ell in safety. The
camp-fires burned red in the sheltered place, and they who were to
possess the land watched by the campfires. I looked down from my high
place, from my shelter of leaves and my log that the Lord gave me for a
bed, and saw the red camp-fires blink in the darkness.

"Then was I aware that the heathen crept betwixt me and the camp,
surrounding it as a cloud that lies upon the ground. The rain fell upon
us all, and there was not so much sound as the rustling of grasshoppers
in tall grass. I said they will surprise the camp and slay the sleepers,
not knowing that they who were to possess the land watched every man
with his weapon. But when I would have sounded the trumpet of warning, I
heard a rifle shot, and all the Indians rose up screeching and rushed at
the red fires.

"Then a sorcerer leaped upon my high place, rattling many deer hoofs,
and calling aloud that his brethren might hear his voice. Light he
promised them for themselves, and darkness for the camp, and he sang his
war song, shouting and rattling the deer hoofs. Also the Indians rattled
deer hoofs, and it was like a giant breathing his last, being shot with
many musket flashes.

"I saw steam through the darkness, for the fires were drenched and
trampled by the men of the camp, and no longer shone as candles so that
the Indians might see by them to shoot. The sorcerer danced and
shouted, the deer hoofs rattled, and on this side and that men fought
knee to knee and breast to breast. I saw through the wet dawn, and they
who had crept around the camp as a cloud arose as grasshoppers and fled
to the swamp.

"Then did the sorcerer sit upon his heels, and I beheld he had but one
eye, and he covered it from the light.

"But the men in the camp shouted with a mighty shouting. And after their
shouting I heard again the voices of angels saying: 'He hath cast the
lot for them, and His hand hath divided it unto them by line; they shall
possess it forever; from generation to generation shall they dwell
therein. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them,
and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose!'"

The speaker sat down, and one of the men remarked:

"So that's the way the battle of Tippecanoe looked to Johnny Appleseed."

But the smallest boy thoughtfully inquired:

"Say, Johnny, haven't the Indians any angels?"

"You'll wish they was with the angels if they ever get you by the hair,"
laughed one of the men.

Sol