authority. One day the professor was giving a lecture on presence of mind being one of the cardinal qualities needful for a soldier. He looked directly at his young enemy and said he doubted not that there were many who, in an emergency, would be confused and unstrung, not from cowardice, but from the mediocre nature of their minds. The insult was intended, and the recipient of it was powerless to resent it.

A few days afterward, while the building was full of cadets, the class were being taught the process of making fire-balls, and one took fire. The room was a magazine of explosives. Cadet Davis saw it first, and calmly asked of the doughty instructor, "What shall I do, sir? This fire-ball is ignited." The professor said, "Run for your lives," and ran for his. Cadet Davis threw it out of the window and saved the building and a large number of lives thereby. A person to whom a friend was telling the story in Mr. Davis's presence asked him if he did not take a great risk. He said, "No, I was very quick, and felt sure I had time to try him.'" General Thomas Drayton wrote of this circumstance: "Jeff, by his presence of mind, saved many lives and also the building from being demolished." His horror of oppressing the weak was exhibited throughout his life, and though the

professor grew old, honored by the generality of the cadets, Mr. Davis never changed his opinion of him.

his

In 1826, at Christmas, there was a great riot in the corps of cadets. Cadet room-mate, was discovered and dismissed with several others. Davis was implicated unjustly. Because his room-mate had been mistaken for him he would not explain, and consequently was under arrest for a long period, and his already numerous demerits received a considerable addition.

He did not pass very high in his class, but attached no significance to class standing, and considered the favorable verdict of his classmates of much more importance.

Cadet Davis's pay at West Point was the only money he had ever earned, and after the first month he laid aside a goodly portion of it, albeit a small amount, each month, and sent it to his mother, who once or twice returned it to him, but on finding that it distressed him, kept it, much to his delight. His distinguishing trait, after that of mercy, was filial love and duty.

During all his life he remembered his old companions at West Point, and wrote many loving words to General Crafts, J. Wright, his old and dear friend Sidney Burbank, Professor Church, Professor Mahan, and others, who had been friendly or kind to him there.

CHAPTER VI.

FORT CRAWFORD, 1828-29.

CADET DAVIS graduated in July, 1828, received the usual brevet of Second Lieutenant of Infantry, went to visit his family on a short furlough, and then reported for duty at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. There he found Lieutenants Gustave Rousseau, Kinsman, Thomas Drayton, Sidney Johnston, and several other old and dear friends. Very soon after Lieutenant Davis arrived there he was sent up to Fort Crawford, built on the site of what is now Prairie du Chien, in Wisconsin. The Fort was then in an unfinished condition, and he aided in building a larger and more impregnable fortification, as the Indians were then in a restless condition, and the muttering of hostilities that soon burst forth into warcries, could now be plainly heard.

Fort Crawford was situated on the Wisconsin, near its junction with the Mississippi, and was, at an early day, the northern limit of the Illinois tribe. It was a starting-point for their raids against the Iroquois who occupied the land around Chicago. On Jeffrey's map of

1776, a line is drawn from Prairie du Chien to Omaha, and inscribed "French route to western Indians." In the "Colonial Records of New York," p. 621, it is mentioned as one of the three great routes to the Mississippi. Prairie du Chien, as early as 1766, was described as "a great mart, where tribes from the most remote branches of the Mississippi annually assemble, bringing with them their furs to dispose of to the traders."

The Indians built forts even before the white men came to the country, to protect themselves from the hostile tribes, and the French, wary and industrious, as is their wont at this day, built a fort wherever they halted for a week. Marquette and the Jesuits each fortified their mission-houses. In 1727 Father Guignas wrote in his diary, when establishing himself on the north bank of Lake Pepin, "the day after landing we put our axes to the wood. On the fourth day following, the fort was entirely finished." These were not, however, very elaborate fortifications. They were generally square, and inclosed by pickets of red cedar, with sentry-boxes at two of the angles. The pickets were thirteen or fourteen feet above ground.

The fort at Prairie du Chien, though built at an early day, was certainly not the first constructed there. It has been ascertained that

the French had established one at a much earlier period, and that during the revolutionary war it was burned. The name of the French fort was St. Nicholas.

The Rev. J. D. Butler, after reading of the struggles of the soldiers sent out to man the frontier said: "The strongholds and soldiers, north, south, east, and west, were pillars of cloud by day and of fire by night, to guide, cheer, and save pioneers into the terra incognita of Wisconsin.

"Had half of these gentlemen been as careful to write their experiences as Clarke and Lewis were, even when drenched with rain, or when the ink was freezing, the world would have known by heart the merits of the military."

The beauty of the country about Four Lakes has been often extolled by travellers, and the Indians seem to have been fully as well aware of its charms as were the white men.

When the Indians saw this fair country being slowly wrested from their grasp, they grappled with the invaders and made a long and bold struggle for the prize, and thus it became necessary to build more forts and station a stronger force there. In 1816, a fort was built at Chicago, and one at Prairie du Chien, for the better protection of the fur traders, the miners, and those who tilled the