When Captain Pike[349] reached the North Fork Village, very probably still attended by the escort that the Military Board of Arkansas had graciously--or perhaps officially since Pike, according to his own confession, was acting as commissioner from Arkansas[350] as well as from the Confederacy--furnished[351] him,[352] he found the Creeks awaiting his approach with some anxiety. Among them were Motey Kennard,[353] principal chief of the Lower Creeks, and Echo Harjo, principal chief of the Upper Creeks, both of whom had been absent[354] in Washington at the time the inter-tribal council of the spring had been planned. They had gone to Washington, in company with John G. Smith, as a delegation, greatly concerned about the prospect of Creek finances and the continuance of Creek integrity should the quarrel between the North and the South continue. Greenwood had tried to reassure them; but, when shortly afterwards, all Indian allowances were suspended[355] by the United States Indian Office for fear that remittances might fall, en route, into the hands of the disaffected, the distrust and the dissatisfaction of the Indians revived and increased, thus rendering them peculiarly susceptible to the plausible secessionist arguments of men like Agent Garrett. Sometime in May, therefore, a delegation was sent to Montgomery[356] to confer with authorities of the Confederate States, who by the time of the arrival of the Creeks had moved on to Richmond. At the North Fork Village, everything seemed to be working in Pike's favor. There was scarcely a white man[357] around who was willing to say a word for the North; and leading Indians, who were known to be anti-secessionists, were away[358] treating with the Indians of the Plains. Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la, who was to become the stanch leader of the opposition, was not with the absentees, it would seem; but then that, at the time, did not so much signify because he was not a ranking chief and so had little influence.[359] On the tenth of July, the treaty that Pike and the Creek commissioners had been working on for days was finally submitted for signature and the names of Motey Kennard, Echo Harjo, Chilly McIntosh, Samuel Checote and many other less prominent Creeks were attached to it. On the twentieth, the general council approved it and more names were attached, that of Jacob Derrysaw being among them. On one or the other occasion, several white men signed. William Quesenbury, who was acting as Pike's secretary, Agent Garrett, Interpreter G. W. Stidham,[360] and W. L. Pike. Soon came the return of the travellers and much subsequent commotion. They expressed themselves as opposed to the whole proceeding, yet three of them found that, in their absence, their names had been forged[361] to the document that was passing as a treaty between the Creeks and the Confederate States. The three whose names were forged were, Ok-ta-ha-hassee Harjo (better known subsequently as "Sands" and who became