the good of mankind.

VIII

THE LOG TEMPLE OF JUSTICE

Most of those dauntless soldiers, who first bore the cross through the
wilderness were as ready to fight as to pray--as they had to be. No
power of earth or evil which he had been able to combat could have
turned young Peter Cartwright that day or have held him back. Pressing
on without rest or food, he was in time to preach. When this duty was
done, he returned over the Shawnee Crossing and rode straight to the
court-house. To go there was in his eyes the next service due the Word.

The court-house was a single large, low room built of rough logs, and
standing in the depths of the primeval forest. Great trees arched their
branches over its roof and the immemorial "Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes,"
went up through their heavy dark tops. It must have been strange thus to
hear this formal summons before the bar of human justice, strange indeed
to see the precise motion of man's law in so wild a spot. Roundabout
there still stretched the wilderness which is subject only to nature's
law--the one immutable law which takes no heed of justice or mercy;
which recks neither man's needs nor his deserts.

The court-house in the wilderness stood quite alone, with no other
building near. There was not even a fence round it, nor so much as a
hitching-post in front of the rude door which was rarely closed. Those
who came--the judge, the jury, the lawyers, the clients, the
spectators--all hitched their horses to the swinging limbs of the trees.
The sole sign of man's handiwork, beyond the log walls of the
court-house itself, was a crude attempt at bridge-building. A creek ran
between the court-house and the home of Judge Knox, who was the judge of
the court, and over this a few rough boards had been loosely laid across
two rotting logs. The structure being both weak and unsteady, it was the
judge's habit to dismount on coming to the bridge and to cross it on
foot, leading his horse by the bridle. It was then but a stone's throw
to the court-house, and as he was heavy, clumsy, and an awkward rider,
he did not mount again, but walked on till he came to the spot where he
always stopped to tie the bridle to the same limb. And there he
invariably tied it in his absent-minded way, without ever thinking of
looking round to see if the horse was tied with the bridle. Sometimes he
was and again he was not, for this was as that sagacious and dignified
animal himself thought best. He c