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DEADMAN’S ISLAND

"I have prowled the length and depth of it,” I told him. “Climbed over every rock on its shores, crept under every tangled growth of its interior, explored its overgrown trails, and more than once nearly got lost in its very heart.”

“Yes,” he half laughed, “it pretty wild; not much good for anything.”

“People seem to think it valuable,” I said. “There isa lot of litigation—of fighting going on now about it.”

“Oh! that the way always,” be said as though speaking of a long accepted fact. “Al- ways fight over that place. Hundreds of years ago they fight about it; Indian people; they say hundreds of years to come everybody will still fight—never be settled what that place is, who it belong to, who has right to it. No, never settle. Deadman's Island always mean fight for someone.”

“So the Indians fought amongst themselves about it?” I remarked, seemingly without guile, although my ears tingled for the legend I knew was coming.

“Fought like lynx at close quarters,” he answered. “Fought, killed each other, until the island ran with blood redder than that sunset, and the sea water about it was stained flame color—it was then, my people say, that

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