s from Tippecanoe. A courier
could have brought it in a few hours by riding fast through the wide,
trackless wilderness, and swimming broad, unbridged rivers. But no
couriers came toward Cedar House. There was no reason for sending a
special messenger to a corner of one state when the whole nation was
clamoring to hear. So that the couriers were speeding with all possible
haste toward the National Capital, and the people of Cedar House could
only wait and watch like those who were much farther off.

And thus it was that after a whole week had passed, they still did not
know that the battle of Tippecanoe had been fought, and that a precious
victory had been bought at a fearful price. And even now, who knows
whether or not that fearful price need have been paid? It is hard to see
the truth clearly, looking back through the mists of nearly a hundred
years. In the strange story of that famous battle, only one fact stands
out clear beyond all dispute, and that is so incredible as to stagger
belief. It appears at first utterly past belief that the white army,
marching against the red army with the open purpose of attacking it on
the next day, should have lain down almost at the feet of the desperate
foe, and have gone quietly to sleep. Only the recorded word of the
general in command makes this fact credible. He also says, to be sure,
that the soldiers "would have been called in two minutes more;" but he
admits that they had not been called when the red army made the attack,
without waiting till the white army woke of its own accord to begin
fighting at leisure by daylight, without even waiting those two minutes
for the general's convenience. What happened to the helpless sleepers
then, when the waking warriors thus fell upon the sleeping soldiers, may
be most eloquently told in the general's own words. "Such of them as
were awake or easily awakened, seized their arms and took their
stations, others, more tardy, had to contend with the enemy at the doors
of their tents." Turning the yellowed pages of this most amazing report,
the reader can only wonder that the furious tide of battle which set so
overwhelmingly against the soldiers in the beginning, ever could have
been turned by all the brave blood poured out before its turning.

On the eighth anguished day of suspense Ruth went to the door to welcome
Philip Alston, and looking toward the forest path, saw Father Orin and
Toby approaching. There was something in the way they