IN THE MARSH. 137 
one of the most celebrated Indian warriors that ever 
lived, with fiery eloquence and impassioned speech, be- 
sought his tribe to fight, and die, in the land of their 
fathers, rather than give up this sacred territory to the 
invading and encroaching whites. It was through this 
valley that he and his horde of savages marched time 
and again on the war path. It was on those hill-tops 
that beacon fires were lighted at times, signals and re- 
ports to their neighbors, the Iowas, across the river. 
You didn’t know there was quite so much of history 
and romance connected with those hills, did you? Those 
mounds you notice on the hills, looking like hay-cocks, 
only so much larger, were made by the Mound-builders, 
a race of Indians in ages past. The mounds have been 
disemboweled of late years, and their contents were 
found to be stone arrows, spears, knives, hammers, and 
implements of ancient warfare. These mounds were 
the graves of warriors buried generations ago, and 
their arms were deposited at their sides,—weapons to 
protect them from Evil spirits on their journey to the 
Happy Hunting Grounds, showing conclusively that 
those hills were occupied by aborigines ages ago. 
Well, from the amount you have eaien, no danger of 
starvation on your part for some time. It is now one 
o'clock, and as the flight is good to-day, we won’t hurry 
back to the decoys. Light your cigar. What! Got 
a briar-wood pipe? Now that’s sensible. No place for 
style in the marsh,—comfort and convenience are what 
we want here. You think it is well to rest during mid- 
day, because there is no flight? That’s where you are 
grossly wrong. From early infancy it has been dinged 
at me, instilled into my mind, that the time to shoot 
ducks was early morning and from about sun-down to 
