The whole riot has not covered the space of sixty seconds, when the public, suddenly conceiving its duty to lie in that direction, seizes young Hays, releases the recumbent brother Jesse, disarms Colonel Coffee, fishes brother Thomas out of that receptive cellar, and carries the badly wounded General to a bed in the Nashville Inn. The City Hotel mentions its own beds, and lays claim to the injured General, on the argument that the battle has been fought in its bar. The claim is disallowed and the General conveyed to the rival hostelry aforesaid, as being peculiarly his own proper inn, since it is there he has ever repaired for billiards, mint juleps, and to hold conferences over pipe and glass with his friends. Once in bed, the local surgeons burst in and offer to cut off the General's arm. The offer is declined fiercely and a poultice of slippery-elm bark is substituted for that proposed surgery. This latter medicament works wonders; under its soothing influences, and the revivifying effects of whisky--both being remedies much in vogue along the Cumberland--the General begins to mend. The General, the patient object of a deal of slippery-elm bark and whisky--the one applied externally and the other internally--lies in bed a month. Then the awful word arrives of the massacre at Fort Mims. Five hundred and fifty-three souls have been slaughtered, and Chief Weathersford with all his Creeks, valor sharpened by English gold and English firewater, is reported on the warpath. The news brings the General out of bed in a moment. His friends remonstrate, the doctors command, the blooming Rachel pleads; but he puts them aside. Gaunt of cheek, face paper-white with weakness, left arm in a sling, he climbs painfully into the saddle and takes command. The General sends Colonel Coffee and his mounted riflemen to the fore, with orders to wait for him at Fayettesville. Meanwhile, he himself lingers briefly to enroll and organize his little army. A few weeks later he follows the doughty Coffee, and the entire command--horns full of powder, pouches heavy with bullets, hunting knives whetted to a razor edge--moves southward after hostile Creeks. CHAPTER IX--THE GENERAL AT THE HORSESHOE THE General goes to Fayettesville, and orders Colonel Coffee with his eager five hundred to Huntsville, as a point nearer the heart of savage war. Volunteers, each bringing his own rifle and riding his own horse, join Colonel Coffee, who sends back inspiring word that his five hundred have grown to thirteen hundred, all thirsting for Creek blood. Meanwhile, the General, weak and worn to a shadow, can hardly keep the saddle, and must be bathed hourly in whisky to hold soul and body together. Unable to eat, he lives by his will alone. The shot-shattered left arm, lest he faint with the awful agony which attends its least disturbance, is bound tightly to his side.