I can
supply the Latin appropriately, and especially as I am not very much up
in Latin myself."

He said the suit was on an insurance policy; that he was defending on
the ground of misrepresentations made by the insured on the making of
the policy, and he must have some Latin to illustrate and strengthen his
point.

I mulled over the proposition, looked up some books on maxims, and
finally gave him this, "_Non haec in federe veni_," which I translated
to mean, "I did not enter into this contract." He was delighted, and
said there ought to be no doubt of success with the aid of this
formidable weapon, and made me promise to ride down with him to hear him
get it off. So the next day we started, and in crossing the Le Sueur
prairie, Cowan was hailed by a man who said he was under arrest for
having kicked a man out of his house for insulting his family, and he
wanted Tom to defend him. The justice's court was about a mile from the
road, in a carpenter shop, the proprietor of which was the justice. Tom
told him to demand a jury, and he would stop on his way back and help
him out.

When we arrived at Le Sueur we found that the case could not be heard
that day, and, starting homeward, about four o'clock we reached the
carpenter shop. There we found the jury awaiting us. We hitched the
team, and I spread myself comfortably on a pile of shavings to witness
the legal encounter. The complaining party proved his case. Cowan put
his client on the witness stand, and showed the provocation. Then he
addressed the jury. His defense was, want of criminal intent. He dwelt
eloquently on the point that the gist of the offense was the intent with
which the act was committed, and when it appeared that the act was
justified, there could be no crime. Then, casting a quizzical glance at
me, he struck a tragic attitude, and thundered out: "Gentlemen of the
jury, it is indelibly recorded in all the works of Roman jurisprudence,
'_Non haec in federe veni_,' which means there can be no crime without
criminal intent." The effect was electrical; the jury acquitted the
prisoner, and we drove home fully convinced that the law was not an
exact science. With what effect Tom utilized his Latin in the insurance
suit I have forgotten, or was never advised.

INDIAN STRATEGY.

In the summer of 1856 I had the celebrated battery commanded by Major T.
W. Sherman of the United States Army (better known as the Buena Vista
Battery, from the good work