It was a little unpleasant for a day or two waiting for death to come to his relief, for he seemed to die hard, but at last the unearthly midnight yowl was still. The plaintive little voice ceased to vibrate on the still and pulseless air. Later, we found, however, that he was not dead. In a lucid interval he had discovered the hole in the store-room where he entered, and, as we found afterward a gallon of coal-oil spilled in a barrel of cut loaf-sugar, we concluded that he had escaped by that route. That was the only time that I ever kept a cat, and I didn't do it then because I was suffering for something to fondle. I've got a good deal of surplus affection, I know, but I don't have to spread it out over a stump-tail orphan cat. AUTUMN THOUGHTS. |IN the Rocky mountains now the eternal whiteness is stealing down toward the foot-hills and the brown mantle of October hangs softly on the swelling divide, while along the winding streams, cottonwood and willow are turned to gold, and the deep green of the solemn pines lies farther back against the soft blue of the autumn sky. The sigh of the approaching storm is heard at eventide, and the hostile Indian comes into the reservation to get some arnica for his chilblain, and to heal up the old feeling of intolerance on the part, of the pale face. He leaves the glorious picture of mountain and glen; the wide sweep of magnificent nature, where a thousand gorgeous dyes are spread over the remains of the dead summer, and folding his tepee, he steals into the home of the white man that he may be once more at peace with the world. The hectic of the dying year saddens and depresses him, for is it not an emblem to him of the death of his race? Is it not to him an assurance that in the golden ultimately, the red man will be sought for on the face of the earth and he will not be able to represent. He will not be there either in person or by proxy. Here and there may be found the little silent mounds with some glass beads and teeth in them, but the silent warrior with the Roman nose will not be there. [Illustration: 0051] The Indian agent will have a large, conservative cemetery on his hands, and the brave warrior will be marching single file through the corridors of the hence. At this moment he does not look romantic. Clothed in a coffee sack and a little brief authority, he would not make a good vignette on a $5 bill. His wife, too, looks careworn, and the old glad light is not in her eye. Pier gunny-sack dolman is not what it once was, and her beautifully arched foot has spread out over the reservation more than it used to. Her step has lost its old elasticity, and so have her suspenders.