arrowhead of flint between their ribs.

When the whites came in, they took up the making of salt where the Indians left off. The state recognized the industry, and chartered it. But at last cheaper salt came in, and the salt boilers found themselves with their occupation gone. So, seeking about them for work for their hands to do, they discovered black coal in the hills, and rusty brown ore, and they dug the coal and the ore and made iron. It was good iron; none better in the world; and it commanded the highest prices in any market.The county was all undershot with coal; the hills were crowned with iron. Twenty years ago, every valley in the county had its gaunt tipple and its pile of crumbling slack; and every road was dotted with the creaking, rusty wagons that hauled the ores to the furnaces in Hardiston. Today, much of the coal is gone; and the ore has vanished. But the furnaces fetch ore from Superior, and smelt it into heavy pigs of iron; and their roar is eternal about the comfortable little town.

A stranger, coming to Hardiston, is inclined to think the place is dead; but the town has a deceptive vitality. It is true the brick yard is gone, and the occasional imported industry usually dies after a brief and uneventful life. It is true the big hotel that was, ten years ago, the finest in a dozen counties, goes now from bankruptcy to bankruptcy without a struggle. And Morgan & Robinson’s dry-goods store has shrunk from three floors to one; and the interurban traction that used to run half-hourly between Hardiston and the B. & O. main line has given place to a dirty, jerky train that makes two trips a day. The car tracks along Broadway and Main have been ripped up, and the fine brick paving on these streets bids fair to endure forever, for lack of traffic that would give it wholesome wear and tear.

But the town is not dead; it is only sleeping. You may see signs of the awakening in the apple blossoms on the hills. These Hardiston hills produce apples of a surprising excellence, and some day the Hardiston apple will be as famous as the Hardiston iron was in the past. But for the present the town sleeps, a gorged slumber. For Hardiston is rich. There are three banks, and each has more than a million in deposits. Hardiston folk have made money; they have built themselves homes, they have bought themselves automobiles, they have sent their boys and girls to college, and now--save for an occasional trip into the outer world, there is little more for them to do. But the money is there; it feeds the prosperity of three or four moving-picture houses, half a dozen soda fountains, and two sporadic theaters; it 

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