iency had
kept him down. Courage is too often only the memory of past success.
This was his first effort; he forgot he had not earned it, even as
he now ignored the danger of earning it. The few words of unconscious
praise had fallen like the blade of knighthood on his cowering
shoulders; he had risen ennobled from the contact. Though his face was
still muffled in his blanket, he stood erect and seemed to have gained
in stature.

The braves had remained standing irresolute, and yet watchful, a few
paces from their captives. Suddenly, Elijah, still keeping his back
to the prisoners, turned upon the braves, with blazing eyes, violently
throwing out his hands with the gesture of breaking bonds. Like all
sudden demonstrations of undemonstrative men, it was extravagant, weird,
and theatrical. But it was more potent than speech--the speech that,
even if effective, would still have betrayed him to his countrymen.
The braves hurriedly cut the thongs of the prisoners; another impulsive
gesture from Elijah, and they, too, fled. When he lifted his eyes
cautiously from his blanket, captors and captives had dispersed in
opposite directions, and he was alone--and triumphant!

From that moment Elijah Martin was another man. He went to bed that
night in an intoxicating dream of power; he arose a man of will, of
strength. He read it in the eyes of the braves, albeit at times averted
in wonder. He understood, now, that although peace had been their
habit and custom, they had nevertheless sought to test his theories of
administration with the offering of the scalps and the captives, and in
this detection of their common weakness he forgot his own. Most heroes
require the contrast of the unheroic to set them off; and Elijah
actually found himself devising means for strengthening the defensive
and offensive character of the tribe, and was himself strengthened
by it. Meanwhile the escaped packers did not fail to heighten
the importance of their adventure by elevating the character and
achievements of their deliverer; and it was presently announced
throughout the frontier settlements that the hitherto insignificant and
peaceful tribe of Minyos, who inhabited a large territory bordering on
the Pacific Ocean, had developed into a powerful nation, only kept from
the war-path by a more powerful but mysterious chief. The Government
sent an Indian agent to treat with them, in its usual half-paternal,
half-aggressive, and wholly inconsistent polic