414 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
feet below the surface, and he had considerable trouble 
to unearth ;t. When he had done so, however, and 
removed the wooden cover fastened over the mouth, he 
found the contents 10 consist of a gold watch, three or 
four gold rings, six silver spoons, $800 in Kentucky State 
bank bills, $50 in gold, $20 in silver half dollars, and 
about a quart of dimes and five-cent pieces. Although 
the jar was tightly corked, the dampness had got m and 
mildewed the bank notes until they fell to pieces m his 
hands. Had they been all right, however, they would 
have been of no intrinsic value, as all the State bank 
circulation had given place to greenbacks, Speculation 
as to who planted the jar brought no clue to the owner 
further than that it could have been no resident of the 
county. It had probably been in the ground many years, 
for the river had been eat'ng away at the bank with each 
freshet, and finally brought a portion of the jar to light. 
Tt must have been buried six or eight feet from the bank 
at first. 
'7jck Among the Indians/' 
Six books have now come from the pen of Mr. Geo. 
Bird GrmneL, all upon Western topics, and all written 
with a care and fai.hfulness, with a genius in special 
research and a photographic accuracy of detail which 
piace the wi iter almost in a class by himself in these 
ca^s of huiT.ed and haphazard writing. Mr. Grinneil's 
firs, works, the "Pawnee hero Stories and Folk Tales," 
"ii ackfoot Lodge Tales," "Ihe Story of the Indian," 
'■'Ihe Indians of To-day," all took him into that field 
wheie he lias so long been admitted by and easily first 
aniuug the nicdern writers on the West, the Indian life 
as it If seen to-day among the tribes. In his last book, 
'."Jack, the Young Ranchman," the subject was not d s- 
s.m lar, the Western plains and mountains still being the 
scene, but the treatment was dififerent, lighter, more 
popular cf intent and better adapted to the comprehen- 
sion of the small folk for whom it was done. "Jack, the 
Young Ranchman" was the outcome of the delight which 
certain boys and girls found in the stories told them of 
the West of earlier days, of the adventures and experi- 
ences which might and did befall a boy of that day in 
the West. The expansion of this idea into book form 
was r.atural and happy, and the undertaking proved so 
desirable that the author was asked to continue the same 
plan. "Jack Among the Indians" is the result, and as a 
second book in a certain line its success must be grati- 
f^irg lO all concerned. The boy is the hardest critic 
in the world, and juvenile books are the hardest of all 
to write, as' witness the constant demand for them. 
Oi-e of the tests of a good child's book is that grown 
people like to read it too. This test may be applied 
wi hout hesitation to this second juvenile book of the 
author in question. 
We learn history through fiction, as well as manners 
and cusloms; and we may learn a great deal of Western 
-geography, Western life. Western modes of thought and 
"ic ic n in this simple book for boys. The scheme is a 
pl.iin and pleasing one. Jack, the young Eastern boy, is 
put in charge of Hugh Johnson, an old plainsman, and 
mal es a horseback journey from the lower range up 
across Wyoming and Montana to the camp of the 
J'iegans above the Missouri River, where he spends a 
part cf one summer living as the Indians live. He kills 
mountain sheep, and deer and antelope and buffalo, saves 
the life cf an Indian girl, kills a bear, and learns to run 
the buffalo on a bareback horse and to kill his buflfalo 
as the Indians did, with the bow and arrow. The human 
side of the Indian character is well developed, this being 
c\'er the purpose of the author in all his books into 
which the Indian comes. Indeed, the wholesome human 
character of the whole book is its conspicuous trait. 
The characters really live and really talk-, do not preach 
or lecture, as miost folk of the grown up sort do who 
parade on pages of boys' books. 
There is plot enough in the above scheme of the book 
to furnish abundant action, and the author is prodigal 
cf the materia' which lies at his hand so abundantly, so 
there is no drag in the movement of the story. A boy 
would not permit that in a book. Especially nervous 
and fine is the narrative after tlie old hunter and his 
S'oung charge really reach the camp of the Piegans, 
where the hunting stories keep the older readers turning 
the pages as fast as may be. And at the close there 
comes a b't of intricacy which may be fiction or may be 
fact, for (he two are hard sometimes to separate in their 
worde^-fulness in the'old West. The young hunter and 
his boy fr-crd cf the Indian village, with their older com- 
panion Hugh, find a poUch of gold, and a golden powder 
charger, on which are sera ched the initials "B. L." 
How the finders use th's gold, whose value runs up to 
some thousands of dollars, how they at last find the man 
who lost rhe sa-oM the book itse'f best tells. It is best 
to read the book -n the daytime or early in the evening, 
frr the grown-up boy is very apt to sit up too late after 
bcgir'-insr it at a later hour. Some of the chapter heads 
?re "The Indians at Home " "An Enemy in Camo," "The 
Cnurti-fr rf a Coup." "Running Buffalo," "The Relic 
of a Ficrht." "Close Quarters with a Bear," "The Lost 
Go'fl." These be very tempting to the eye and the taste 
left !<; "'j)-'rant of +he menu. The reader of "Jack Among 
the Indian";" will learn something of the real character of 
the old p'a'ns, what the rivers were, where they were, 
how 'he conntrv looked, what the game did, and all 
dp'-i'^s which are kent so long in memory by any 
Tpji-n v-l-io ^as ever heen nrivilesed for a time to be savage 
O' ha'f savacre. These things are entertaining to anyone 
who never saw the V^est. delightful to those who have 
dr"-e cn. Tf) one of ^he latter some of the things came 
vor^• krp"1v. f'S'^e^?f^1W tha"^ bit of description which 
P-^^oi-c rf c;.,-f.ot Grass H"'ls. lying- lil<e a blue cloud 
r'pr'- hor;-7on to the Fp.cjt. That must have been 
fr«rn, (.'np rp-^'-Q r-f the Two Medicines or the St. Mary's, 
v.^<5 (Vt.c f^Tipv mav he seen from that localitv — the 
Swcp' r;rpc<; HM|s pn strrif^d in the B^ackfoot calendar. 
>«d •'Tipt sn^erh of thf Indian chfef. Last Bull, who was 
adopting TfacH as hi.? relative; '■'O Siin> QI4 Man, 
Creator, look down * * * Many years ago I went 
to sleep for power." Anyone who has not had an Indian 
chief make a speech to him, the while holding his hand 
and gazing at him with an eye that sees close through 
him. cannot describe the feeling. These people were 
great and wonderful in their way. Mr. Grinnell has lived 
among them long enough, youth and man, to know what 
they do and how they think, and how a boy feels who 
sees there the wild life which we all, boys and men, long' 
to live at least now and then. It is doing the next best 
thing, and a very good thing, to read about it when it is 
presented so freshly and wholesomely, for we may be 
not orily instructed but entertained, and the latter func- 
tion is not subordinated in this story of Western lite, as 
it sometimes is in books wh'ch aim to prove something 
or show something. The book is very well worth the 
title of good historical fiction for boys; and it is well 
known a man is a boy until he is at least 70. 
E. Hough. 
HarTr.ord Building, Chicago, 111. 
Two Indian Books. 
As the Indians as a people are vanishing from the 
land, public interest in them slowly increases. They still 
exist in groups that are j'et called tribes, but the tribal 
organization is disorganized, the beliefs are changed, the 
religion is neglected and the cus toms are bemg forgot- 
ten. Concurrently Avith all this, books treating of these 
subjects are being published in considerable numbers. 
Happily, too, all these are no: dry scientific books, but 
some of them deal with the living and being of the people 
— with their actual lives and with the motives that govern 
those lives. 
Recently two very interesting books of this character 
have been issued from the press of Messrs. Small, May- 
nard & Co. One of these is "Indian Song and Story 
from North America," by Alice C. Fletcher, and it touches 
a subject of very great interest, about which little is 
knovyn. The discovery of the phonogranh ha=; made it 
possible to exactly record the words and music of the 
songs of the Indians, and Miss Fletcher, after gathering 
a nuinber of these songs among several tribes, has given 
the airs and the words, and also the stories connected 
with their origin. 
These songs are chiefly from the Omaha, Pawnee and 
Ponca tribes, though there are a few from much further 
off— from the northwest coast and from Arizona. Many 
of them have been harmonized by the late Prof. J. C. 
Fillmore and in some case-; th's process seems to have 
taken from the airs much of their Indian character. 
The stories are told with a delightfid simolicity. and 
lend very great interest to the s-ongs which are set "down. 
Miss Fletcher's long residence with the Omaha Ind'an-; 
has especially well fitted her for doing ju^t this sort of 
work, and she has been successful m gettin.e many 
storie,« of women of r^igimts c^^re^nnniaJ,? which ^ 
inan might well have failed to secure. The book, besides 
being charming reading, is a most valuable contribution 
to our knowledge of Indian thought and ways. 
The second book, from the same press, is by Mr. Francis 
La Flesche, an educated Omaha Indian, and is entitled 
"The M'ddle Five." It is a story of the school life of 
Indian boys, and narrates the doings, adventures and 
thoughts of a group of the school children at one of the 
mission schools which the author attended. While it 
must, of course, be understood that in these adventures 
there is nothing strange or startling, they are yet told wi'h 
so much earnestness, simplicity and grace that it would 
be hard to find a volume which portrays so truthful'y and 
so effectively the human nature of the little brown sk nncd 
people of whom it treats. 
Any one thoroughly familiar with Indian life and 
ways who reads this book would know at once that it 
was written by an Indian, and whatever the motive that 
prompted the author to set down in this form his boyhood 
recollections he may feel sure that nothing that he couM 
have done would be so likely as the publicat on of this 
book to arouse among white readers an interest in the 
red race, and to make them realize the humanity which 
is common to both colors. 
No better and certainly no more interesting book for 
children has been brought to our notice for a long time. 
The little vlume is adorrfed with a frontispiece m colors, 
designed, if we mistake not. by an Indian girl who has 
made singular progress in art work in the last few years. 
In drawing and in color it would do credit to any artist. 
A Handsotre Trophy. 
The handsome caribou head here pictured adorns the 
home of Mr. E. G. Asmus in We=t Hob-^ken. N. J. Mr. 
Asmus secured it near Grandfather's Lookout in the 
White Hills of Newfoundland. Mr. A. B, Blair of 
Pennsvlvania, who sends us the nhotosranh. wr'tes: "My 
on'y claim is that no better l^ead has b'^en broug'^t to the 
Un'ted States from that island." There are fif^'v-f'^ur 
point';, and the remarkable symmetry makes the head a 
most notable trophy. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press eacti week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable. 
E 'luiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiriiMiMiiiiimiiiinini' = 
s 
I REPORT YOUR LUCK | 
I With Rod and Ciun | 
E To FOREST AND «TREAM, = 
i New York City, 1 
iMinilll!!||il!l!!l!|l||llli|!!|||!i|i|||||Hlllllll|inii 
