Here was the first introduction of the mercenary character, which actuates the hireling soldier; and, though civilization was not then far enough advanced, to make it very conspicuous, there were other elements mingled, which could not but depreciate the simple nobility of the pioneer's nature. Many of the qualities which, in him, had been merely passive, in the ranger became fierce and active. We have alluded, for example, to his hatred of the Indian; and this, habit soon strengthened and exaggerated. Nothing marks that change so plainly as his adoption of the barbarous practice of scalping enemies. For this there might be some little palliation in the fact, that the savage never considered a warrior overcome, though he were killed, unless he lost his scalp; and so long as he could bring off the dead bodies of his comrades, not mutilated by the process, he was but partially intimidated. Defeat was, in that case, converted to a sort of triumph; and having gone within one step of victory--for so this half-success was estimated--was the strongest incentive to a renewal of the effort. It might be, therefore, that the ranger's adoption of the custom was a measure of self-defence. But it is to be feared that this consideration--weak as it is, when stated as an excuse for cruelty so barbarous--had but little influence in determining the ranger. Adopting the code of the savage, the practice soon became a part of his warfare; and the taking of the scalp was a ceremony necessary to the completion of his victory. It was a bloody and inhuman triumph--a custom, which tended, more forcibly than any other, to degrade true courage to mere cruelty; and which, while it only mortified the savage, at the same time, by rendering his hatred of the white men more implacable, aggravated the horrors of Indian warfare. But the only measure of justice in those days, was the _lex talionis_--"An eye for an eye," a scalp for a scalp; and, even now, you may hear frontiermen justify, though they do not practise it, by quoting the venerable maxim, "Fight the devil with fire." But, though the warfare of the ranger was sometimes distinguished by cruelty, it was also ennobled by features upon which it is far more pleasant to dwell.