Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1898-04-30

| N
aYVJV abruptly, range on
| HS.SSSM~S'ES\ range, to the far
SS1A3 thest heights of the
AHSSS,%lF Holy Trinity, is the
ENtINlW Wachapi In dian
M1N1\N reservation.
1 Y" ~ 1t was in the
Wachapi that Judy lived. The tribe
to which she belonged had dwelt here
for unknown years, beyond the MEM
ory even of the grayhaired Judy's
grandfather, Comachsen, who was SO
old that his eyes and mouth were lost
in the burrows of his face. Comach-
sen said that their race had originally
issued from the depths of Mt. Tehatli,
the greatest peak of the Holy Trinity,
and that that mountain was their
mother and that they were the chill.
dren of the earth. But the mission
aries invariably rebuked him for this
and declared it was nonsense, whereat
Comachsen would shake his head
in senile pity for their ignorance and
answer oracularly: "Was not Judy
the mother of Inotlin, the little Dane
ing Flame?"
Now, the little Dancing Flame had
gone out thirty years ago, which was
nothing to Comachsen, but great
deal to Judy, and these references to
the ancient sorrow still had the power
to move her heart. For, incredible as
it might seem, the gaunt and weather.
beaten Judy had once been youngand
pretty. The daughter of n chief, she
could have married any man in the
tribe, but her choice fell on Tuosilt,
the tallest and bravest, and the day
that she knelt before him and held up
to him in her arms the baby-ah, me!
But within twelve-month her young
husband had died in her arms, shot
to death by the white settlers in the
old war. They called it "the wal, 2"
these Indians, although it was but a
border feud brought about by the lust
Of unscrupulous pioneers for the In
dian lands, and which, further in
famed by the sale of whisky, burst
forth one summers day in bloodshed
and then settled into months of re-
prisal, with the occasional killing of a
white man and the more frequent kill
ing of a red one, with starving Indian
women and children hiding in the
mountains.
And when, after the death of her
young warrior, the fall passed and
winter came, poor Judy's strength
gradually left her young body, and the
Dancing Flame cried for hunger as he
lay upon her helpless breast, and so
at last the little light had flickeredand
gone out.
Soldiers had been sent to the
Wachapi in response to the settlers
demand and had ended the war by
quelling hostilities and bringing the
poor, broken remnant of the tribe back
to their homes in the valley, which
was then made government reserva
tion. Since then agents had come and
gone, honest men and rogues, preach
ers, laymen, politicians and reformers,
and through all these changes, good
and evil, Judy maintained sort of
independence, supporting herself and
the patriarch of the tribe, her grand
father, with her own strong hands and
woodcraft. She was silent and repel-
liant, ever rememt ering the great sor-
row of her youth which the grinding
years had not been able to match.
One day the government at Wash
ington reversed its Indian policy and
placed the agencies in the control Of
army officers, and Captain Baynot
was detailed for duty at Wachapi.
Now Judy had always been on good
terms with the soldiers at the military
post near the agency. They bought
her fish and other small wares without
haggling, and Mrs. Donovan, the wife
of the quartermaster sergeant, taking
pity on "the lone, lorn haythen," often
hired her help on cleaning days, and
in course of time taught her good,
strong barracks English, with an Irish
accent, which accomplishment Judy
carefully concealed beneath the dig
nifty of her original ignorance.
Shortly after the arrival of the cap
tain, however, Judy, for the first time
in her life, was taken sick with pleu-
risy, whsreupon the new agent hear
ing from the doctor that there was
woman lying seriously ill in wicking
near old Jacks ferry, rode thither to
investigate. Entering the smoky in
terror, he noted with comprehensive
glance where rain and wind found
their way in through crack and Granny
of the ancient lodge, and the damp
ness, dirt and desolation OF it all, and
forthwith ordered Judy's removal to
an empty log house near the fort.
There were no "ifs" or "ands" or
"by your leave" but she was taken
up bodily within the hour and con.
veyed to the clean, dry house. Here,
with an iron cot, chair and table, a
fire cracking on the hearth, the smoke
of which went out through tho Chin
ney and a young Indian woman to
take care Of her, the astonished Judy
for the first time in her life had her
weary body made comfortable and her
wants supplied by others.
As a consequence Judy's mind was
filed with suspicion and her eyes
watched each movement OF her bene-
factors with ceaseless vigilance in the
effort to discover the secret motive of
their conduct which she dimly fancied
had some design on that mysterious
thing, her soul. But her soul was
not referred to, either by Mrs. Bay
not, who sent her good things to eat,
or Mrs. Donovan, who came in oc-
casionally Ito hearten her up bit,"
nor by Archie, the captains child, a
sturdy little chap Of six years, who
stole into the hut to solve the mystery