An Indian girl, free as her native forests, made friends with the race that, all unnecessarily, became hostile to her own. Brighter, perhaps, than most of the girls of her tribe, she recognized and desired to avail herself of the refinements of civilization, and so gave up her barbaric surroundings, cast in her lot with the white race, and sought to make peace and friendship between neighbors take the place of quarrel and of war.

The white race has nothing to be proud of in its conquest of the people who once owned and oc

cupied the vast area of the North American continent. The story is neither an agreeable nor a pleasant one. But out of the gloom which surrounds it there come some figures that relieve the darkness, the treachery, and the crime that make it so sad; and not the least impressive of these is this bright and gentle little daughter of Wa-bun-so-nacook, chief of the Pow-ha-tans, Ma-ta-oka, friend of the white strangers, whom we of this later day know by the nickname her loving old father gave her-Po-ca-hun-tas, the Algonquin.

A BATTLE-SCENE witnessed by me some years ago on my plantation in Middle Georgia reminded me with some emphasis of the following verses from "Hudibras ":

"The ancients make two several kinds
Of prowess in heroic minds;
The active and the passive valiant:
Both which are pari libra gallant:

For both to give blows and to carry
In fights are equi-necessary."

It was in one of my fields near the horse-lot fence, a few rods above the place where the level ground joins the steep bank of the gorge made by the waters from the spring.

The difficulty, and to an outsider the fun, in this battle grew out of the fact that neither of the belligerents before, during, or after the engagement, understood the other's method of warfare; and this ignorance worked to the disadvantage of the more powerful and pugnacious.

When the goat fights, he rears himself upon his hind legs and makes descending blows with head and horns. The sheep, on the contrary, takes a

running start, and, rushing upon his adversary, gives him one butt; then, after retreating several rods, returns for another.

I was walking in meditative mood through the horse lot, when I heard the sound of a dull, heavy blow that was succeeded immediately by a loud, defiant cry. I can not say which began the fight; but I believe that it was Old Billy, the goat, and that he did it by trespassing too far upon Buck's territory in that strip near the fence whither, the pea-vines and crab-grass being specially fruitladen, the sheep had repaired. Buck, the ram, was of a peaceable nature, though he would fight, and fight his very best, on occasion; whereas Old Billy had always been meddlesome and aggressive, even before he was the head of the goats.

Thus diverted from my meditation, I turned and walked to the fence. I noticed Old Billy shaking his big beard, and laughing scornfully - it sounded precisely like a man's laugh — at Buck, as the latter with rapid steps was running away from him.

"You found Old Billy too much for you, eh, Buck? I am not surprised."

I said these words to Buck; but Buck made no answer, nor did he, so far as I heard, open his mouth once during the whole engagement. Already the two flocks, which had been intermingled, seemed to think it prudent to separate,- the sheep moving towards the upper, and the goats the lower portion of the field. Old Billy, after his laugh, turned away in the manner of one in search of a foe worthy of his prowess.

But now, lo, and behold!

After retreating about thirty paces, Buck wheeled and came furiously back. Old Billy heard his galloping feet, but the onset was so swift that, before he could turn himself, Buck had given him a big bump upon his loin. Stumbling about for a second or so, then quickly recovering his poise, Billy reared aloft, twisted his neck and head in a most wrathful, threatening manner, and there was only one thing in the world to save Buck from a

blow of mighty magnitude, and that was - he was not there. Having put in his stroke in the manner of his kind, Buck had again retreated, and by the time Old Billy was ready for him, was far beyond reach.

I do not understand goat-language, nor can Old Billy speak English; but if I should interpret his remarks as they sounded to me, they would be highly derogatory to Buck. He appeared as if saying:

"You mean, cowardly sheep!"

He turned again, and was moving away, majestic, slow, when the first thing he knew - Bim! Oh, how wrathful he looked as he recovered VOL. XV.-3.

Brave as Julius Cæsar was Billy, as he had shown himself often, not only among his own kind, but against other assailants, quadruped and biped; and if he could have gotten in his blows on Buck, the latter might have been put where he would not have known what had hit him. As it was, however, Old Billy never knew, until too late, what had hit him.

The unequal combat continued. The oftener Old Billy was knocked over, and subsequently viewed Buck retreating, the hotter became his wrath, the profounder his disgust, and the more abusive his language. I would be ashamed to repeat all the names he seemed to be calling Buck,

How long the combat might have been protracted, if the field had been fairer, there is no telling. But after many rounds- perhaps I should rather say straights - Old Billy reached the edge of the gorge, and was working his way around it. Not less, not more surprised than before, but now evidently delighted, was he to see Buck rushing for another charge.

"A-ha! A-ha! I have you at last!" his cry seemed to be.

Then he towered high, inclined his mighty forehead, clothed his neck with thunder, and when the foe was within reach, the awful blow descended. But, alas! its force was expended in a harmless slant on the shoulder of Buck, whose head, like a catapult, struck full upon Billy's breast, and tumbled him backward over the precipice - heels over head, head over heels! But for the briers and thorn-bushes that grew upon the side of the declivity, and the most vigorous employment of the claws on the bottom of his feet, the old goat must have been precipitated into the ravine below.

been cleared by the flight of his enemy, he turned and proceeded to rejoin his flock.

Meanwhile Old Billy had scrambled back to the level, his face sadly soiled, and his beard badly draggled. The combat had reached a crisis wherein it was evident that to save himself from signal defeat, his powers must be exerted to their uttermost. Embarrassed by the temporary obstruction to his vision, he shook his head with great violence, and wiped his face with his fore legs. These brief preliminaries concluded, his hind legs were drawn almost off the ground, as he reared himself for action.