kees, certainly entitles him to great consideration and to rank with the benefactors of men.

His name is Guess and he is a

native and unlettered Cherokee; but, like Cadmus, he has given to his people the alphabet of their language."

IX. JOHN JAYBIRD, THE INDIAN RELIC-MAKER, AND THE CITY DUDE.

A remnant of the Cherokees remained in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, after the most of the tribe removed to Indian Territory. Among these was a young man named John Jaybird, known among both whites and Indians as "the Indian relic-maker." His chief employment is carving the images of men and animals in a kind of soft stone found near the Little Tennessee River, of western North Carolina. With no other implement than a pocket-knife he can carve an exact image of any animal he has ever seen, or of which he has ever seen a picture. For these curiosities, or "Indian relics," as he calls them, he finds a profitable sale among the whites. He lived on the banks of the Little Tennessee River, and when not carving was fishing.

E. E. White, the special Indian agent, tells the following amusing story in which this young Cherokee figured. He said:

"A dude came out from the city to visit Mr. Siler, a prominent young lawyer of Charleston, North Carolina. He professed to be fond of fishing, and from the first manifested great impatience to embark in that delightful pastime. He was very loud, and so extremely blustering and energetic that Mr. Siler's village friends stood off and looked on in amazement, and sometimes in great amusement also. But Mr. Siler was courteous and obliging and not disposed to be critical. Nevertheless it was whispered about among his home friends that at heart he would be glad enough to get the dude off in the woods out of sight. At all events, he said. the dude should fish as much as he wished.

"Equipped with bait and tackle they betook themselves to the river. To the dude's evident astonishment the fish refused to

come out on the bank and suffer him to kill them with a club, and he shifted about too much to give them a chance at his hook. He could always see a better place somewhere else. He soon began to manifest disappointment in the fish and disgust for the country, and intimated that the people were shamefully deficient in enterprise and style, and in no respect what they should be. Rambling on down the river, the dude leading and Siler following-they came in sight of Jaybird, who was also fishing. Sitting motionless on a rock, with his gaze fixed on the cork on his line, he seemed the counterpart of "the lone fisherman.'

"By Jove! Yonder's an Indian," said the dude; "let's make him get away and let us have that place." "Oh, no,' replied Siler; "that's John Jaybird, one of the best fellows in the world. Let's not bother him."

Mr. Siler and Jaybird were close friends. "No," said the dude; "that's the most decent place I've seen, and I intend to have it; I do, by Jove!"

"Oh, no; don't do that," Siler pleaded; "he wouldn't disturb us. Besides, if we try to make him go, he's liable to get stubborn, and we had better not have any trouble with him. Wait and I'll ask him to let you have the place; may be he'll do it."

"Oh, get out," the dude ejaculated; "what's the use of so much politeness with a lazy, sleepy-looking Indian? Watch me wake him up and make him trot. By Jove, watch me!"

Swelling himself up to the highest tension, he strode up to Jaybird, who was still unaware of their approach. Slapping his hand down on Jaybird's head and snatching his hat off, he exclaimed:

"Here, you Indian; clear out from here! By Jove, clear out!"

Jaybird looked up at the intruder, but with a face as barren of expression as the rock upon which he sat.

Comprehending the demand, however, he replied: "Yes; me no clear out. Me heap like it, this place. Me heap ketch him, fish."

"Get out, I tell you! By Jove, get out!" roared the dude, with visible signs of embarrassment and rage.

"Yes, me no git out. Me heap like it, this." Before Jaybird could finish the sentence the dude slapped him on the side of the head with his open hand. Springing to his feet, Jaybird uttered a whoop and ran into the dude, butting him with his head and shoulders instead of striking him. The dude's breath escaped from him with a sound not unlike the bleat of a calf, and he fell at full length on his back. Jaybird went down on top of him, pounding and biting with a force and ferocity that suggested a combination of pugilist and wild cat. The dude tried to call Siler, but Jaybird put his mouth over the dude's and bit his lips half off. He bit the dude's nose, eyebrows, cheeks, ears and arms. He choked him and beat him from his waist to his head.

When Jaybird thus sprung himself head foremost at the dude, Siler fell over on the ground in a spasm of laughter. This did not escape Jaybird's notice, and he jumped to a wrong conclusion as to the cause of it.

Siler always said he had no idea the Indian was hurting the dude half so bad, but that the turn the affair had taken was so absurd and ridiculous, he would have been bound to laugh any way. His friends believed that he was simply glad to see the dude get a whipping. Possibly both these causes contributed to his hilarity.

But the conviction had fastened itself on Jaybird's mind that this man Siler, whom he had always regarded as a friend, was laughing because the dude was making him clear out. So, while the dude was performing that feat, Jaybird kept one eye on Siler and silently determined in his own mind what he would do for him when he got through with the dude.

The dude had scarcely raised a hand in resistance since this human catapult struck him, and now he lay there as limp and motionless as a dead man. Siler had laughed until he was almost exhausted, and was leaning against a sapling, still laughing. Suddenly Jaybird uttered another whoop, sprang from the dude