Year: 1878




Years and years ago weI-born voana
Frenchman left his own country and
lived in pioneer fashion on the western
frontier Of the United States, in a small
settlement called Fort Dearborn. He
traded with the Indians, lived maritally
with a squaw, and saw spring up about
him family of yelloW-cOmplexiOned
children. The eldest, a bright, hand.
some boy, was separated in infancy from
his savage mother, and sent to France,
where he was received by his father1E
family, and educated 10 all the manners
and ideas of a wealthy Partisan. He
lived abroad till he grew to manhood,
and was as highly educated and wonted
to as dainty refnements of life as had
he been a prince of the reigning house.


At tWenty-one he returned to Fort
Dearborn, then no longer known by its
original name, where he became the
leading lion and the most perfect gentle
man Of the rapidly increasing eOmmu-
nity. His clothes were always ordered
from Paris; his horses and carriages
were the most costly and elegant the
state had ever seen; his manners and
bis dark beauty were the alteration Of
the bellies and the envy Of the beaux,
through all the wide country for which
the former had Just become the metrop-
oils. He was cOurted by all who wished
to draw about them the mystic circle
called society, for the Indian trading
father had gained vast fortune, and
the savage mother dying had ceased to
live in peoples memory.


Finally, this dark young Beau Brum-
mel married one of the bellies Of the
Young city, and although still weaving
Partisan clothes, and still driving high
stepping steeds and drinking rare for
eign wines as other people drank water,
seemed TO settle into quite a domestic
and proper young husband. A daughter
was born to him, upon whom he lavished
unlimited love, and for whom h0
dreamed the most ambitious dreams.


Yet it was noticed that with every
returning spring-time the young hu5s
Dand and father became strangely reck-
less and abstracted. He took for weeks
no interest in his usual pursuits, and
absented himself for days and nights
from his family. It was known that
he spent these days and nights some
where away from the town, although it
was not known till long afteTWard, that
he spent them in aimless moody roam
ings over the open prairie.


For four or five years this inexplicable
moodiness possessed him. He accounted
for it to nobody, and became enraged If
questioned concerning it. Then one
spring day when the prairie stretched
away into a sea of golden mystery and
hither and thither were almost one, he
disappeared entirely, leaving his young
wife, and his many friends tOrmented
with the strangeness of his taking OF.
He remained always a year. Then ne
returned, came again to his family, and
friends as if he had not left them for a
day, gave no explanation of his conduct,
and for another year, until after spring
time, lived as sober and commonplace
life as any young Benedict IN the town,
But with the spring came the same dis
appearance, with a return two years
later. This time he remained with his
family only few weeks, and the strange
restlessness and mOodiness never LETT
him while he remained.


After his next disappearance he never
returned, and nothing was heard Of him
for wears. Then, after many years,
during which his wife had obtained
divorce and married a prominent busis
ness man of the city, he was heard
of from far beyond the western
rivers, living with his mothers tribe, q
nomadie savage life, and in blanket,
feathers and war paint, declaring him.
self happier than he had ever been In
Partisan broadcloth and gloves Of the
most exquisite fit, The daughter took
her stepfather's name, and, grown to
womanhood, married, and then divorced
a husband, whose name is so common
in that western city, that 1t might be
like Smith, Jones, or Brown without
affecting its dignity In the least.


Some wears ago, certain tribes Of west
eFn Indians sent a deputation to urge
their wrongs upon the Great Father at
WasbinCton. Their leader and spokeS-
man was chosen because of his superior
and commanding intelligence, and BE-
cause O his perfect command OF the
| language in which the Great Father
| clothes his ideal. This Indian leader,
/ who had been educated in France,
passed through the western town, now
/ crown to be a famous and populOUs city,
/ and during his stay herein, sought out
/ his daughter. She refused to see him,
and it is said for better reason than
anger for his desertiOn of her mother,
whom, by the way, he had left with an
/ his fortune. For every spring, when the
warm earth is pierced through and
/ through with sharp young blades OF
freshest grass, and the golden mlss
| sweep low like dreams upon the VIDE
prairies, she, too, is possessed OF strange
unrest, a yearning, and pain, that she
would die rather than confess. Then
she struggles with the awakened nature
within her, and would fee her father as
she would fee a pestilence, lest she toi-
| soW him,