Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1903-01-31

listening with wide eyed delight tn INV
description of it uses and values in
the Dig cities. Though he never told
me till later, I was already sure that
ne mad never been in the States, but
ne was so keen for information. SO am.
pltlous 4or work, so apt in grasping
ldeas, that | never could make up nv
mind to believe that he had any In
dian blood in him.
When lsleft him that time his mind
was fully made up to go prospecting
for asphalt, and, sorry as I felt for him,
| couldn't help admiring the splendid
optimism which seemed to surmoun;
all his strange i'll luck and lead him
always on to new enterprises. I gave
him two or three addresses where let
tiers might reach me during the next
year, and promised in case he should
find a considerable deposit of asphalt
to rejoin him, and if possible unite
with him in the business of acquiring
leases and developing the property.
l was in Pittsburg late that sum-
mer, when I got letter from Baffin,
dated at Ardmore, in the Chickasaw
country, telling me that he had found
great and hitherto unknown deposit
of asphalt in the Black Hills above
Taila and seven miles to the north
later, after a days mean riding, that
west by trail. 1t was nearly six weeks
| got we'll up into the rocky hills into
which the trail had led me. I had
m NIL
for l didn't know how Baffin was stu
ated, and I had stopped with the in
tention of frying some bacon for my
dinner, when I heard rifle shot sound
across the valley. reverberating against
the high rocks with roar that linger-
ed like receding thunder. l looked
about and at last saw Baffin standing
on point of rock far above me, his
rifle on his arm and his eyes search
ing across the deep canon. I called
his name, and was astonished to see
him drop fiat on his face like man
pursued and peer over the edge of his
hiding place.
I scrambled into my saddle and was
soon within speaking distance of him.
He came out with a glad smile, but I
noticed that there was a hunted look
in his wide black eyes and some grey
hairs above the temples that had not
noticed before. He asked me if had
heard the shot "Of course" said I,
what were you shooting at?" But
he said he didn't shoot at all, that it
was somebody else, and so led me to
the narrow passage way between the
rocks till we came into little clear
ing at the top. I saw that he had built
a good shanty there, and 1 also saw
that the old squaw was yet with him,
for she was sitting there by the front
door as if doing in the western sun
light
But I was not prepared for the sud-
den change that came over Bafin when
he saw her. With an awful oath he
stopped me, and when 1 looked at him
his face was ashen and his fiery eyes
were fixed upon the old bag. was
afraid he was i'll and asked him, but he
said no, and then, becoming quite
calm, he sat down on shady rock
and said:
did you ever hear that story, what
you might call legend, about the mas
sacre of the Tonkawas?"
l thought it a queer, irrelevant ques-
ton, but | sat down and said I had
not.
81 never believed It," he resumed,
"and I never told it before, but I'd
rather you heard it from me than
from some one else. 1t is said that
in the old days the Tonkawas ate their
prisoners. They were cannibals, as
you call them. 1t must be lie. But
the Apaches and the Kiowas, as we'll
as the Comanches, wish to believe it.
don't know how long ago, but some
time when the Tonkawas were at war
with the Comanches, they stole baby
from the Comanche village that was in
the West Cache, near the foothills Of
the Washita, and cooked it for the
Tonkawa chief It was two nights
later that 600 Kiowas and Comanches
fell upon the Tonkawa camp in the
rock gorge Of Bloody Mountain and
massacred the whole tribe. They
Slew anu UuIu6u I'LL IuSlO was AOL q
Tonkawa left, and when they had
counted the scalps they knew that ev-
cry fighting man was dead. But when
they came back into the valley they
found that one woman and her baby
had escaped"
There were tears in his eyes when
he looked across the sunlit clearing
toward his shanty, and pointing his
big, brown hand at the old squaw,
said:
There she SITS She was the last
of the Tonkawas, unless I can be call
ed Tonkawa."
"You?" 1 said, not understanding;
but he went on: "She was my mothers
mother My father was Gerald Bafin,
an English trapper. He married the
Tonkawa baby But the Comanche fol
lowed them as they have followed me.
They shot my mother while she was
nursing me- My father disappeared.
but old Shaiga hid me, and | have re-
paid her we'll till now"