This resolution was no sooner formed, than he bent his steps towards the excited crowd, and mingling with them, became one of the council. He first looked round to see if he could discover the dreaded Prophet, but he saw no one whom he could identify as such. He heard nothing but bitter curses and denunciations against the whites; rage and fury filled the breasts of all, and they were crying out to be led on to battle. His own passions were kindled by the hoarse breathings of vengeance around him, and never was there a more excited multitude. They counted not numbers, they questioned not success; they were burning with vengeance, and only anxious to quench it at once in the blood of the whites. Elkswatawa had now a difficult part to play. He had raised a storm which he could not control; he had excited his followers until they were lost to reason, and now, like raging beasts, were chafing against their bounds in order to get loose. This was what he apprehended, when he urged Tecumseh to take some decisive step before his departure for the south. He, himself, was burning with rage; his soul writhed with agony when he saw the fires of his enemies under the walls of his town, and not one of the crowd was more anxious for immediate battle than himself. But then there were many reasons why peace, if attainable at any sacrifice, should still be preserved. He had promised Tecumseh, who absent, was now labouring for the common cause, that no act on the part of the whites, should force the Indians to hostilities. His town, though strongly fortified, contained only his own immediate followers, and they were far less numerous than the army before them. The warriors of the confederacy he had formed, were entirely ignorant of his situation, and to hazard a battle now, was not to avail himself of the power he really possessed; but it was to place his success upon a single chance, where the odds were greatly against him. Aware of all this, he had sent messengers, with professions of peace, to General Harrison while on his march; and still, with the hope of obtaining it, had, on the arrival of the American army, renewed his professions, and expressed a willingness to meet the whites in council on the following day, when he would accede to all their demands. This, for the reasons before stated, was now his determination, and nerving himself for the crisis, he resolved to oppose the calls which his followers were clamorously making to be led on against the whites.