So secret was the influence of Tecumthe’s friends that no suspicion of the excitement reached Hawkins even when the war with England began; and the old chiefs of the nation--known to be devoted to peace and to the white alliance--were kept in ignorance of all that was done among the young warriors. The Alabamas, or Coosadas, lived below the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, on the west bank of the Alabama River, about eight miles above the modern town of Montgomery; they were considered by Hawkins the most industrious and best behaved of all the Creeks, whose fields were the granaries of the upper towns and furnished supplies even to Mobile. Their town was the last place in which Hawkins expected to see conspiracy, violence, or fanaticism. The young men “sang the song of the Indians of the Lakes, and danced the dance” in secret for eighteen months after Tecumthe’s visit, without public alarm, and probably would have continued to do so except for an outbreak committed by some of their nation three hundred miles away. In 1812 a band of six Indians led by the Little Warrior of Wewocau, a Creek town on the Coosa, was sent by the nation on a public mission to the Chickasaws.[321] Instead of delivering their “talks” and returning, they continued their journey to the northern Lakes and joined Tecumthe at Malden. They took part in the massacre at the river Raisin, Jan. 22, 1813, and soon afterward began their return, bringing talks from the Shawanese and British and also a letter from some British officer at Malden to the Spanish officials at Pensacola, from whom they hoped to obtain weapons and powder. According to common report, Tecumthe told the Little Warrior that he was about to aid the British in capturing Fort Meigs, and as soon as the fort was taken he would come to join the Creeks.[322] Until then his friends were to increase their party by the secret means and magic that had proved so successful, but were not to begin open war.[323] The Little Warrior and his party, including a warrior from Tuskegee, a Creek town at the fork of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, after crossing Indiana in the month of February reached the north bank of the Ohio River about seven miles above its mouth, where were two cabins occupied by white families.[324] Unable to resist the temptation to spill blood, the band murdered the two families with the usual Indian horrors. This outrage was committed February 9; and the band, crossing the Ohio, passed southward through the Chickasaw country, avowing the deed and its motive.[325]