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308 , TO THE west! don't forget, at the old Kansas City of the Twenty fonr, water flowed past which came from hundreds of thousands of square miles of land; the snow of the Rocky Mountains melts and runs past this point, and <H»ly those who have viewed the Old Muddy stream ran oonceive its maenitude. How beautiful are these linei>: 'To the West, to the West, to the Land of the Free, Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; Where a man is a man if he is willing to toil, And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil." Is it not a fact that people who are located on the sea-coast invariably become proficient saUors? And so with these children of the prairies, who Uved on a mighty water course; they were compelled to protect themselves from their enemies by cultivating the art of managing canoes. It is authoritatively stated that the Sionz Indians were expert canoeists, and so it ■warn absolutely necessary for the denizens of the City of ih» Twenty-four to be prepared to counteract the ri'TBT-marauding parties of the Sioux. But you are becoming impatient to hear from the characters of our story. WeU, first, Ysopete has reached home, after being absent several years, and worse than anything else to an Indian, he had been a slave, but thanks to the magnanimity of the Spaniards he was now a free man. ' And poor Alonso! He is stiU in the bondage of the mind, which is very much more straining upon the nervous system than is physical slavery. She is ever uppermost in his thoughts. He is to be pitied, for without doubt when a man becomes so far gone