States Government should have abandoned the rain-making experiments. The
facts related in this very brief account are respectfully submitted to
the consideration of the Department of Agriculture.

WITHIN ONE LIFE'S SPAN

A river flows through green prairies into a vast blue lake. There are
log houses along the banks, and near the lake a more pretentious
structure, also built of logs. Quaint as an old Dutch mill, with its
overhanging second story, this fort of rude type answers its purpose
well, for only Indians are likely to assail it, and Indians bring no
artillery.

A summer morning comes, an August morning in the year 1812. There is
war, and there have been disgraces and defeats and wavering counsels. To
the soldiers in the fort has been given the advice of a weakling in
peril, and it has had unhappy weight. About the fort are gathering a
host of Indians, dark Pottowatomies, treacherous and sullen. Yet the
fort is to be abandoned. The scanty garrison will venture forth with its
women and its children.

To the south, along the lake, are reaches of yellow sand and a mile or
more away are trees and scanty shrubbery. From the fort file slowly out
the soldiers with their baggage-wagons, in which the weaker are
bestowed. Among the young is a boy of eight--a waif, the orphan of a
hunter. Forest-bred, he is alert and in some things older than his
years. He is old enough to have a sense of danger. From his covert in
the wagon he watches all intently.

The few musicians play a funeral march, and the procession moves
apprehensively, though it moves steadily, for there are brave men in the
ranks, men who will not flinch, though they rage at the evil folly to
which they have been driven. They do not doubt the issue, though they
face it. They have not long to wait. The bushes which fringe the rising
ground do not conceal the shifting enemy. The marching column huddles.
There are sharp commands and the reports of muskets. The Indians are
attacking. The massacre has begun!

Hampered, unsheltered, outnumbered by a vengeful host, the whites must
die. The men die fighting, as men in such straits should. The Indians
are close upon the women and children in the wagon. Into one of them,
that which contains the hunter's child, leaps a savage, in whose beady
eyes are all cruelty and ferocity. His tomahawk sinks into the brain of
the nearest helpless one, and at the same instant, swift as an otter
gliding into water, the boy i