Pleased with the character and appearance of Louis, Major Dade entered into an agreement with the master for his services in conducting the troops through the forest to Fort King, at the rate of twenty-five dollars per month, and stated the time at which the service was to commence. The contract was made in the presence of Louis, who listened attentively to the whole arrangement, to which he of course gave his own consent. Louis Pacheco was too enlightened to smother the better sympathies of the human heart. He was well informed, and understood the efforts that were making to reënslave his brethren, the Exiles. With many of them he had long been acquainted; he had witnessed the persecutions to which they had been subjected, the outrages heaped upon them, and now saw clearly the intention to subject them to slavery among the Creeks. He had spent his own life thus far in servitude, and, although his condition was regarded with envy by the plantation servants around him, he yet sighed for freedom. Blessed with an intellect of no ordinary mould, he reflected deeply upon his condition, and determined upon his course. Hostilities had not yet commenced, and he was in the daily habit of conversing with Indians, and often with Exiles. He was well acquainted with the character of each, and knew the men to whom he could communicate important information with safety. To a few of the Exiles, men of integrity and boldness, he imparted the facts that Dade, with his troops, would leave Fort Brooke about the twenty-fifth of December, for Fort King, and that he, Louis, was to act as their guide; that he would conduct them by the trail leading near the Great Wahoo Swamp, and pointed out the proper place for an attack.[81] This information was soon made known to the leading and active Exiles, and to a few of the Seminole chiefs and warriors. The Exiles, conscious that the war was to be waged on their account, were anxious to give their friends some suitable manifestation of their prowess. They desired as many of the Exiles capable of bearing arms as could assemble at a certain point in the Great Wahoo Swamp, to meet them there as early as the twenty-seventh of December, armed, and prepared to commence the war by a proper demonstration of their gallantry. Information was sent to Osceola and his followers, inviting them to be present. They were lying secreted near Fort King, too intent upon the death of Thompson to turn their eyes for a moment from their victim. However, many other chiefs and warriors assembled at the time and place designated, in order to witness what they supposed would be the first scene in the great drama about to be acted. Their spies detached for that purpose, arrived at their rendezvous almost hourly, bringing information of the commencement of Dade's march, the number of men forming his battalion, and their places of encampment each night.