The thirteenth of June found everything running smoothly at the camp and the boys having the time of their lives. The crews were well organized and taking good care of the work assigned to them. Of course there had been many cases of neglect and carelessness but they had been overcome in one way or another and the boys felt quite proud of their management. The cows were milked regularly, the woodpile replenished to the satisfaction of the cook, the camp kept in good order and the class work zealously performed.

All of these things were of importance, for on them depended the annual trip to the White Earth Indian Reservation. The former classes had all gone and no one wanted to see the custom broken. The president of the corporation had made formal application to Professor Roberts for three days’ absence for the whole class and preparations for the trip were busily under way. Pack sacks were being stuffed with all the necessary provisions and bedding, and through it all a running discussion of the plans for the celebration made the whole camp vibrate with heated argument. Lacking other forms of amusement an argument was always welcome. Many a time an argument on predestination, or some other equally abstract question, developed oratory which could be heard half a mile away.

The object of the trip in question was the annual celebration of the Peace Festival on the White Earth Indian Reservation, commemorating the treaty of peace between the Sioux and the Chippewa tribes. Years ago the forests of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota had been the hunting grounds of the Sioux till the Chippewas, driven westward by the warlike Five Nations (who had in turn been driven out by the Whites) forced them out into the open prairies. For years the Sioux, returning to the forests to avoid the severity of the winter on the plains, had clashed savagely with the Chippewas. Finally a treaty of peace had been made and every year they celebrated that peace at White Earth with horse races, canoe races, war dances and other festivities.

“Have you fellows decided yet how you are going?” Merton asked, stopping in the door of the lecture hall, where a half-dozen fellows were fussing over their preparations.

A confused babel immediately broke forth. “No,” Bill announced complacently, “nobody has decided anything but me; I’m going to stay home to take care of the ‘caows.’”

“Well,” Merton continued, “I’m going to start right after lunch, and I’ll be glad of all the company I can get. The rest of you may decide what you please.”

“When do you expect to get there?” Bill asked.

“Tomorrow noon,” Merton answered confidently.

“Yes, you will,” Bill answered contemptuously. “It’s fifty good country miles.”

“Yes,” Merton said, “fifty-five of them. I’m good for it.”

No one was willing to back down, so no one answered him, though each one had his own private opinion about it.

True to his word Merton wriggled into his pack sack immediately after lunch and called for volunteers. Scott was the only one ready to join him at once, and those two swung off up the road, leaving the others still hovering around undecided.

“Good-bye, fellows,” Merton called back to them. “We’ll see you at White Earth if you ever get there.”

“Don’t you be sarcastic,” Greenleaf called after them, “we’ll be there to welcome you.”

The two boys trudged on steadily; not very fast—for the road was too long ahead of them—but at a pace which would land them many miles on their road by nightfall.

“If we only knew the road,” Scott said, “it would not be so bad; but there is no telling how far we shall have to walk to get there.”

“No, and they say there are no settlers in that country except Indians. They could tell us the way, but most likely they won’t.”

“Someone was telling me,” Scott said, “that there is a lumber camp over there somewhere with a logging road running where we want to go. I hope we can strike it.”

“That would help some.”

They had no trouble for the first eight miles. The road lay straight, though exceedingly rough, before them; but at that point they came to the first obstacle, a fork in the road.

“The more traveled one ought to be it,” Merton suggested, and they took it without more ado—for there was no use in wasting time in choosing when they had no possible way of determining the right course. For half a mile they had followed the rough winding road when they came to a tumbledown cabin and there the road stopped.

“Might have known that if we’d stopped to think about it,” Merton growled, as they immediately retraced their steps. “This fellow makes all the travel there is on that road, going to the store.”

They soon reached the main road again—if such it could be called. Scott blazed a tree with his tomahawk and wrote the directions on it. “Might as well save them the trouble,” he explained, “even if it does help them to catch up with us.”

For nine miles more they jogged on steadily and were beginning to think that things were not as bad as they had been painted when they came to another fork where the road split up into two indistinct tracts, neither one of them sufficiently plain to justify anyone in following it with the hope of ever reaching a town however remote. They had not seen a soul since they left camp and there certainly seemed very little chance of their meeting anyone on either of those roads.

“Neither one of them looks good to me,” Merton grunted. “Let’s eat some lunch and then toss up for it.”

It seemed the only thing to do, and in a few minutes they were eating hungrily. They had brought a canteen with them, and it was well that they had—for they had not passed anything, even at the tumbledown cabin which looked like good drinking water.

“There is one thing sure,” Scott said; “we have been traveling pretty steadily westward and must be north of where we want to go. Then we want to take the south road.”

“Yes,” Merton assented, “and if we get out there five miles or so before we find that we are wrong we’ll beat it across country to the northwest till we strike the right road instead of coming back here. We can’t lose much that way.”

“No,” Scott agreed, “nothing but ourselves.”

“Well,” Merton said, looking apprehensively down the road, “let’s be going. We don’t want those other fellows to catch up with us here and think we’re stumped on this fork in the road.”

They scrambled to their feet and set out briskly, for, as Scott explained, if it was the wrong road they wanted to find it out before dark, as it would not be very easy to travel across country through the woods in the night. The road did not get any better or any worse, nor give any other signs of its ultimate destination. They had been traveling in this way for two hours when they heard a dog barking ahead of them, and soon they spied a small shack.

“Now for some Indian talk,” Merton exclaimed disgustedly.

He was not disappointed. In the doorway of the rickety old shack sat an old man, smoking an old blackened clay pipe, his eyes fixed on them in watery indifference. He must have been very old, Scott thought he looked at least a thousand. His face was a mass of deep-cut wrinkles forming the precipitous cliffs and mountain valleys of a bold relief map. His palsied head shook violently and his scanty white locks fluttered nervously against the high cheek bones. No one but an Indian could have looked so old.

Merton addressed himself to the old man but had little hope of getting an answer. “Can you tell us whether this is the road to White Earth?”

The old man’s expression changed not a particle, but he gurgled almost inaudibly, an incoherent stream of Chippewa. It did not enlighten them much, but it produced some effect, for a girl suddenly appeared in the doorway behind him and looked them over curiously. As Scott looked at her his poetic visions of beautiful Indian maidens faded away.

“That’s not Minnehaha,” he mumbled; “that’s a cinch.”

She was thin to emaciation, and unspeakably dirty. One eye was apparently closed with a loathsome disease, giving her face a sinister, leering expression. She did not look like a promising subject, but Merton tried her.

“Bojou, bojou,” he used the greeting of the old French coureurs des bois. “We are trying to get to the Peace Celebration at White Earth. Can you tell us whether this is the road?”

The old man mumbled some more Chippewa. The girl stared at them sullenly. Scott took out half a dollar and looked at it thoughtfully. The girl’s good eye caught the gleam of the silver instantly. “Frazee camp, ten mile. Straight trail,” she exclaimed, pointing to a faint track leading on westward from the house, and thrusting her hand eagerly over the old man’s shoulder for the money. Scott dropped it into her hand quickly, lest she should touch him, and with another exchange of “Bojou” they took to the trail again. Anybody but an Indian living in that unfrequented place could not have resisted the temptation to watch them on their way, but the girl turned indifferently into the cabin and the old man did not so much as turn his eyes to look after them.

“It’s about ten to one that she’s stringing us,” Merton said cheerfully, “but this is about as near right as we can go now and it will be great luck if we do strike that camp.”

“It’s only half past eight,” Scott said, “and we ought to make the camp tonight if it is there. There’s a good moon. Wasn’t that girl a fright?”

“That’s the way most of them look around here. They nearly all have trachoma. I have seen some pretty ones, but mighty few. Let’s hit it up a little. We don’t want to get to that camp too late, or we can’t get in.”

The pace became too hot to permit of further conversation, and Scott amused himself revising his Indian ideas and speculating on what the Celebration would be like. The spectacle at the cabin had changed his expectations. The long June twilight made the road plain before them till ten o’clock and by that time the moon was high in the heavens. By eleven o’clock they were beginning to think that the sight of that half dollar had led the “beautiful Indian maiden” to invent a lumber camp for the occasion, when they heard the snort of a locomotive at no great distance ahead of them.

“There, by George!” Scott exclaimed. “She was honest, if she was homelier than sin.”

“The next question,” Merton said, “is that locomotive going or coming?”

The sound had ceased, and they hurried forward to investigate. They found that it was only the “swipe” cleaning out the engine. They could see his figure flitting here and there around the engine in the dim light of a lantern. He heard them coming and stopped to see who it was—the camp had been asleep for two hours. When he saw their packs he took them for lumberjacks looking for a job.

“Nothing doing here,” he growled, without further greeting. “The camp’s full up, and the boss has a waiting list.”

“He’s lucky,” Merton commented. “We’re not looking for jobs. We’re trying to get to White Earth. Will there be any train out in that direction in the morning?”

“Five o’clock,” the man growled, “if I can get this old teakettle cleaned out by that time. Where did you come from?” In the daytime he would probably have ignored their existence, but the loneliness of the night and his curiosity made him sociable.

“Itasca Park,” Merton answered. “How near will the train take us to White Earth?”

“Some hike,” he said, ignoring the question. “Going to the Peace Celebration, I suppose?”

“Yes, we just want to see the doings. How near did you say the train would take us?”

He seemed loath to answer them. “’Bout eight miles,” he finally answered. “Reckon you fellows must be tired if you have hiked from Itasca. You can sleep there in that shack if you want to. I’ll call you in the morning.”

It seemed to the boys that they had hardly closed their eyes when they were awakened by the engine and found it broad daylight. The man had forgotten to call them, and they had just time to crawl onto the caboose when the train pulled out, lurching along over the uneven track. The little Shaw engine with its upright cylinders and geared connections made a noise which would indicate a tremendous speed, but the train barely crept along and they were an hour and a half going the fifteen miles to the junction where they had to walk once more. As they had eaten their breakfast in the caboose they started out at once on the road the brakeman showed them, and by nine o’clock they came within sight of the Peace Celebration.

A small rolling prairie lay before them, completely surrounded by forest and surrounding a very pretty little lake. The festivities had not yet started, but it was a lively scene, nevertheless. The tepees and wigwams of the Indians were scattered over the whole plain in most picturesque fashion. Indian braves in full regalia strolled leisurely about or sat smoking contentedly in front of their tepees, while here and there the booths of the squaws displaying all manner of Indian baskets, beaded belts and moccasins presented bold patches of color. Many visitors thronged the camps, bargaining for souvenirs and asking foolish questions of the Indian chiefs who never answered them. It was a peaceful scene, and would have served as a model in point of order for many a white man’s fair. The Indian policemen did their work well, patrolling the camp continuously on their moth-eaten little ponies.

“Well, Scotty,” Merton cried. “Here we are, at nine o’clock in the morning. We sure were lucky. Those other fellows can’t get here before noon, anyway, and they’ll be all in. That train was the clear stuff.”

“Yes,” Scott said, “fifteen miles is a pretty good lift, even on a train like that. Let’s pick out a place for a camp and fix things up.”

They selected a site on a little knoll on the shore of the lake, where they soon had their dog-tent up and were sitting as comfortably in front of it as any chief in the tribes. They commanded a pretty good view of the whole field and could tell from the movement of the crowd what was going on.

As they learned from one of the policemen that the program would not open till the afternoon with pony races, foot races, canoe races and a big parade, they decided to content themselves with a general view that morning and wait for the other fellows.

At eleven-thirty they saw them coming straggling in along a road from the north and hurried to meet them.

“Where have you been all the forenoon?” Scott called tauntingly.

“I suppose you have been here all of five minutes,” Morris sneered, “or are you on your way home?”

“No,” Merton said, “we’re not quite ready to go home, but we have been here two hours. We came over from the lumber camp on the logging train. What time did you leave the camp?”

“We did not see any camp,” Morris answered sullenly. “We have not seen a soul since we left home.”

They had taken the north fork of the road, which carried them north of the camp, but had the virtue of being five miles shorter. They had put up for the night in a deserted log cabin on the edge of a swamp, where they had been eaten up by the mosquitoes, and had been walking since five o’clock that morning. It was a rather peevish crowd, and the luck of the others in getting a lift on the logging train did not improve their temper. While they talked they walked over to the camp, put up the rest of the tents and cooked dinner. An hour’s rest set them all up, and they were ready for anything the afternoon might bring forth.

The program opened with the grand parade. It was quite an imposing sight. There were some three hundred Indians of the two tribes. They formed at opposite ends of the grounds, rode solemnly forward till the columns met, and joined forces in one big parade. The two oldest chiefs rode side by side at the head of the procession, decked in all the extravagance of paint and feathers that the savage mind could invent. To them it was a solemn occasion—for they could remember the times when they had opposed each other in bitter strife—and they sat their ponies in stately dignity. The lesser chiefs followed, and the young bucks brought up the rear. They slowly circled the entire grounds amidst the cheers of the onlookers.

The procession finally came to a halt on a little knoll which commanded a view of the lake on one side and the level race track on the other. Here the chiefs seated themselves solemnly in a large circle supported by a larger circle of braves. One of these brought the ancient peace pipe, lighted it at the fire in the middle of the circle and handed it to the oldest chief. The old man puffed solemnly a few times, and handed it on to his neighbor. At last the circuit was completed and the sacred rite was ended. The far-away look in the eyes of the older chiefs showed that their thoughts were wandering back to the bloody scenes of their early days and that they were counting again the scalps they had taken in those relentless fights.

These rites ended, the young men hurried away to prepare themselves for the contests to come. As an athletic exhibition it was really pathetic. The competitors were in miserable physical condition; the half-starved ponies ran in a listless way, and the foot racers would have stood very little show in a high school track meet. The canoe races were slow, for the men who took part in them were so accustomed to letting their squaws do the paddling that they made a poor showing.

“It takes all the glamour of romance to throw any interest into that,” Scott remarked. “We enjoy it because they are real Indians, but I’ll bet they would not stand a ghost of a show in our Fourth of July Celebration.”

“We ought to have brought along one of the oxen and entered him in the horse race,” Steve whispered.

They had wandered down one of the streets to look over the baskets and bead work when an unearthly hubbub broke out on the knoll they had just left.

“Something doing now, fellows,” Merton yelled, as he led the crowd back in the direction of the sound at full speed.

“Sounds like a cross between a dog fight and a heron rookery,” Bill muttered, as he slowly overhauled Merton in the race. Their dash had caused a veritable stampede of all the visitors in the street, and long before they reached the scene of the disturbance they were leading a fair-sized mob.

At the edge of the knoll they stopped short and gazed on the scene in amazement. Everything was peaceful enough, but prancing around the fire with a weird, halting step were the braves of the tribe, daubed with war paint and chanting their wild war song. It was a most monotonous performance which went on unceasingly without the slightest change, but there was a certain fascination about it which kept everyone silent for some time. Unconsciously the onlookers rehearsed in their minds the scenes of Butler’s raid and imagined these savages lashing themselves in this way into blood-thirsty fury. Or possibly some of those old chiefs looking on so grimly were in the force which destroyed Custer’s little troop. The same people watched and watched and then came back to see it again.

All evening as the boys wandered from booth to booth bargaining with the squaws for beaded moccasins and belts, or danced in the pavilion they could hear that monotonous “Ki yi, ki yi, ki yi, ki yi,” pervading everything. And late in the evening when they went to bed in their little camp that dull drone which had at one time caused so many sleepless nights put them to sleep.

In the morning they continued their shopping. It was a good-natured crowd composed of people from all over the country with some from the cities, and two troops of boy scouts. The boys found the squaws shrewd bargainers, with a thorough knowledge of the value of money and a pretty good idea of the white man’s craze for Indian trinkets. Nor were they all as ugly as the one Scott and Merton had seen at the little cabin. Some of them were strikingly handsome and their richly beaded, bright colored garments added much to their barbaric beauty. It was a good deal of fun arguing with them.

Immediately after lunch the boys packed their duffel and started for home, for Merton had learned that the logging train went east about three o’clock. Their trip home was uneventful. They spent the night at the lumber camp and came in sight of the school about three o’clock in the afternoon.

“Well, boys,” Bill called in a fatherly tone from a comfortable seat on the front porch, “how did you enjoy the circus?”

Fifteen miles back up the road the opinion might have been different, but now that they were home they all declared it great, and as time went on it became “greater.”