to serve his country as long as the war lasted. Before the third term of his enlistment had expired, the battle of Bad Axe was fought, which put an end to the war.

He returned home. “Having lost his horse, near where the town of Janesville, Wisconsin, now stands, he went down Rock River to Dixon in a canoe. Thence he crossed the country on foot to Peoria, where he again took a canoe to a point on the Illinois River, within forty miles of home. The latter distance he accomplished on foot.”

Several incidents transpired during his connection with the army, which are so expressive of certain elements of his character that we record them here. One day an old Indian found his way into camp, professing to be friendly to the whites, and casting himself upon the mercy of Lincoln’s soldiers.

“We came to fight Injins,” shouted one of the “boys,” “and we’ll give you cold lead instead of mercy.”

“Shoot him! shoot him!” cried several voices.

“A spy! a spy!” shouted others.

The demonstration terrified the Indian, and, in his distress, he flung down a crumpled paper that he had been holding in his hand, and begged them to read it. Captain Lincoln took it up, and found that it was a certificate of character and safe-conduct from General Cass, endorsing the Indian as a faithful man who had done good for him.

“A forged document!” was the cry raised at once.

“The old savage can’t run it on us like that,” cried Bill Clary, raising his gun in a threatening manner.

“Kill him! show him no quarter!” cried another of the “Clary Grove Boys,” several of whom had made considerable trouble for their captain by their unruly conduct.

The “boys” were bound to kill the red-skin, and were actually rushing upon him, when Captain Lincoln sprang before him, confronting the assailants, and commanding them to desist.

“You shall not shoot the Indian,” he cried. “General Cass’s order must be respected.”

“We WILL shoot him,” yelled a Clary Grove ruffian.

“Not unless you shoot him,” fiercely cried Captain Lincoln, towering up to his full height, and covering the Indian by his bodily presence.

His determined manner, resolute and invincible spirit, and terrible earnestness, evinced by every motion of his body, cowed the “boys,” so that they fell back sullenly, and desisted from firing the fatal shot. Some of them, however, still muttered vengeance in a low tone, and finally, one, more defiant than the rest, exclaimed,—

“This is cowardly on your part, Lincoln.”

Aroused to the highest pitch of determination by this insolent and unreasonable charge, Captain Lincoln shouted,—

“If any of you think I am a coward, let him test it, here and now!”

“You are larger and heavier than we are, Lincoln,” replied one.

“You can guard against this; choose your own weapons,” Captain Lincoln retorted, the unconquerable spirit within him manifesting itself through every lineament of his face and every gesture. “He never