Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/136



CHAPTER X.

TWO LITTLE INDIANS.

HE sunshine follows the rain. There was a sort of general joyousness. The Prince was now a king, it seemed to me. He had fought a battle with himself, with fate against him ; fought it silent, patient and alone; he had conquered, and he was glad.

The great hero is born of the bitter struggle. Who cannot go down to battle with banners, with trumps and the tramp of horses ? Who cannot fight for a day in a line of a thousand strong with the eyes of the world upon him? But the man who fights a moral battle coolly, quietly, patiently and alone, with no one to applaud or approve, as the strife goes on through all the weary year, and after all to have no reward but that of his own conscience, the calm delight of a duty well performed, is God s own hero. He is knighted and ennobled there, when the fight is won, and he wears thenceforth the spurs of gold and an armour of invulnerable