We had gone in this way about six miles up the river, when our spies on the left came to us, leaping about like so many old bucks, and informed us that they had discovered a camp of Creek Indians and that we must kill them. Here we paused for a few minutes, and the prophets pow-wowed over their men awhile and then got out their paint and painted them all according to their custom when going into battle. Then they brought their paint to old Major Russell and said to him, that as he was an officer he must be painted too. He agreed, and they painted him just as themselves. We let the Indians understand that we white men would first fire on the camp and then fall back so as to give the Indians a chance to rush on them and scalp them. The Chickasaws marched on our left hand and the Choctaws on our right, and thus we moved on till we came in hearing of the camp. On nearer approach we found they were on an island, and we could not get to them.
While we were chatting about this matter we heard some guns fired, and in a very short time after a keen whoop. With that we all broke like quarter-horses for the firing. There we met our two front spies, who said they had met two Creeks who were out hunting their horses, and as there was a large cluster of green bay bushes exactly between them, they were within a few feet of meeting before either was discovered. Our spies, speaking in the Shawnee tongue, said they were escaping from General Jackson, who was at Pensacola, and that they wanted to know where they could get something to eat. The Creeks told them that nine miles up the Conaker River was a large camp of Creeks where they had cattle and plenty to eat; and that their own camp was on an island about a mile off, just below the mouth of the Conaker. Then the four struck up a fire, smoked together, shook hands and parted. One of the Creeks had a gun, but the other had none. As soon as they had parted, our Choctaws turned around and shot down the one that had the gun. When the other started to run off, they snapped at him several times, but as the gun missed fire, they ran after him and one of them clubbed him to death with the gun. In doing so they broke the gun, but they fired off the one the Creek had had, and raised a whoop of victory. When we reached them they had cut off the heads of both the Indians and stood ready to scalp them.