The astute Coffee makes a suggestion and, acting on it, the General dispatches him by a roundabout march to take the Creeks from behind. The fatuous savages flatter themselves that the wide-flowing Tallapoosa will defend their rear. All they need do, they think, is lie behind those English-log breastworks and knock over whatever obnoxious paleface shows his head. This is an admirable programme, and comforting to the cockles of the aboriginal heart. There is but one trouble; it won't work. As the circuitous Coffee begins to swing wide for his stealthy creep to the rear, the General covers the strategy with a brace of brawling nine-pounders. Inside the log breastworks, he hears the “tunk! tunk!” of the “medicine” drum, and the measured chant of the prophets promising victory. In the midst of the prophetic chantings and the dull thumping of the tomtoms, the nine-pounders roar and bury their shot in the log breastworks. The shot do no harm, and serve but to excite the ribald mirth of the Creeks. The latter can speak enough English for the purposes of insult, and scoff and jeer at the General, whom they describe--having in mind his lean form--as a lance shaft, harmless, because wanting a keen head. They storm at him with opprobrious epithet, and invite him, unless he be a coward, to come to them over their breastworks. The General pays no heed to the contumely of the Creeks; he is bending his ear to catch, above the din of his nine-pounders, the earliest signal of the redoubtable Coffee's attack. Colonel Coffee and his riflemen, horses at a walk, pick their difficult way through the woods. It is a matter of no little time before they find themselves at the toe of the Horseshoe, and in the ignorant rear of the Creeks. Between them and those one hundred tree-grown acres held by the enemy flows the Tallapoosa--turbid, wide and deep. Across, they see the canoes, which the stupidity of the Creeks has left without so much as a squaw or a papoose to guard them. In a moment, a score have thrown off their hunting shirts, and are in the river. They swim like so many Newfoundlands, and come out dripping, but happy, on the farther side. Presently each of the swimming score is upon his return trip, towing a dozen of the largest canoes. Leaving a horse guard to look after the mounts, Colonel Coffee embarks his command in the canoes; ten minutes later, the last fighting man jack of them is on the other side. They hear the boom of the nine-pounders, and the yells and war shouts of the Creeks. Also they discover the wickiups of the Creeks, hidden away, with their squaws and papooses, in a thickety corner of the wood.