eighteen hundred and
fourteen, had more than one thousand men under his orders: And yet, with
this inconsiderable force, he protected a frontier extending from the
waters of the Wabash, westward to the advanced settlements of
Missouri--driving the savages northward beyond Peoria, and intimidating
them by the promptitude and rapidity of his movements.

Our government contributed nothing to the defence of its frontiers,
except an act of Congress, which authorized them to defend themselves!
The Indians, amounting to at least twenty tribes, had been stirred up to
hostility by the British, and, before the establishment of rangers, were
murdering and plundering almost with impunity. But soon after the
organization of these companies, the tide began to turn. The ranger was
at least a match for the savage in his own mode of warfare; and he had,
moreover, the advantages of civilized weapons, and a steadiness and
constancy, unknown to the disorderly war-parties of the red men.

He was persevering beyond all example, and exhibited endurance which
astonished even the stoical savage. Three or four hours' rest, after
weeks of hardship and exposure, prepared him for another expedition. If
the severity of his vengeance, or the success of a daring enterprise,
intimidated the Indian for a time, and gave him a few days' leisure, he
grew impatient of inactivity, and was straightway planning some new
exploit. The moment one suggested itself, he set about accomplishing
it--and its hardihood and peril caused no hesitation. He would march, on
foot, hundreds of miles, through an unbroken wilderness, until he
reached the point where the blow was to be struck; and then, awaiting
the darkness, in the middle of the night, he would fall upon his
unsuspecting enemies and carry all before him.

During the war of independence, the rangers had not yet assumed that
name, nor were they as thoroughly organized, as they became in the
subsequent contest of eighteen hundred and twelve. But the same material
was there--the same elements of character, actuated by the same spirit.
Let the following instance show what that spirit was.

In the year seventeen hundred and seventy-seven, there lived at
Cahokia--on the east side of the Mississippi below Saint Louis--a
Pennsylvanian by the name of Brady--a restless, daring man, just made
for a leader of rangers. In an interval of inactivity, he conceived the
idea of capturing one of the British posts in Michiga