Tecumseh played at a later day the part which Pontiac attempted at the end of the old French War. He tried to unite the Indians in a general uprising against the Americans as Pontiac had united them against the English. He used the same arts, and he showed himself shrewd and skillful in paltering with our leaders till he was ready to strike his blow against them, for he managed to remain in the Ohio country unmolested while he was getting ready to drive the Americans out of it. When the war with Great Britain began, he might very well have believed that his hopes were about to be fulfilled; but he seems, though a brave warrior, never to have shown such generalship as that of Little Turtle at St. Clair’s defeat. He was a great orator, of such a fiery eloquence that the interpreters often declared it impossible for them to give the full sense of his words; but none of his many recorded speeches have the pathos of Logan’s. He was, on the savage lines, a statesman and a patriot, but unlike the wiser and gentler Logan he never could rise to the wisdom of living in peace with the whites. He was always an Indian; even at his best he was a savage, just as the backwoodsman was a savage at his worst. Yet his memory remains honored in tradition beyond that of any other Ohio Indian, and his name was given to one of the most heroic Ohio Americans, William Tecumseh Sherman. Such as he was, and such as Logan was, it must be owned that they seem now of a far nobler mold than any white men in early Ohio history. The Prophet outlived his brother many years, and died dishonored, and stripped of all the great power he had once wielded. At one time he wrought so strongly upon the Indians through their superstition of witchcraft, that they put many to death at his accusal. One of the victims was the Wyandot chief Leatherlips, whom six Wyandot warriors came from Tippecanoe to try where he lived near the site of Columbus. They found him guilty and sentenced him to death, of course upon no evidence. A white man who wished to save him asked what he had done, and was answered, “Very bad Indian; make good Indian sick; make horse sick; make die; very bad chief.” When he heard his sentence, Leatherlips ate a hearty dinner, dressed himself in his finest clothes, painted his face, and at the hour fixed for his death walked from his lodge to his grave, chanting his death song while he went. Then as he knelt in prayer beside the shallow pit, one of the six Wyandots tomahawked him. The persecutions for witchcraft under the Prophet continued until at last a young warrior, whose sister was accused in the council, had the courage to rise and lead her out of the house. He came back and said to the council, pointing at the Prophet, “The Devil has come amongst us, and we are killing each other.” This bold good sense brought the Indians to a pause in a frenzy which has raged among every people in times past. [Illustration: Tomahawk 159] XVI. LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS.