“Mary Genung told me of their experiences after milkweed greens and wild flowers. She says your sister is absolutely fearless.”

“Eletheer is our psychological problem.”

Hernando looked amused and she added, “To her mind time-honored institutions are generally wrong.”

“Marriage, for instance?”

“Yes. That should be a profession with preliminary examinations as to fitness.”

Hernando’s face became a trifle paler as he replied, “They say at birth nine-tenths of35 man’s evolution is completed. Your sister has encountered a weighty problem, and a melancholy one.”

35

“Weighty problems require too much effort,” laughed Celeste, “and my contribution to society must be on purely feminine lines.”

In the evening, the younger members of the family gathered in the dining-room. Jack and Hernando cracked walnuts and Celeste read aloud from a newspaper which had just arrived by stage on the Berm. The paper contained a vivid account of the flood, and it was listened to with much interest.

“Who knows but this freshet may reveal ‘Old Ninety-Nine’s Cave’?” said Jack with a light laugh.

“Who is ‘Old Ninety-Nine’?” Hernando asked.

“Have you not heard the story?” asked Jack in some surprise.

“No, but I should like to,” replied Hernando.

“Eletheer remembers, and is full of these old legends; when she returns from putting Granny to bed, I’ll get her to tell this one.”

36 They heard her presently going into the kitchen and as she did not return, Celeste went into the hall and called her, saying Mr. Hernando Genung wished her to tell the story of “Old Ninety-Nine.”

36

Eletheer came in, having forgotten to remove her gingham apron, and seemed pleased to repeat the story.

“Old Ninety-Nine,” Neopakiutic, was a Wawarsing chief and supposed to 

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