or when they lose what little they may have attained, or when the gaze of the world wanders, that they become hard, sour, bitter, and merciless toward all who have succeeded where they have failed.  The only mercy that Nature has shown them in their affliction, is to make most of them slow to realize that they can never gain the one thing they crave.  And this miserable awakening had not yet come to William Pressley.  On that evening he had every reason to be content and well pleased with himself.  The future promised all that he most earnestly wished for.  He was already moderately successful in the practice of his profession.  This was mainly owing to his uncle’s influence, but he was far from suspecting the fact.  His domestic life, also, was admirably settled; he was fond of Ruth and proud of her, as he was of everything belonging to himself.  But the thing which made him happiest was a suggestion of Philip Alston’s, first offered on the previous day; and it was to this that he now recurred at the first opportunity.

He spoke with an eagerness curiously apart from his words: 

“There seems to be no doubt that the Shawnees are really gone.  Men, women, and children, they have all disappeared from their town on the other side of the river.  A hunter who has been over there told me so yesterday.  It appears reasonably certain that the warriors are gathering under the Prophet at Tippecanoe.”

“Yes, it is undoubtedly true that the Indians are rising,” replied Philip Alston, still looking at Ruth.  “Well, it was bound to come,—­this last decisive struggle between the white and the red race,—­and the sooner the better, perhaps.  I hear, too, that the troops are already moving upon the Shawnee encampment.”

“Have you heard anything more about the attorney-general’s offering his services?  Is it decided that he will go?” asked William Pressley.

He spoke more quickly and with more spirit than was common with him.  And he sank back with an involuntary movement of disappointment when Philip Alston shook his head.

“However, there is little doubt that he will go.  He is almost sure to,” Philip Alston went on.  “It is his way to put his own shoulder to the wheel.  You remember, judge—­”

“What’s that!” cried the judge, starting up from his doze.

“We are talking about Joseph Hamilton Daviess,” said Philip Alston.

“A great man.  A great lawyer—­the first lawyer west of the Alleghanies to go to Washington and plead a case before the Supreme Court,” said the judge.

“He has certainly been untiring and fearless in the discharge of his duty as the United States Attorney,” Philip Alston said warmly.  “I was just going to remind you of the journey that he made across the wilderness from Kentucky to St. Louis to find out, if he could, at first hand, what treason Aaron Burr was plotting over there with the commandant of the military post as a tool.  He didn’t