grew stronger daily in combat against the old foe.
Then came the second attack of the enemy, when six white men beset
him from behind, again knocking him insensible, with a heavy blue
beech hand-spike. They broke his hand and three ribs, knocked out
his teeth, injured his side and head; then seizing his pistol, shot
at him, the ball fortunately not reaching a vital spot. As his
senses swam he felt them drag his poor maimed body into the middle
of the road, so it would appear as if horses had trampled him, then
he heard them say, "_This_ time the devil is dead." But hours
afterwards he again arose, again walked home, five interminable
miles, again greeted his ever watchful and anxious wife with,
"Lydia, they've hurt me once more." Then came weeks of renewed
suffering, of renewed care and nursing, of renewed vitality, and
at last of conquered health.

These two terrible illnesses seemed to raise Lydia into a peculiar,
half-protecting attitude towards him. In many ways she "mothered"
him almost as though he were her son--he who had always been the
leader, and so strong and self-reliant. After this, when he went
forth on his crusades, she watched his going with the haunting fear
with which one would watch a child wandering on the edge of a
chasm. She waited on him when he returned, served him with the
tenderness with which one serves a cripple or a baby. Once he caught
her arm, as she carried to him a cup of broth, after he had spent
wearisome hours at the same old battle, and turning towards her,
said softly: "You are like my mother used to be to me." She did not
ask him in what way--she knew--and carried broth to him when next
he came home half exhausted. Gradually he now gathered about him
a little force of zealous Indians who became enthusiastic to take
up arms with him against the whisky dealers. He took greater
precautions in his work, for the growing mist of haunting anxiety
in Lydia's eyes began to call to him that there were other claims
than those of the nation. His splendid zeal had brought her many
a sleepless night, when she knew he was scouring the forests for
hidden supplies of the forbidden merchandise, and that a whole army
of desperadoes would not deter him from fulfilling his duty of
destroying it. He felt, rather than saw, that she never bade him
good-bye but that she was prepared not to see him again alive.
Added to this he began to suffer as she did--to find that in his
good-byes was the fear of nev