There was perilous work yet to do, however. The brave men in the boat had no thought of abandoning their friends on the bank. Their own guns were broken, and they were under a severe fire from the savages on shore, but in spite of this they cleared the large canoe by throwing the dead Indians overboard, and, with the two boats, paddled back to the bank under a galling fire, and brought off the remainder of the party in safety. If they had not conquered, they had at least baffled the Indians, inflicting considerable loss upon them without suffering any loss in their turn. That night the expedition returned to Fort Madison. Dale was so typical a frontiersman, so perfect a model of the daring and wily warrior of the border, that as long as he lived he was a man about whom the interest of curiosity hung. A writer who knew him well wrote of him thus: "In person General Dale was tall, erect, raw-boned, and muscular. In many respects, physical and moral, he resembled his antagonists of the woods. He had the square forehead, the high cheek-bones, the compressed lips, and in fact the physiognomy of an Indian, relieved, however, by a firm, benevolent, Saxon eye. Like the red man, too, his foot fell lightly upon the ground and turned neither to the right nor left. He was habitually taciturn; his face grave; he spoke slowly and in low tones, and he seldom laughed. I observed of him what I have often noted as peculiar to border men of high attributes--he entertained the strongest attachment for the Indians, extolled their courage, their love of country, and many of their domestic qualities; and I have often seen the wretched remnant of the Choctaws camped around his plantation and subsisting on his crops. In peace they felt for him the strongest veneration; he had been the friend both of Tecumseh and Weatherford; and in war the name of 'Big Sam' fell on the ear of the Seminole like that of Marius on the hordes of the Cimbri."[4] [Footnote 4: From a sketch by General John H. F. Claiborne, published in the Natchez (Miss.) _Free-Trader_, on the occasion of Dale's death in the year 1841.] CHAPTER XX. THE ADVANCE OF THE GEORGIANS--THE BATTLE OF AUTOSSE. When the call was made by General Claiborne upon Tennessee for assistance, a similarly earnest appeal was sent to Georgia, and the response from that State was equally prompt. The troops raised there were under command of General Floyd, who had been superseded in the command of the Department of the South-west by General Flournoy some months earlier. General Floyd was an energetic soldier, and he quickly found work to do.