter, sad as they may be, are culled unvarnished from the page of history; and were that wanting, I believe there are witnesses living who can attest their truth. They have been brought forward to prove the power of the Prophet. How great must have been his influence, when he could make a brother become the executioner of a brother, and order to the stake, certain that his orders would be executed, the most influential chiefs of his own or the neighbouring tribes, men, who had worn out the prime of their lives in fighting the battles of their country, and whose lips were then regarded as fountains of wisdom and experience. And yet this in many instances did Elkswatawa do, and so dread was the influence attached to his name, that even those who differed with him in opinion were afraid to express their sentiments; and unrestrained, he continued, by the power of witchcraft, to remove all whom he even suspected of being hostile to his plans. When we reflect that he was originally an humble individual, not even entitled to the rank of a chieftain, and that he should by the assumption of a character generally deemed of low repute, and the weakness of which he was well aware of, have pursued such a course of petty devices, trickery, and cunning as to have established for himself among the tribes so vast a power, we cannot but wonder at the design, as well as at the mind which enabled him to conceive and execute it. And yet the deep policy and prudence which he exhibited for years, in concealing from the red men as well as the white his chief object, namely, the union of all the tribes as a warlike measure, is a matter of still more surprise. But absolute as his power may seem, it was exercised only through the agency of the band which accompanied him. This generally amounted to several hundred, they were restless spirits, and many of them spoke different languages, and yet, so implicit was the obedience which they paid to Elkswatawa, that even though calm, he could at a moment's bidding, lash them into fury and set them raging like howling beasts, or when excited, by the wave of his hand, hush them into silence deep as that of the grave.