INDIAN WHY STORIES

THE great Northwest--that wonderful fron- tier that called to itself a world's hardiest spirits--is rapidly becoming a settled country; and before the light of civilizing influences, the blanket-Indian has trailed the buffalo over the divide that time has set between the pioneer and the crowd. With his passing we have lost much of the aboriginal folk-lore, rich in its fairy-like characters, and its relation to the lives of a most warlike people. There is a wide difference between folk-lore of the so-called Old World and that of America. Transmitted orally through countless genera- tions, the folk-stories of our ancestors show many evidences of distortion and of change in material particulars; but the Indian seems to have been too fond of nature and too proud of tradition to have forgotten or changed the teachings of his forefathers.