Part 1

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VOL. III.--NO. 106. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR CENTS.

Tuesday, November 8, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50 per Year, in Advance.

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THE TALKING LEAVES.[1]

An Indian Story.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

CHAPTER VI.

[1] Begun in No. 101, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

Steve Harrison rose to his feet, and looked curiously along the ledge in both directions.

It was not the first ore he had seen during his three years and more of wandering with Murray and the Lipans, but never before had he tumbled down upon anything precisely like it.

"Mine," he said to himself, aloud--"mine! But what can I do with it?"

"Do with it? What can you do with it?"

Murray was still kneeling upon the precious quartz, and fingering spot after spot where the yellow metal showed itself, and the strange fire in his eyes was deeper than ever.

"Steve!"

"What, Murray?"

"I thought it was all gone, but it isn't."

"Thought what was all gone?"

"The gold fever. I used to have it when I was younger. It isn't a love of money; it's just a love of digging up gold."

"Can you feel it now?"

"Dreadfully. It burns all over me every time I touch one of those nuggets."

"Let it burn, then."

"Why? What's the good of it?"

"Maybe it'll get strong enough to keep you from wasting the rest of your days among the Lipans."

"Among the Lipans? You don't know, Steve. Didn't I tell you what keeps me? No, I don't think I did--not all of it. You're only a boy, Steve."

"You're a wonderfully strong man for your age."

"My age? How old do you think I am?"

"I never guessed. Maybe you're not much over sixty."

"Sixty!"--he said that with a sort of low laugh. "Why, my dear boy, I'm hardly turned of forty-five, white hair and all. The white came to my hair the day I spent in hunting among the ruins the Apaches left behind them for my wife and my little girl."

"Only forty-five! Why, Murray, you're young yet. And you know all about mines."

"And all about Indians too. Come on, Steve; we must look a little further before we set out for the camp."

Steve would willingly have staid to look at all that useless ledge of gold ore, but his friend was on his feet again, now resolutely turning his wrinkled face away from it all, and there was nothing to be gained by mere gazing. A gold mine can not be worked by a person's eyes, even if they are as good and bright a pair as were those of Steve Harrison.

Before them lay the broken level of the table-land, and it was clearer and clearer, as they walked on, that it was not at all a desert.

It was greater in extent, too, than appeared at first sight, and it was not long before their march brought them to quite a grove of trees.

"Oak and maple, I declare," said Murray. "I'd hardly have thought of finding them here. There's good grass too, beyond, and running water."

"Hullo, Murray, what's that? Look! Are they houses?"

"Steve! Steve!"

It was no wonder at all that they both broke into a clean run, and that they did not halt again until they stood in the edge of a second grove not far from the margin of the full-banked stream of water which wound down from the mountains and ran across the plateau.

Trees, groves, grass in all directions, and a herd of deer were feeding at no great distance, but it was not at any of these that the two "pale-faced Lipans" were gazing.

"Houses, Murray!--houses!"

"They were houses once, Steve. Good ones, too. I've heard of such before. These are not like what I've seen in Mexico."

"They're all in ruins. Some one has started a settlement here and had to give it up. Maybe they came to work my mine."

It was less than half an hour since he had stumbled over it, and yet Steve was already thinking of that ledge as "my mine." It does not take us a great while to acquire a feeling of ownership for anything we take a great liking to.

"Settlement?--work your mine?" exclaimed Murray. "Why, Steve, the people that built those houses were all dead and gone before even the Apaches came here. Nobody knows who they were. Not even the wisest men in the world."

That was a great relief to Steve, for if they had been forgotten so completely as that, they were sure not to interfere with him and his mine.

The two friends walked forward again until they stood in the shadow of the nearest ruin.

It must have been a pretty large building before its walls began to topple over with age and decay. Some parts that were yet standing were three stories high, and all was built of rudely shaped and roughly fitted stone. There was no mortar to be seen anywhere. If there had ever been any, it was all washed away.

"There must have been quite a town here once," said Murray, "up and down both banks of the run of water. It was a good place for one. It looks as if there was plenty of good land beyond, and there's a great bend in the line of the mountains."

"I wish I knew where it led to. I'd follow it."

"What for?"

"It might give me a chance to get away."

"It might, and then again it might not. There's a gap that seems to open off there to the west, but then it won't do."

"Why won't it do? Couldn't I try it?"

"Try it? Yes; but you won't. I must look out for you, Steve. You're more of a boy than I thought for."

"I'm man enough, Murray. I dare try anything."

"That's boy, Steve. Stop a minute. Have you any horse to carry you across country?"

Steve looked down at the nearest pile of ruined masonry with a saddening face.

"You have no horse, no blanket, no provisions, no supply of ammunition except what you brought along for to-day's hunt. Why, Steve, I'm ashamed of you. There isn't a young Lipan brave in the whole band that would set off in such a fashion as that--sure to make a failure. You ought to have learned something from the Indians, it seems to me."

Steve blushed scarlet as he listened, for he had been ready the moment before to have shouldered his rifle and set off at once toward that vague and unknown western "gap." It must be that the glimpse he had taken of that golden ledge had stirred up all the "boy" in him.

"I guess I wouldn't have gone far," he said, "before I'd have run clean out of cartridges. I've less than two dozen with me."

"When you do start, my boy, I'll see to it that you get a good outfit. Now let's try for one of those deer. It's a long shot. See if you can make it."

A fine buck with branching antlers, followed by two does, had been feeding in the open space beyond the ruins. The wind was brisk just then from that direction, and they had not scented the two hunters. They had slowly drawn nearer and nearer, until they were now about three hundred yards away. That is a greater distance than is at all safe shooting for any but the best marksmen, and sometimes even they will lose their game at it.

The stories so often told of "long shots" at deer and tigers and geese and other terrible wild beasts are for the greater part of the kind that are known as "fish stories," and Steve would have been glad if that buck had been a few rods nearer. He knew his rifle was a good one, however, for it was a seven-shooting repeater of the latest and best pattern, and had been selected for him by Murray himself out of a lot the Lipans had brought in, nobody knew from where.

"Steady, Steve. Think of the deer, not of the gold mine."

"I'll aim at him as if he were a gold mine," replied Steve, as he raised his rifle.

"I'll try for one of the does at the same time," said Murray.

Crack! crack! Both rifles were discharged almost at the same instant; but while the antlered buck gave a great bound, and then fell motionless upon the grass, his two pretty companions sprang away unhurt.

"I aimed too high," said Murray. "I must lower my sights a little."

"I've got him," exclaimed Steve, "gold mine and all. But he'll be a big load to carry to camp."

They found him so. They were compelled to take more than one breathing-spell before they reached the head of the ravine, and there they took a long one, right on the gold-bearing ledge.

"Splendid pair of horns he has--" began Murray, but Steve interrupted him with,

"That's it! That's the name of this mine, when I come for it."

"What's that, Steve?"

"It's the Buckhorn Mine. They always give them a name."

"That'll do as well as any. The ledge'll stay here till you come for it. Nobody around here is likely to steal it away from you. But there's more ledge than mine just now."

So there was, and Steve's countenance fell a little as he and Murray again took up their burden and began to toil under it from "stair to stair" down the rocky terraces of the grand chasm.

"We won't go any further than we can help without a horse," said Murray at last. "And there's the big-horn to carry in."

"Murray, that big-horn! Just look yonder!"

It was not far to look, and the buck they were carrying seemed to come to the ground of his own accord.

"Cougar!" exclaimed Murray.

"The biggest painter I ever saw," said Steve, "and he's getting ready to spring."

The American panther, or, as Murray called him, cougar, is not so common among the mountains as he is in some parts of the forest-covered lowlands, but the vicinity of the table-land above, with its herds of deer, might account for this one. There he was now, at all events, preparing to take possession of the game on the top of that bowlder without asking leave of anybody.

"Quick, Steve! forward while he's got his eyes on the antelope. We may get a shot at him."

Almost recklessly they darted down the caƱon, slipping swiftly along from bowlder to bowlder, but before they had covered half the distance the panther made his spring.

He made it magnificently. He had scented the blood of that antelope from far away, and he may have suspected that it was not a living one, but his instincts had forbidden him to approach it otherwise than with caution. He would not have been a cougar if he had not made a spring in seizing upon his prey.

They are nothing in the world but giant cats, after all, and they catch their game precisely as our house cats catch their mice. If anybody wants to know how even a lion or a tiger does his hunting, "puss in the corner" can teach him all about it.

"He will tear it all to pieces!"

"No he won't, Steve. We can get a bead on him from behind that rock yonder. He'll be too busy to be looking out for us for a minute or so."

That was true, and it was a bad thing for the great "cat of the mountains" that it was so, for the two hunters got within a hundred yards of him before he had done smelling of the big-horn, in which he had buried his sharp, terrible claws.

"Now, Steve, I won't miss my shot this time. See that you don't."

Steve took even too much care with his aim, and Murray fired first.

He did not miss; but a cougar is not like a deer, and it takes a good deal more to kill him.

Murray's bullet struck a vital part, and the fierce beast sprang from the bowlder with a ferocious growl of sudden pain and anger.

"I hit him. Quick, Steve!"

The panther was crouching on the gravel at the bottom of the ravine, and searching with furious eyes for the enemies who had wounded him.

The report of Steve's rifle rang through the chasm.

"I aimed at his head--"

"And you only cut off one of his ears. Here he comes. I'm ready. What a good thing a repeating rifle is!"

It was well for them, indeed, that they did not have to stop and load just then. It did not seem any time at all before the dangerous beast was crouching for another spring within twenty feet of them.

It would not do to miss this time, but neither Steve nor Murray made any remarks about it. They were too much absorbed in looking along their rifle-barrels to do any talking. Both reports came together, almost like one.

They were not followed by any spring from the cougar. Only by a growl and an angry tearing at the gravel, and then there was no danger that any more big-horns, living or dead, would ever be stolen by that panther.

"Well, Steve, if this isn't the biggest kind of sport! Never saw anything better in all my life."

"A buck, a big-horn, and a painter before sundown."

"It'll be sundown before we get them all in. We'd better start for some ponies and some help. Tell you what, Steve, I don't care much for it myself, but the Lipans would rather eat that cougar than the best venison that ever was killed."

"I suppose they would; but I ain't quite Indian enough for that, war-paint or no war-paint."

So, indeed, it proved; and To-la-go-to-de indulged in more than one sarcastic gibe at his less successful hunters over the manner in which they had been beaten by "No Tongue and the Yellow Head--an old pale-face and a boy." He even went so far as to say to Steve Harrison, "Good shot. The Yellow Head will be a chief some day. He must kill many Apaches. Ugh!"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE ROCKS.

BY CHARLES BARNARD.

Not long ago I saw some men at work in a stone quarry on Second Avenue, at the corner of Seventieth Street, New York. In this part of the city there are many empty lots not yet built upon. These vacant squares are in some places covered with great masses of rough rocks, that must be cleared away before the houses can be built. So it happens there are stone quarries right in the midst of the city. In talking to you about the sea, you may remember I told you the world is like a great picture-book. Here is one of the leaves lying wide open, where we may read a strange old story. Those of you who live in New York can go up to Seventieth Street and see it; but the men are busy tearing it down, and before you get there, there may be nothing left but a fine row of cellars or a block of houses. Many of you can not visit New York, so I carried my camera to the place, and took a photograph of the rocky wall. The engraver has made a picture from my photograph, and here you can see it. At the left you can look down Seventieth Street, and see part of the rocky hill on the next block. On top is an old shanty, a tree or two, and a tumble-down fence. Directly in front is the solid wall of stone, just as it has lain there for perhaps tens of thousands of years. In the foreground are the broken fragments of rock that have been torn down by the blasts. One of the quarry-men looked up from his work just as I set up my camera, and got nicely caught in the picture.

You must study these rocks. See how they are split into thin sheets and layers. The rocky wall is full of horizontal seams. It looks as if made of thin layers laid one over the other. The middle part of the rock, that is in the shadow of the overhanging layers, is divided into very fine layers, so close together it is hard to tell them apart, yet you can see by the broken edge against the sky that all the rocky pile is in sheets and layers one above the other.

I carried some of the small pieces home, and rubbed them together over a sheet of paper, and soon had a small heap of black and white dust. Here we have two things about these rocks. The picture shows you the rock is arranged in layers. Rubbing the pieces together showed that it was made up of fine dust that when wet would resemble mud or wet sand. These things plainly point to the water. The rock must have come from the sea.

The rain and the frost may have begun the work. The rain wet some old rocks, and the cold turned the water to ice, and the ice worked its thin fingers into every crack, and broke off millions of small pieces. The spring torrents swept this dust into the streams, and these carried it to the sea that then covered all this part of the country. Perhaps it was the surf beating on some ancient shore that ground up the rocks; but of this we can not be so sure as we may be concerning some other rocks we shall see presently. One thing is pretty plain. The loose dust or mud was swept hither and thither by the tides and currents. Very likely the moon arranged all these sheets of stone. The tides rose and fell as the moon swung round the world. Each tide carried up some of the soft glittering and silvery mud, and left it on the shore to dry in the sun. The next tide brought a little more, and laid it over the first sheet. In this way, for perhaps hundreds of years, the moon bid the sea spread carpets of mud and soft sand one over the other upon its floor. Under the shadow of the overhanging part of the rock it seems to be of quite a different kind. Something happened, and the tides and currents brought a different kind of material.

In time the soft mud became pressed together into solid rock, and was lifted above the sea. Perhaps not suddenly, but so slowly that a thousand years passed before it was all dry. Then terrible days came. The rock was bent and twisted by strains and heavings as the earth moved. None of these layers as we see them to-day are level. All are tilted up toward the northeast. Hot rocks, liquid, like melted lead, burst up and filled the cracks with new kinds of stone. The old rocks were frightfully burned, and changed so much that in looking at some of the pieces we can not be quite sure whether they came from the sea or not. For this reason they are sometimes called the changed rocks. However, much of the rock to be found in this part of the city clearly came from the sea; and perhaps the whole of it, except that which has been melted, was born in the ocean.

Afterward the pile of rocks was buried deep under solid ice, that ground and crushed over it as it moved toward the south. To-day you can see where the ice tore off great pieces, and scratched and polished the low hills into their present curious shapes.

I have chosen these rocks on Second Avenue because they tell so much. They show you how to read the great picture-book of the world. How do we know all these things happened? Because we see such things going on to-day all about us. The sea, the ice, the wind, the tides, and the rain are ever at work tearing down and building up. We can see the sea making sand and mud that will one day be solid rock and dry land. Surely these things are worth studying, and you must look about for other rocks, and try to read their story.

Everywhere in New York city, and in many other Eastern cities, you will see a rock that you may be very sure came from the sea. A smooth and beautiful stone that is like a story-book telling of old beaches where the surf beat with terrible fury in great storms, where the tides kept time with the moon, and of long summer days when the sea was smooth, and gentle waves fell on the white sand glistening in the sun. This is the brown stone used in building houses. It is a real sandstone.

Upon the beach you saw the sand arranged in wavy lines and curves by the water. Each creamy wave that ran up the beach left a trace showing just how far it went. The smaller and lighter particles of sand swept along by the water were dropped just at the place where the water stopped for an instant before it turned back. As the wave retreated, you remember the larger grains of sand were to be seen sorted out along the lower edge of the beach.

Look at these blocks of sandstone. Here are the same markings. Look carefully and you will soon find a piece where the sand is arranged in horizontal layers just as the water left it. Perhaps you can count a hundred layers in a single piece of stone. Some will be thick, and full of large grains of sand. There must have been a high tide that day, or perhaps there was a bad storm. Some of them will be thin, and of about the same thickness for several inches. It must have been pleasant weather then, when the sea was smooth, and each tide brought up about as much sand one day as another.

The masons in getting out the stone from the quarry cut across the layers in every direction, so that these marks are not everywhere equally plain. Yet with a little search you can soon find a perfect picture of that old, old beach. Each piece bears the finger-marks of the sea, the tracings of the moon and tides, the very handwriting of the waves. Afterward the white sand was stained with iron rust. The water bearing the iron left it mixed with the sand, and when it became dry, and was lifted above the water, the iron bound all the sand firmly together into this beautiful red sandstone, this story-book of the sea.

THE PRINCESS SUNNYLOCKS AND THE RUNAWAY SUNBEAM.

BY LILLIE E. BARR.

One day a Sunbeam determined to run away from all his merry brothers and sisters, and go upon an excursion by himself.

And as his mamma, the Moon, was off on a visit to the other side of the earth, and his papa, the Sun, was busy flirting with all the brooks and flowers he could find, instead of minding the little Sunbeams, as he had been told to do by the Lady Moon, he thought it a capital time.

So making use of the limbs of an old elm-tree to hide him from his papa's view, he slipped through the dancing leaves, and stopped just one minute on the outside of a gray old palace to consider what he should do with himself.

"Oh, you darling Sunbeam!" called a sweet voice from a little latticed window, "how ever did you get there? You are the first sunbeam that ever managed to slip through that old elm's leaves. Do come in and play with me."

"With all my heart," answered the Sunbeam, gliding through the open casement right down beside the loveliest little girl; and before she could say a word he had played at hide-and-seek among her golden curls, peeped into her bright blue eyes, and kissed her rosy lips a dozen times.

The little girl did not get angry; she just laughed, and said, "Oh, you dear Sunbeam!" And then she added, sadly, "No one kisses me, now that my mamma has gone away."

"Where did she go to?" asked the merry Sunbeam.

"Ah! that is what I do not know. But come, and I will show you her picture;" and as she spoke the Princess let the Sunbeam into a room where hung the portrait of a lovely lady, whose rosy lips looked as though they would say, "My darling child," and whose white hands seemed as though they would lift the Princess up and fold her to her breast.

"See, this is my mamma," she cried. "She used to call me Princess Sunnylocks, but no one calls me that now; for since the other Queen came in her place I have been so lonely and so sad. Ah! if I only knew where my mamma was gone, I would go and find her out; for I am sure she wants her little Sunnylocks. _Oh, I must go to her!_ Dear Sunbeam, tell me where you think she has gone."

The Sunbeam glided first upon the rich gilt frame, and then he kissed the small white hands, and then he kissed the lovely face all over, and as he came back to the Princess, said, "She is just like you; and she is so beautiful that she must have gone to Fairy-Land."

"Gone to Fairy-Land," cried the little Princess. "Why, if she has gone there, so will I; I too will go to Fairy-Land." And catching up her cloak and hood, she fled as fast as her feet could carry her, away from the gray old palace, and out into the forest that bounded her father's kingdom.

All day she travelled gayly on, as happy as the birds who brought her berries, or the squirrels who brought her nuts; and just as evening fell, she found a lovely spot where seven oaks grew, and underneath their shadow was a fairy ring, as soft as velvet and as fresh and green as could be. Here she determined to pass the night; so, commending herself to the care of the good God, she lay down in the centre of the ring and fell fast asleep.

The next morning when she opened her bright blue eyes she had to shut them quickly; for there was the runaway Sunbeam laughing right down into her pretty face from among the branches of the largest oak.

"Oh, I am so glad you have come, you dear, dear Sunbeam," she cried, "for I am sure you know the way to Fairy-Land."