Wayne’s Scouts.

Wayne showed his capacity as a commander by the use he made of his spies or scouts.  A few of these were Chickasaw or Choctaw Indians; the rest, twenty or thirty in number, were drawn from the ranks of the wild white Indian-fighters, the men who plied their trade of warfare and the chase right on the hunting grounds of the hostile tribes.  They were far more dangerous to the Indians, and far more useful to the army, than the like number of regular soldiers or ordinary rangers.

    Efficiency of the Scouts.

It was on these fierce backwoods riflemen that Wayne chiefly relied for news of the Indians, and they served him well.  In small parties, or singly, they threaded the forest scores of miles in advance or to one side of the marching army, and kept close watch on the Indians’ movements.  As skilful and hardy as the red warriors, much better marksmen, and even more daring, they took many scalps, harrying the hunting parties, and hanging on the outskirts of the big wigwam villages.  They captured and brought in Indian after Indian; from whom Wayne got valuable information.  The use of scouts, and the consequent knowledge gained by the examination of Indian prisoners, emphasized the difference between St. Clair and Wayne.  Wayne’s reports are accompanied by many examinations of Indian captives. [Footnote:  American State Papers, IV., 489, 94.  Examination of two Pottawatamies captured on the 5th of June; of two Shawnees captured on the 22d of June; of a Shawnee captured on Aug. 11th, etc., etc.]

Among these wilderness warriors who served under Wayne were some who became known far and wide along the border for their feats of reckless personal prowess and their strange adventures.  They were of course all men of remarkable bodily strength and agility, with almost unlimited power of endurance, and the keenest eyesight; and they were masters in the use of their weapons.  Several had been captured by the Indians when children, and had lived for years with them before rejoining the whites; so that they knew well the speech and customs of the different tribes.

    Feats of the Scouts.

One of these men was the captain of the spies, William Wells.  When a boy of twelve he had been captured by the Miamis, and had grown to manhood among them, living like any other young warrior; his Indian name was Black Snake, and he married a sister of the great war-chief, Little Turtle.  He fought with the rest of the Miamis, and by the side of Little Turtle, in the victories the Northwestern Indians gained over Harmar and St. Clair, and during the last battle he killed several soldiers with his own hand.  Afterwards, by some wayward freak of mind, he became harassed by the thought that perhaps he had slain some of his own kinsmen; dim memories of his childhood came back to him; and he resolved to leave his Indian wife and half-breed children and rejoin the people of his own