nine men whom he had selected all bore a high reputation for courage, but Morford decided like Gideon of old to cut out every factor of weakness and leave only the picked men. When Gideon was chosen of God to rescue the children of Israel from the unnumbered host of Midianites and Amalekites and the other Bedouin hordes of the desert which were encamped in the great valley that lay at the hill of Moreh, he started with a force of thirty-two thousand. When this army looked down upon the innumerable hosts of the fierce desert warriors, it began to weaken and Gideon sent back twenty-two thousand soldiers who had showed signs of fear. The night before the day fixed for battle, Gideon decided to select from this ten thousand a picked band of men who would be not only brave, but watchful and ready for any emergency. As his army swarmed down to the water-hole Gideon watched the men as they drank. They had kept watch and ward on that bare sun-smitten mountain top all through the long, hot day. As they came to the water some of the thirsty men dashed forward out of the ranks and fell on their faces and lapped the water like dogs without a thought that there might be an ambush at the ford and without a care that they were lying absolutely defenseless before any enemy who might attack them. Others kneeled on their hands and knees and drank. Of the ten thousand only three hundred had bravery and self-control enough to maintain the discipline of a vigilant army. Without laying down their weapons they drank as a deer drinks, watching on every side for fear of a surprise. With one hand they scooped up the water, in the other they held fast their weapon. It was slower, but it was safer. These three hundred men Gideon chose for that band which for three thousand years has been the symbol of bravery and watchfulness. With this little force just before dawn he burst down upon the sleeping Midianites which were as the sand by the sea for multitude. The three hundred were divided into three companies. Each man carried a sword, a trumpet, and an earthenware pitcher with a lighted lamp inside. From three separate directions they rushed down upon the sleeping foe and sounded the trumpets and brake the pitchers and held the flashing lamps on high and then shouting as their watchword, "The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon," they burst into the great camp of the invaders. Roused from sleep, hearing the trumpet notes and the crash of the breaking pitchers and seeing the flash of lights from all sides and mighty voices shouting the fierce slogan, the Midianites scattered like sheep and all that great host ran and cried and fled and every man's sword was against his fellow in the darkness, and when day dawned the ground was covered with dead men, the camp was abandoned and nothing was left of that mighty army but a fringe of fugitives scattered in every direction.