coal trade. After that I got a position on an engineering corps, which was to survey a route for a railway through some of the Southern States. Well, eyerything went well, and the job was almost finished, when summer came, Then I caught the fever, and in a few weeks I was a living skeleton, fit to rival even the thinnest freak of a dime museum. My physician told me that the only hope of my recovery was a change of climate, and advised me to try the Wisconsin forests. So, two weeks later, I found myself, together with an Indian guide, Wewoka, installed in a little cabin in the very heart of the wooded mountains, and, as I believed, miles and miles from the nearest habitation. Well, the effect of the clear atmosphere of the pine forests was instantaneous, and before I had spent a month in the woods I was almost entirely recovered. But I did not at once return to my home, for I was off on an indefinite furlough, as it were, and I determined to make an outing of it. “ One night, as we sat silently smoking before the fire-place, I asked Wewoka to tell me a story. At first he was rather reticent, but a generous handful of my best fine-cut overcame his native backwardness and he told me this strange legend: ‘' ‘ Tar back in history, many years before the first white set tlers pushed their way into its primeval forests, Wisconsin was the meeting-ground of the two powerful tribes, the Algonquins and the Dakotas. Kiamichi, chief of the Algonquins, had a very beautiful daughter, Minnetonka, for whose hand the chiefs of all the powerful tribes round-about were suitors, among them being Kiowa, chief of the Dakotas. Upon this latter ICiamichi looked with especial favor, for even his uncultured mind could foresee the good of uniting the two strong tribes. But Minnetonka did not share her father’s views. She chose, rather, to lavish her affection upon a poor but brave lad of her own tribe, named Wetumka. Well, it all turned out as anyone could have foreseen. Kiamichi determined to force his daughter to obey his will and set a day for her marriage to Kiowa. But the night before the great day Wetumka and Minnetonka fled together to the depths of the mountains, taking with them the treasure-box of Kiamichi, Pursued by their irate relatives, they sought refuge in a cave, into which their pursuers would not follow them, since the cave was said to be the home of the great White God. Unwilling, however, to give' up his riches, Kiamichi besieged the cave for six long weeks. Then, believing that both the offenders had re- Thc Free Lance. [February,
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