The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1904-06-17

OOOr, his Keen .s eyoS Moving the
chickens preparing to roost II tho.
cedar trees. INK 5$ & "a ! 1..3s. :s.s
But while the soapsuds splashed and
the water streamed and dripped over
the floor, the thrifty housewife busted
herself at tidying things on the porch,
for a glance at the young buck made
her realize the propriety OF her pres
ence on the scene. ''Ill do what I
have always intended to do with this
game-bag," she said, half aloud. ut
has hung here long enough collecting
trash. This is. a good time to overhaul
it and throw the rubbish away"
, The game-bag was a ponderous
leather thing, and its capacity appar-
emily unlimited. Old fishhooks and
tackle came first, rusted and rotten
from long disuse. Then hatchets,
horseshoes, gopher-traps, doorknobs,
coils of wire, shot-pouches, rubber
gloves everything, in short, that a
catch-all of such sort collects in the
course of 20 years. The last thing
brought UP was an old hunting knife
an ugly-looking weapon, broad and
short, with rude deer-horn handle.
The blade was rusted, and looked as If
not cleaned after it's last thrust.
The white hands touched it gingerly.
II don't know what to do with all these
things after ALL the woman said,
looking up into the quizzical eyes Of
the tall young fellow, who came sing
ing Bonnie Doom" through the house.
whistled the dogs over from the
stable, stirred the drowsy canary into
a flood of song, and sent the cats
scampering away from the !neighbor-
hood of the meat-safe. "They were
your fathers things, Hal, when he
wasn't much older than you," she ex-
planned in the subdued tones in which
one instinctively refers to the dead
But the duty on hand was temporarily
dropped when the boy announced that
a book agent was in the front hail.
and the contents of the game-bag were
left in heap on the floor.
Sikra bent low over her tubs. but
now her eyes were wild, and every
nerve in her body tingled with excite
ment. The back Of her benefactress
was scarcely turned when the hunting
knife was swept into her hands and
stealthily concealed under her apron
Her boy did not follow her actions,
but sat idly in the sunshine, watching
the lower branches of the. cedar filling
with it's tenants for the night. Mean
while thu Yi1o ~ o1o MI
with surprising rapidity. A wonder
full energy was at work rubbing, rims
ing, wringing, and soon the work was
completed, and the squaw departed
with her son.
The next weeks washing was accom-
plished with the same degree of un-
wonted energy. Sikra stood upright,
no longer bent and decrepit Her hour
OF triumph was come. The knife still
hung at her belt-the knife she had
watched Black Wing make from the
horn Of the deer she had seen him kill.
At last Sikra had found trace of one
of her mans murderers. This fact
worked itself slowly into her darkened
mind, for the knife in the game-bag
cried out Howe's implication in the
crime.
But now, at the very moment of her
impending triumph, shadow fell
athwart her CLEAN of hope. The boy,
nurtured into stalwart manhood for
one end, looked at her listlessly when,
with dilated eyes and hushed voice,
she told him the story of her discovery.
He did not seem to even hear her tale.
After sleep]ess night, she went to
rouse him and try again to wake the
vengeance in his blood, but he did not
know her.
Wild with apprehension, the old
squaw's first thought was of Mrs.
Howe, her never-failing source of sue
cor. The kind eyes up at the white
house grew large with sympathy and
dread. cts only a fever, Sikra,"
young Hal came forward to assure her,
and catching up his hat he followed the
distraught mother to her little hut.
The wild, black eyes that met his,
as he entered, startled him with their
ferocity, and the wilder words held
him on the threshold. But Sikra's
dumb look of appeal prompted him to
enter the room. The calm presence,
and the cool, firm hands of the white
boy seemed to lay the fever-devils
And the thought that the fever might
be contagious was overbalanced in his
mind by the grief of the squaw mother
'He must not die; he must not die"
she walled. Il raise him for now:
For just now!"
The weeks that followed were grim
struggle with the fever-devils that
filled the Indian boys frame. When
his wild rawlings and threats of venge-
ance rose to shrieks and threatened
to exhaust the Pickering fame of life,
nothing but the cool, strong hands that
had first quieted him had any power
to calm him.
poor old Sikra's heart seems set on
his accomplishing something before he
dies" young Howe explained, one day,
to his mother. 1T is pitiful to see her
hopelessness whenever tho SYMPTOMS