The Delawares listened, even the Shawnees were sickening of the witch-craft fraud--but the Prophet seized upon an opportunity.
In this 1806 an eclipse of the sun was due, and he knew, beforehand. Perhaps he was told by British agents, for the war of 1812 was looming, and there was bad feeling between the two white nations.
"The American governor has demanded of me a sign," he proclaimed. "On a certain day I will darken the sun."
His fame spread like a wind. Runners carried the news of him and of his power through tribe after tribe. He made long journeys, himself. In village after village, from the Seminoles of Florida to the Chippewas of the Canada border, from the Mingos of the Ohio River to the Blackfeet of the farthest upper Missouri, either he or some of his disciples appeared.
They bore with them a mystic figure, the size of the body of a man, all wrapped in white cloth and never opened. This they tended carefully. They bore with them a string of white beans, said to be made from the Prophet's flesh.
They preached that dogs were to be killed; lodge fires were never to go out; liquor was not to be drunk; wars were not to be waged, unless ordered by the Prophet. Each warrior was obliged to draw the string of beads through his fingers; by this, he "shook hands" with the Prophet, and swore to obey his teachings.
It was rumored that within four years a great "death" would cover the entire land, and that only the Indians who followed the Prophet would escape. These should enjoy the land, freed of the white men.
Tecumseh bowed before his talented brother, and had his own dreams; dreams of a vast war league against the Americans. The Prophet was in control of eight or ten thousand warriors.
The Prophet's band at Greenville increased to four hundred--Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Chippewas, and others; a regular hodge-podge.
Captain William Wells, who was the Indian agent at Fort Wayne, asked them to have four chiefs come in, to listen to a message from their Great Father, the President.
On a sudden Tecumseh took the lead, as head chief.
"Go back to Fort Wayne," he ordered of the runner, a half-breed Shawnee, "and tell Captain Wells that my fire is kindled on the spot appointed by the Great Spirit above; and if he has anything to say to me, he must come here. I shall expect him in six days from this time."