and--letters that said he would be
"put out of the way" unless he stopped interfering in the liquor
trade. There was no ignoring the fact that danger was growing
daily, that the fervent young chief was allowing his zeal to
overcome his caution, was hazarding his life for the protection of
his people against a crying evil. Once a writer of these unsigned
letters threatened to burn his house down in the dead of night,
another to maim his horses and cattle, others to "do away" with
him. His crusade was being waged under the weight of a cross that
was beginning to fall on his loyal wife, and to overshadow his
children. Then one night the blow fell. Blind with blood, crushed
and broken, he staggered and reeled home, unaided, unassisted,
and in excruciating torture. Nine white men had attacked him from
behind in a border village a mile from his home, where he had gone
to intercept a load of whisky that was being hauled into the Indian
Reserve. Eight of those lawbreakers circled about him, while the
ninth struck him from behind with a leaden plumb attached to an
elastic throw-string. The deadly thing crushed in his skull; he
dropped where he stood, as if shot. Then brutal boots kicked his
face, his head, his back, and, with curses, his assailants left
him--for dead.

With a vitality born of generations of warriors, he regained
consciousness, staggered the mile to his own gate, where he met a
friend, who, with extreme concern, began to assist him into his
home. But he refused the helping arm with, "No, I go alone; it
would alarm Lydia if I could not walk alone." These, with the
few words he spoke as he entered the kitchen, where his wife
was overseeing old Milly get the evening meal, were the last
intelligent words he spoke for many a day.

"Lydia, they've hurt me at last," he said, gently.

She turned at the sound of his strained voice. A thousand emotions
overwhelmed her at the terrifying sight before her. Love, fear,
horror, all broke forth from her lips in a sharp, hysterical cry,
but above this cry sounded the gay laughter of the children who
were playing in the next room, their shrill young voices raised in
merriment over some new sport. In a second the mother-heart asserted
itself. Their young eyes must not see this ghastly thing.

"Milly!" she cried to the devoted Indian servant, "help Chief
George." Then dashing into the next room, she half sobbed,
"Children, children! hush, oh, hush! Poor father--"

She never