man would have been rejected as insurmountable.  He had, however, resolved and planned not only upon taking Detroit, but, if need be, the pursuit and capture of Hull’s entire army, compelling him to either stand and fight or surrender.  With habitual prescience he had weighed well the issues and chosen the lesser alternative.  His own defeat and possibly his death, on the one hand, against the probable salvation of half a continent on the other.  What true soldier could hesitate?

While patiently hearing objections, he brushed the most of them aside as mere flies on the wheel.  Surely the way had been opened to him.  The seized despatches had revealed the discord among Hull’s troops and shown him that while the United States militia, the flower of Ohio and Kentucky, was of good material, the United States soldiers were not.  He knew that the situation in Upper Canada called for extreme measures, and that the time to strike was now or never, for his scouts had truly reported that 350 United States mounted troops were pressing close upon his rear.  They were, in fact, only a mile or two distant.  If his own inferior force was outflanked, or his communication with the Canadian interior cut, it spelled utter disaster.  He was in a wilderness without hope of reinforcements.  As Colonel Cass, the United States commander, later reported to the President, Brock was “between two fires and with no hope of succour.”  Brock knew he must act at once or even retreat might be impossible.  With inborn acumen he saw at a glance the peril of his own position, and with cool courage hastened to avert it.  He realized that upon the “destruction or discomfiture” of Hull’s forces “the safety of the province depended.”

Brock listened closely to Procter’s argument—­by this time he knew, of course, that Hull’s own line of communication with his reserves had been cut—­then rising, when all who cared to speak had finished, he said:  “Gentlemen, I have definitely decided on crossing the river and attacking Fort Detroit.  Instead of further advice I must beg of you to give me your hearty support.  The general orders for to-morrow will be issued at once.”

This decision was typical of the man of action.  “Prudent only where recklessness was a fault, and hazardous only when hesitation meant defeat.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

AN INDIAN POW-WOW.

It was a picturesque council of white men and Indians that was held at dawn in an open glade of the forest.  The fragrant odours of the bush mingled with the pungent smoke of the red willow-bark, puffed from a hundred pipes.  Conspicuous at this pow-wow was Tecumseh, who across his close-fitting buckskin hunting jacket, which descended to his knees and was trimmed with split leather fringe, wore a belt of wampum, made of the purple enamel of mussel shells—­cut into lengths like sections of a small pipe-stem, perforated and strung on sinew.  On his head he wore a toque of eagle plumes.