seal, and reading the superscription carefully aloud, as if fearful
there might be some mistake:

"Major David Wayland,
Along the Upper Maumee.
Leave at Hawkins Ford
on Military Road."
"Important."


I can see him yet as he read it, slowly feeling his way through the
rude, uneven writing, with my mother leaning over his shoulder and
helping him, her rosy cheeks and dark tresses making strange contrast
beside his pain-racked features and iron-gray hair.

"Read it aloud, Mary," he said at last. "I shall understand it better.
'T is from Roger Matherson, of whom you have heard me speak."

My mother was a good scholar, and she read clearly, only hesitating now
and, then over some ill-written or misspelled word.


At FORT DEARBORN, near the head of the
Great Lake. Twelfth June, 1812.

My DEAR OLD FRIEND:

I have come to the end of life; they tell me it will be all over by the
morrow, and there remains but one thing that greatly troubles me--my
little girl, my Elsa. You know I have never much feared death, nor do