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but they do not reflect that poverty and want of money obscured the light of reason and humanity, and filled the land with gloom and despair. A nation without money is dependent like a tramp, and meek and cowardly like a starving beggar.

Amid all the gloom of the Dark Ages how quickly light dawned when a new world of rich mines of gold and silver was discovered! The nature of man seemed changed in the twinkling of an eye, and the proud spirit of the ancient Romans was again seen and made manifest in every part of Europe. It was poverty and want which made Europeans slaves. It was the gold and silver that the New World furnished the Old which made Europeans and Americans free men. Money famine and slavery are always twin sisters in misery. Freedom and an abundant supply of money always go hand in hand in prosperity. In each case the two are inseparable.

Restore the money of the Constitution by opening the mints to the unrestricted coinage of the two metals, and prosperity will come with the increased supply of money as surely as adversity has already come by the shrinking supply of money produced by the crime of 1873. In the contest between gold monopoly and the money of the Constitution the consolidated banks of the commercial world, with the bondholders and money changers, will fight for the gold standard. Time-servers, cringing politicians, trembling debtors, office-holders with fixed incomes, and fawning hypocrites and sycophants of every name and nature, will rally under the banner of gold monopoly. The opposing ranks will include every honest, independent, liberty-loving citizen of the United States. The con

test will be between the producers of wealth on the one side, and the absorbers of wealth on the other. Cunning has been victorious thus far only because the American people believed it was impossible that they had been betrayed by their trusted leaders until the object-lesson of universal distress was brought home to every household in the land. They now know and appreciate the truth that the men they placed in power have surrendered the government of the United States to an alien gold trust. They will resent such treachery and demand that the dodgers and skulkers of all parties shall throw off the mask and do battle in the open field for the people against the gold trust, or for the gold trust against the people.

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No class of men will be so much despised in the coming contest as the straddlers and dodgers who have been playing the game of good-Lord-good-devil for their own dishonest and selfish purposes. The army of go-betweens will be held in the same contempt as the compromisers and skulkers were from 1860 to 1865. those days no man who tried to be on both sides of the contest was trusted by either. Each suspected him and expelled him from camp. It will be so in the coming contest with the pretended bimetalists who talk for silver and vote to put gold men in power. The earnest friends of Constitutional money have looked forward to the day when the creatures of an alien gold trust would be compelled to separate themselves from the honest mass of wealth-producers. The people are at last moving for liberty and independence, and they will secure both in spite of the power of money, patronage, and the combination of the two old parties to do the bidding of an alien gold trust.

William M. Stewart.

“YAT.”

A DIGGER INDIAN STORY OF THE CALIFORNIAN FOOTHILLS.

I.

THIS is not my story; it is the story of

the older inhabitants of Pleasant Valley, told as they tell it when you have made them understand that you really want to hear something of the Digger Indians at least something of that tribe which has from "the beginning" dwelt in this little valley of the Sierra Nevada. It is not told in the language of the narrators, for they are ordinary, sensible farmer folk, and they have no particular dialect, unless a trifling superabundance of ungrammatical phrase can be called a "dialect." This latter cannot be better shown than in their reply to your question,—

"Don't know nothin' about them Diggers, except that you can smell 'em three miles off." Which is the truth, as every one knows.

The Pleasant Valley tribe- or the Pleasant Valleys, as they are calleddwells today on a little knoll back in the heavy timber, hidden from view from the road which winds through the valley and leads up to the rich Nevada County mines. But long years ago they had their camp and indeed, they moved but recently-on a high knoll which overlooked the lower portion of Pleasant Valley. The hill Digger invariably sets his lodge upon an eminence of some kind, if it is possible. He was trained to it in his youth, when the tribes were powerful and an overlooking position was a necessity, and an Indian is slow to forget. It was here, on the high craggy

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His name was not Yat. "Yat" was what the white people called him. His real name was spelled differently, but it sounded something like Yat, and so it became Yat.

Yat was twenty-three then, a strong, straight, supple young man, with a well-featured, pleasant face. He was an orphan. His mother had died when he was yet a little papoose, and his father had become involved in a row with some white men over a mining claim on the Yuba, and had been shot for his temerity. An old squaw, who was some sort of relative, took him in then and he grew up under her care until she died and they cremated her with wierd and solemn ceremony.

Yat was the champion of the tribe, and as such was, of course, loved and disliked. Loved by the squaws, the older men, Chief Pamblo, and some of the young bucks; disliked by the would-be athletes who were always defeated in contests with him. But Yat himself had no enmities; he smiled at those who praised him, and laughed at those who sneered at him. He loved them all, he said, but he did not say that there was one whom he loved more than all the others. The name of this one was not

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Maria," but so she was called. She belonged to a different camp from Yat's the Penn Valley tribe, who dwelt a few miles away over the hills. She was of slight figure, graceful in a certain Indian way, but not very pretty. Her hair was straight, and fell in a tangled mass about her shoulders; her nose was flat, her mouth wide, and her eyebrows heavy and black. But the dark, quick eyes and the mocking smile that always lurked around her mouth made the face attractive.

Yat loved it and hoped sometime to see it smiling at him in his own house. But there was another who loved that face, and as he belonged to the girl's own. tribe, he had more opportunity to woo her. This young man's name was George, and he was the son of a subchief. More than that, he was quite an athlete himself and had won some distinction in competitive sports with other tribes. So when the third day of the big fandango came and it was announced that Yat and George would run a race, there was much speculation as to who would win. The Pleasant Valleys, even to the last of those jealous of Yat's prowess, stood up for their champion, and the Penn Valleys did the same in regard to George. So there were many bets up and good prizes had been offered for the

winner.

But there was one prize which only. three persons knew anything about. The two rivals did not forget this when they stripped for the race and passed around so they could walk out by Maria. She sat at the lower end of the course where she could see the winner as he came over the line. Her gala dress, a bright new calico, showed off her native charms to the best and her eyes were dancing. She tossed her shiny black hair back from her face every little while and beat her foot restlessly. She

was the third person who knew of that prize. prize. As Yat passed her she leaned towards him and whispered, "Win, Yat."

He smiled proudly and walked on up the course with confident bearing. Just behind him came George, and as he went by she whispered to him also, and although she said but one little word his heart beat high with hope; for that word was also, "Win.”

They stood braced for the signal to go. From where Maria was they appeared as two specks. Suddenly the specks moved, and soon became two men running in an easy trot. The wind floated their black hair back from their faces and the sun shone on their bare shoulders. Steadily and slowly they came, their bent arms held closely to their sides and their bodies bending forward. Then their speed began to increase and their positions to change. Suddenly one of the spectators, a Penn Valley Indian, yelled; the racers were on the home stretch, and George was slightly ahead. Then a Pleasant Valley Indian shouted something and cheered; Yat had drawn up even with George. Now came the tug, and great was the excitement. The heavy lines. on each side of the course surged to and fro, the Indians yelling savagely. Slowly George began to draw ahead. His face was set and his every muscle was strained. Just before him was the line and Maria- and he was straining every nerve to reach them ahead of his rival. So near were they coming that she could see the set look on their faces, the muscle-shadows on their bodies, and hear the swiftly increasing "plut-a-plut” of their feet in the soft dust. The Penn Valleys yelled like demons now, and the Pleasant Valleys became silent. But not for long. Suddenly the latter burst into a very roar of cheers, for Yat, their own Yat, gathering himself to one mighty

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water was very cold. But the race had been a long one, the sun had been warm, and Yat was in a bath of perspiration. The thought of those pools was pleasant. Behind him he heard the shouts of his people, and as he reached the willows that grew by the creek he turned his head and looked back. George was sitting down at one side, a few of his camp around him. Maria was standing where she had been throughout the race, and seeing him looking back, she waved her hand. He waved in return and was hidden from view by the heavy copse of green willows.

A few minutes later two of Yat's friends came down to congratulate him. They found him crouching in a shallow part of the pool, his head held out of the water by one long arm which grasped a willow branch. He had plunged into the ice-cold water and the result had been a cramp. He was pulled out and all the medicine men were consulted. It was useless. One of Yat's legs was bent tight under him and nothing could break the grip of those iron muscles. They wanted to carry him up to the camp, but Yat would not allow it. That he, the champion of the tribe, should be forced to sit like an old squaw was terrible. He was stung suddenly with the thought of his fallen prowess and he wanted to be left alone. So the young men cut some green boughs and made a roof over him where he sat by the side of the little creek.

All the rest of that afternoon he sat there like a block of wood and gazed stolidly straight in front of him. His view included only a green strip of the valley and a wedge of the hills, but a thousand memories came to him as he gazed. Over there on that sharp point he had killed a mountain cat when he was a little boy; just below, on a little flat where there was a spring, he had

He

slain his first deer, and down in the valley, in a bend of the road, he had first seen Maria. Where was Maria now? Why had she not come to see him? had been expecting her all day but she had not come. Almost every one else had come around to stab him with their wondering or worse, pitying - looks, but not Maria.

Toward evening they brought him food, but he did not taste it, and answered nothing to their questions. He slept none that night, but sat there moveless as a stone until the east flushed and the sunlight filtered in through the pine boughs above him. In the forenoon the medicine men consulted again, but could do nothing; and in the afternoon Maria came. Yat was looking steadily out at the hills when Maria suddenly appeared upon the threshold. Yat's heart bounded and he stretched out his long arms impulsively. "O Maria, Maria !" he said.

But Maria said nothing. Her face was in the shadow, but Yat felt the coldness. His arms dropped slowly and his eyes fell. Then Maria began to laugh mocking, heartless laugh.

said.

a

"The

She came in

"How like And would n't

"The great Yat!" she strong, the mighty Yat!" side and approached him. an old woman you look. you make a fine husband ?” "But I won you," said Yat sullenly. Maria laughed. "Won me? No. It was the strong, stalwart Yat who won me; not the old-woman Yat. Yat the champion is dead. Do you think I would marry you? It would be nice, would n't it? I could gather acorns and kill the game and slave myself to death. And you could sit here and keep the blue-jays away. Maybe you could pound up the acorns. Do you think you could ?"

Yat answered nothing. A fierce fire was raging in his heart. He saw it all He saw how cruel, how heartless,

now.

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