The General takes the field, and presently comes up with the Creeks. He smites them hip and thigh at Tallushatches, Talladega, and divers other places of equally complicated names, slaying hundreds while losing few himself. The Creeks give way before the invincible General. Wherever he goes they scatter like an affrighted flock of blackbirds. The Indian is terrible only when he is winning. He is not upholstered, whether mentally or morally, for an uphill, losing war. The General would like it better if this were otherwise. Could he but coax his evanescent enemy into a pitched battle, he would break both his heart and his power with one and the same blow. Chief Weathersford is as well aware of this defect in the Indian make-up as is the General. He himself is half white, and knows what points of strength and weakness belong with either race. Wherefore, when now his Creeks have been beaten, and their hearts are low in defeat, he makes no effort to lead them against the General's front; but breaks them into squads and little bands, with directions to harass the hunting-shirt men and hang about their flanks in the name of flea-bite annoyance and isolated scalps. Thus is the General plagued and fatigued nigh unto death, without once being able to lay hand upon those skulking, hiding, flying foot-Parthians against whom he has come forth. Also, he and his hunting-shirt men are getting farther and farther from anything that might be termed a base of supplies. At last, many a pathless mile through wood and swamp, and many an unbridged river, lie between the nearest barrel of flour and their stomachs clamorous for food. The military stomach is the first great base of every military operation. The war-wise Frederick had it for his aphorism, that an army is so much like a snake it can move forward only on its belly. The General is made painfully aware of this truism when he and his hunting-shirt men find themselves penned up with starvation at Fort Strother. In the teeth of his troubles, however, he makes shift to send home an orphaned papoose for the blooming Rachel to raise. Famine takes command at Fort Strother, and the General writes: “He is an enemy I dread more than hostile Creeks--I mean the meager monster, Famine!” There is murmuring among the hunting-shirt men, who have, with the appetite common to bordermen, that contempt of discipline which belongs to their rude caste. They are reduced to roots and berries, with an occasional pigeon or squirrel, which latter diminutive deer no one waits to cook, but devours raw. One day a backwoods boy, whose appetite is even with his effrontery, waylays the General on his rounds and demands food. “Here is what I was saving for supper,” says the General; “you may have that.” And he tosses the hungry one a double handful of acorns.