uched his finger with oil, and
laying it on the brow of the stranger said, "Do you promise, when the
hour shall strike, to take the sword in defence of your country? Do you
promise, when you shall see your soldiers suffer for bread and fire, and
when the people you have led to victory shall bow before you, to remember
that you are but the minister of God in the work of a nation's freedom?"

With a new light burning in his eyes, the stranger bent his head.

"Then, in His name, I consecrate thee deliverer of this oppressed people.
When the time comes, go forth to victory, for, as you are faithful, be
sure that God will grant it. Wear no crown, but the blessings and honor
of a free people, save this." As he finished, his daughter, a girl of
seventeen, came forward and put a wreath of laurel on the brow of the
kneeling man. "Rise," continued the prophet, "and take my hand, which I
have never before offered to any man, and accept my promise to be
faithful to you and to this country, even if it cost my life."

As he arose, the son of the priest stepped to him and girt a sword upon
his hip, and the old man held up his hands in solemn benediction. The
stranger laid his hand on the book that stood open on the altar and
kissed the hilt of his sword. "I will keep the faith," said he. At dawn
he went his way again, and no one knew his name, but when the fires of
battle lighted the western world America looked to him for its
deliverance from tyranny. Years later it was this spot that he revisited,
alone, to pray, and here Sir William Howe offered to him, in the name of
his king, the title of regent of America. He took the parchment and
ground it into a rag in the earth at his feet. For this was Washington.
MARION

Blooming and maidenly, though she dressed in leather and used a rifle
like a man, was Marion, grand-daughter of old Abraham, who counted his
years as ninety, and who for many of those years had lived with his books
in the tidy cabin where the Youghiogheny and Monongahela come together.
This place stood near the trail along which Braddock marched to his
defeat, and it was one of the stragglers from this command, a bony
half-breed with red hair, called Red Wolf, that knocked at the door and
asked for water. Seeing no one but Marion he ventured in, and would have
tried not only to make free with the contents of the little house but
would have kissed the girl as well, only that she seized her rifle and
held him at bay. Stil