Read Ebook: When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry by Buck Charles Neville Gage George W Illustrator

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Ebook has 2133 lines and 100095 words, and 43 pages

Many plants are grown from roots or bulbs, but a greater majority by far come from seed. Tulips and lilies, onions and potatoes, are all instances of plants grown from roots which sprout out from the old ones. The root is in every case the beginning, the seed the ending, of the life of a plant.

Take two of the commonest of our window and garden plants--the geranium and the heart's-ease. Let us take the geranium first. On the cluster of bloom we will probably find flowers partly withered, flowers full blown, and buds nearly ready to open. Look at a full-blown flower. You will see with your naked eye something standing up in the middle which looks like a tiny pink lily; around it are little rounded white spikes. If you carefully strip off the green cap outside, and then the colored petals, you will find a lily like the one in the figure ; this is called the pistil. Now open one of the nearly blown buds; you will find the lily pistil still closed, and on two of the spikes around it two double-barrelled rosy pods. When the pods, or stamens, are nearly ripe, they look for all the world like a pink gum-drop made in the shape of a French roll. If they are ripe they look as you see in Fig. 3.

To make a perfect seed the stamen and pistil have to enter into partnership. The stamen sends out thousands of clear orange pollen grains , and when these fall on the top of the lily or pistil, as some have done in. Fig. 2, they stick fast. The lily, for all its innocent look, has laid a trap for them; it is covered with a sticky substance that holds them fast. The tiny little grain begins to send out a tube like a little hose-pipe, which grows down and down to the bottom of the lily. There it finds some very small egg-shaped bodies called ovules . The busy little hose-pipe pushes its way into a little opening at the end of one of the ovules, pumps away till the pollen grain is empty, and the liquid out of it is all safely stored in the ovule, and then it withers away. The ovule when it is ripe is a seed, but if the pollen has not emptied itself in the way just described, the ovule dies.

THE TALKING LEAVES.

Begun in No. 101, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

An Indian Story.

BY W. O. STODDARD.

Fortune had been hard upon Bill and his two mates, or at least they thought so. The trees to which they had been tied by the Lipans were so situated that it was only necessary for them to turn their heads in order to have a good view of what was doing on the plain to the westward. They saw their captors ride out, and heard their whoops and yells of self-confidence and defiance.

"Don't I wish I was with the boys just now!" growled Bill. "Three more good rifles'd be a good thing for 'em."

"Skinner'll fight, you see 'f he don't. He'll stop some of that yelling."

"He's great on friendship and compromise," groaned Bill. "He may think it's good sense not to shoot first."

The three gazed anxiously out toward the scene of the approaching conflict, if there was to be one. They could not see the advance of their comrades, but they knew they were coming.

"Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Bill. "That's the boys. Opened on 'em. Oh, don't I wish I was thar!"

The other two could hardly speak in their excitement and disgust. It was a dreadful thing for men of their stamp to be tied to trees while a fight was going on which might decide whether they were to live or die.

Suddenly a squad of Lipans came dashing in; the cords that bound them were cut--all but those on their hands; they were rudely lifted upon bare-backed ponies, and led rapidly away to the front of the battle. They could not understand a word of the fierce and wrathful talking around them; but the gesticulations of the warriors were plainer than their speech. Besides, some of them were attending to wounds upon their own bodies or those of others. Some were on foot, their ponies having been shot under them. More than all, there were warriors lying still upon the grass who would never again need horses.

"It's been a sharp fight," muttered Bill, "for a short one. I wonder if any of the boys went under? What are they gwine to do with us?"

A tall Lipan sat on his horse in front of him, with his long lance levelled as if only waiting the word of command to use it. It remained to be seen whether or not the order would be given, for now To-la-go-to-de himself was riding slowly out to meet Captain Skinner.

"He can't outwit the Captain," said one of the miners. "Shooting first was the right thing to do this time. Skinner doesn't make many mistakes."

It was their confidence in his brains rather than in his bones and muscles which made his followers obey him, and they were justified in this instance, as they had been in a great many others. The greetings between the two leaders were brief and stern, and the first question of old Two Knives was: "Pale-faces begin fight. What for shoot Lipans?"

"Big lie. Lipans take our camp. Tie up our men. Steal our horses. Ride out in war-paint. Pale-faces kill them all."

The chief understood what sort of men he had to deal with, but his pride rebelled.

"All right. We kill prisoners right away. Keep camp. Keep horse. Kill all pale-faces."

"We won't leave enough of you for the Apaches to bury. Big band of 'em coming. Eat you all up."

"The Lipans are warriors. The Apaches are small dogs. We are not afraid of them."

"You'd better be. If you had us to help you, now, you might whip them. There won't be so many of you by the time they get here. Pale-faces are good friends. Bad enemies. Shoot straight. Kill a heap."

Captain Skinner saw that his "talk" was making a deep impression, but the only comment of the chief was a deep, guttural "Ugh!" and the Captain added: "Suppose you make peace. Say have fight enough. Not kill any more. Turn and whip Apache. We help."

"What about camp? Wagon? Horse? Mule? Blanket? All kind of plunder?"

"Make a divide. We'll help ourselves when we take the Apache ponies. You keep one wagon. We keep one. Same way with horses and mules--divide 'em even. You give up prisoners right away. Give 'em their rifles and pistols and knives."

"Ugh! Good! Fight Apaches. Then pale-faces take care of themselves. Give them one day after fight."

That was the sort of treaty that was made, and it saved the lives of Bill and his mates, for the present at least.

It was all Captain Skinner could have expected, but the faces of the miners were sober enough over it.

"Got to help fight Apaches, boys."

"And lose one wagon, and only have a day's start afterward."

The chief had at once ridden back to announce the result to his braves, and they too received it with a sullen approval, which was full of bitter thoughts of what they would do to those pale-faces after the Apaches should be beaten and the "one day's truce" ended.

The three captives were at once set at liberty, their arms restored to them, and they were permitted to return to the camp and pick out, saddle, and mount their own horses.

"The Captain's got us out of our scrape," said Bill. "I can't guess how he did it."

"Must ha' been by shootin' first."

"And all the boys do shoot so awful straight!"

That had a great deal to do with it, but the immediate neighborhood of the Apaches had a great deal more. To-la-go-to-de knew that Captain Skinner was exactly right, and that the Lipans would be in no condition for a battle with the band of Many Bears after one with so desperate a lot of riflemen as those miners.

The next thing was to make the proposed "division" of the property in and about the camp. The Lipan warriors withdrew from it, all but the chief and six braves. Then Captain Skinner and six of his men rode in.

"This my wagon," said Two Knives, laying his hand upon the larger and seemingly the better stored of the two.

"All right. Well take the other. This is our team of mules."

So they went on from one article to another, and it would have taken a keen judge of that kind of property to have told, when the division was complete, which side had the best of it. The Lipans felt that they were giving up a great deal, but only the miners knew how much was being restored to them. It was very certain that they would take the first opportunity which might come to "square accounts" with the miners. Indeed, Captain Skinner was not far from right when he said to his men:

"Boys, it'll be a bad thing for us if the Apaches don't show themselves to-morrow. We can't put any trust in the Lipans."

"Better tell the chief about that old man and the boy," said one of the men.

"I hadn't forgotten it. Yes, I think I'd better."

It was easy to bring old Two Knives to another conference, and he received his message with an "Ugh" which meant a good deal. He had questions to ask, of course, and the Captain gave him as large an idea as he thought safe of the strength and number of the Apaches.

"Let 'em come, though. If we stand by each other, we can beat them off."

"Not wait for Apaches to come," said To-la-go-to-de. "All ride after them to-night. Pale-faces ride with Lipans."

That was a part of the agreement, but it had not been any part of the intention of Captain Skinner.

"We're in for it, boys," he said, when he returned to his own camp. "We must throw the redskins off to-night. It's time to unload that wagon. We're close to the Mexican line. Every man must carry his own share."

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