Single-handed exploits, where a man must depend upon his own strength and daring and coolness, rank high among brave deeds. Occasionally a man has confidence enough in himself to penetrate alone into the enemy's country and to protect his life and do his endeavor by his own craft and courage. Of such was Hereward, the Last of the English, who, like Robin Hood, many centuries later, led his little band of free men through fen and forest and refused to yield even to the vast resources of William the Conqueror. Once disguised as a swineherd he entered the very court of the king and sat with the other strangers and wanderers at the foot of the table in the great banquet-hall and saw in the distance the man who was first to conquer and then to make unconquerable all England. To this day we love to read of his adventures on that scouting trip. How the servants who sat at meat with him played rough jokes on him until, forgetful of his enormous strength, he dealt one of them a buffet which laid him lifeless across the table with a broken neck. How he was taken up to the head of the table and stood before William on an instant trial for his life. His loose jerkin had been torn during the struggle and showed his vast chest and arms covered with scars of old wounds which no swineherd would ever have received. The old chronicle goes on to tell how they imprisoned him for the night and when his jailer came to fetter his legs with heavy irons, he stunned him with a kick, unlocked the doors and gates, broke open the stable door, selected the best horse in the king's stable and, armed with an old scythe blade which he had picked up in the barn, cut his way through the guard and rode all night by the stars back to his band. In 1862 Corporal Pike of the Fourth Ohio Regiment led an expedition for a hundred miles through the enemy's country, which was worthy of Hereward himself. The expedition consisted of Corporal James Pike, who held all positions from general to private and who also had charge of the commissary department and was head of the board of strategy. The corporal was a descendant of Captain Zebulon Pike the great Indian fighter and inherited his ancestor's coolness and daring. Old Zebulon used to say that he never really knew what happiness was until he was in danger of his life and that when he started into a fight, it was as if all the music in the world was playing in his ears and that a battle to him was like a good dinner, a game of ball and a picnic all rolled into one. The corporal was very much this way. He had taken such particular pleasure in foolhardy exploits that his officers decided to try him on scout duty. There he did so well that General Mitchel's attention was attracted to him.