in reconstruction days the great rival of Samuel Checote for the office of principal chief), Tallise Fixico, and Mikko Hutke. It is a matter of dispute what course Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la had taken[362] in the treaty conference but not what he did afterwards; for he became the intrepid leader of the so-called "Loyal Creeks" and the foremost of the "Refugees." If the Creeks were disturbed about their national finances, the Choctaws[363] were even more so. There were many suspicious circumstances connected with a certain corn contract and with the expenditure generally of the huge sum of money that the United States Congress had appropriated in satisfaction of claims arising under the treaty of removal, payment on which it had recently suspended to the displeasure of the Indians and the discomfiture of the speculators. Wherever suspicion rested, Pike attempted elaborate explanations and, wherever affairs could be turned to the account of the Confederacy, he labored with redoubled zeal. His task was an easy one comparatively-speaking, though, for the Choctaws were already committed[364] to the southern cause. The two Folsoms, Peter and Sampson, who were among the special commissioners sent to Washington to inquire about the money and who had lingered at Montgomery, were his eager coadjutors. Just how far George Hudson, principal chief, was readily compliant, it is difficult to say. It is supposed that he issued his proclamation[365] of June 14, announcing independence and calling for troops, under compulsion and, in July, he may still have been secretly in favor of neutrality. The joint treaty for the Choctaws and Chickasaws was completed on the twelfth of July and again prominent men, the most prominent in the tribes, no doubt, endorsed the action by affixing their signatures. R. M. Jones, the chief[366] of the secessionists, W. B. Pitchlynn, Winchester Colbert, and James Gamble,[367] who was soon afterwards selected as the first delegate[368] to the Confederate Congress, were among the signers; but Agent Cooper was not. Perchance, he and Pike had already begun to dispute over the propriety of an Indian agent's holding a colonelcy in the Confederate army. Cooper[369] wanted to be both agent and colonel.