So from that time on their attempt was not in the direction of Tallapoosa, but toward the fort which stood overlooking the bay at Mobile. This they searched after a tremendous effort through the wild country; and when they appeared at the stockade, they were stared at in amazement. “Well, youngsters,” greeted a bluff old officer, who seemed to be in command, “where did you come from?” And when they told him, and related some of their experiences, he and the group of soldiers and frontiersmen who had grouped about opened their eyes still wider. “Well,” said the commandant, shaking his head, “you’ve had great good fortune, lads. The country you’ve just come out of must be as thick with excited Injuns as a hive is with bees. I wouldn’t venture in there with less than five hundred men.” Mobile and the section thereabouts was fairly well defended, and had little to fear from an uprising of the Indians alone. “But the British are getting active,” the boys were told; “they are sending in supplies to the redskins; and the Spaniards are helping them.” This condition of affairs held during the fall; the boys saw the winter come and spring show itself in its thousands of green shoots and blooms, and still they were forced to remain at Mobile. The whole Indian country was surcharged with the madness excited in the people by the religious frenzies of the Prophet, who in turn was directed by the shrewd mind of Tecumseh. But some of the tribes through whose country he passed, like the Cherokees, the Choctaws and Chickasaws, turned a deaf ear to his plotting, for they had the wisdom to see that his plans could not succeed. But the others gave the Shawnees their attention, for with England’s aid they felt that they could finally overthrow the other white men. During the fall while the boys were safe in Mobile, the news came that Tecumseh and the Prophet had visited Toockabatcha, the great village of the Creeks. There were fully five thousand warriors of that nation assembled in the town; the Shawnee chief and the magician, painted and bedecked with all the trappings of savage custom, made their last great appeal. The British officers had told the Prophet that a comet was to appear--giving him the exact time; and the wily savage now used this information to good advantage. Rising before the assembled Creeks in all the impressiveness of paint and ornaments, he proclaimed: “The Great Spirit will give you a sign. And when that sign comes, the Muscogee must take the war-path. You will see the arm of Tecumseh, the great chief, in the sky. It will be of fire and will be held out to destroy the paleface.”