“Father,” said Ed one evening, as he came in from a short hunting trip, “were there ever any armies encamped here, or battles fought in this part of the country?”
“No, son,” replied Mr. Allen, “not that history gives account of. There may have been some fighting between the Indian tribes and the voyageurs who accompanied the Jesuit Fathers as they explored this land, in the early days of settlement of our country, but nothing like armies or battles have been known here.”
“Well, I found some old fortifications, or what looked like them, today. I had started up a deer near the Round Slough, and found that it took to a trail leading almost due west. About a mile from the slough I came to what evidently had been an old bed of the river, where sometime in the long past it had made a big bend, up near the high sand knolls. Now it was entirely dry, and I ran down into the old bed and across, and clambered up the west bank. It was there I found the earthworks. At first, where I ran across it, I thought it was a ridge of dirt some big flood had left upon the bank, but as I followed it along for several rods I came to the conclusion that it must
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 have been the work of men. It was of uniform height and size, and followed the curve of the river. Soon I came to a large mound, some twelve feet across, just where the bend in the river had come, and saw that another embankment, like the one upon which I was walking, stretched out from this central mound on the other side.
“It was for all the world as though some army had cast up earthworks at this bend of the river as a protection from an enemy coming either up or down the river.
“I was after that deer, so I did not wait to examine the old fort more closely. My trail led northward from there, and when I had gone about two miles, reaching that big hill we have so often seen in the distance, I had my second surprise. I was approaching the hill from the west, as I had lost track of the deer I had been following, and had turned for home. On that side the hill was so nearly straight up and down that a fellow would have a hard time in getting to the top. I thought I might as well see the other side of the hill; perhaps I might find a place there where I could climb up and look over the country. Sure enough, there was a place where I could clamber to the top. This, the east side, was covered with timber, oak and basswood being mixed with the pine trees. As I looked up at the top the hill took on the funniest appearance; something like a big squat bottle with a rim around its mouth and a cork stuck in.
“I scrambled up. About two-thirds from the bottom
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 I came to the rim of the bottle—the obstruction, whatever it was. With considerable difficulty I got up and over. It was plainly another case of fortifying—this time a hill instead of a river. The earth had been scraped away to the solid sandstone rock beneath, and brought forward into a ridge clear across the face of the hill. A thousand soldiers would have been safe behind that embankment on that side of the hill, from even the missiles of a modern army.”
“Well, son,” replied Mr. Allen, “your finds are certainly interesting. They are undoubtedly the work of the moundbuilders. We must examine them some day, and perhaps may find something that will tell us of their story.”
“But, father,” asked Rob, “who were the moundbuilders? and when did they live here? and who was it that was after them?”
“You have asked some hard questions, my boy. The scientists have guessed and guessed again. The earthworks they reared are really all we know about them. The Indians have no traditions concerning them.”
“But, father,” persisted Ed, “what became of them? Did they kill each other off, or did they all die of some great epidemic?”
“As I said, son, these are questions which can only receive conjectures for answer. It may be that they were the descendants of some roving tribe that came over from Asia by the way of the Behring Strait, after the Lord scattered the people abroad from the
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 plains of Shinar. They may have continued their migrations southward before some later horde from the Old World, and become the ancestors of the cliff-dwellers of Arizona, or the Toltecs and Aztecs of Mexico and Yucatan.
“However, it is evident that the moundbuilders were in possession of a much less degree of civilization than the prehistoric ancestors of the South Mexicans, for the moundbuilders have left nothing but their earthworks, while the ruined cities and temples of the ancient ancestors of the Toltecs and Aztecs show a civilization that must have rivalled that of old Egypt, or even famous Babylon itself.”
“Is it about the moundbuilders you are speaking, Mr. Allen?” enquired Dauphin Thompson, who had just come in. “If you can spare the time some day I would like to take you to what seems to have been a town laid out by those old fellows. It is about four miles south, and I suppose half way between the Necedah and the Wisconsin rivers. I came across it last fall when hunting our cattle that had strayed over on that side of the river. I confess that the strangeness of it—like some great graveyard of giants, made me feel a little creepy, in the twilight. I did pluck up courage, though, to ride my pony to the top of what appeared to be the large central mound and look about.
“In the fading light that filtered through the trees I could not see well nor very far, but the mounds seemed to extend for several rods each way. They were laid off in regular lines, north and south, and east and
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 west in what seemed to be a perfect square. There must have been fifty or perhaps more, of the mounds. They were not all of the same size, although they may have once been—save the mound which I had ridden upon; that was as large as three or four of the others. I asked my young Menominee friend, Kalichigoogah, about them once, but he looked scared and wouldn’t talk. All he would say was ‘No know, me. Big medicine. White boy keep away.’”
“I understand,” said Mr. Allen, “the feeling our Indians have for such objects and places. The mysterious to them is sacred. It is their religion to worship or give tribute and offerings to whatever they can not understand. I have read that from the earliest times certain tribes of Indians have used these mounds as burial places for their own dead, so great a reverence had they for them.
“Indeed, in some of the accounts given by the followers of La Salle, or Marquette, or Hennepin, I do not recall which, it is stated that near the junction of the Fox and Wolf rivers in this state, they came upon several large mounds of this kind. These voyageurs, ever greedy of the gold supposed to be hidden away in the New World, dug into them. But instead of the coveted treasure, they found a few simple trinkets, and very many human bones. So they gave the place the name of Buttes des Mort, ‘mounds of the dead.’
“But, father, isn’t there anyone who can tell us about these people?” demanded Ed. “I want to know
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 why they made those breastworks on the bend of the old river, and why they went up to that hill and made a fort. Who was it that was after them? and which side won? Were they hunters? or did they plant crops? What kind of houses did they live in? and what did they look like?”
“My dear boy, if I could answer those questions correctly at this moment, I would suddenly find myself one of the famous men of the country. As I have said, this departed race has left but little to tell of its existence, but that little the scientists are taking, and by comparison and deduction, may finally build up a plausible story.
“It would be something like the work done by a famous naturalist who, it is said, from a single fossil bone of an extinct fish, that had been found, constructed its probable framework entire. Years afterwards the whol............