l
a good many times since I first began to play the game. I saw both their
painted faces and the tomahawks that they held in their sinewy hands.
More than that, I heard them as well as saw them when they went out.

That is the reason why I insist that I was not dreaming. I deny the
allegation and defy the alligator!

There were two Indians in my room that night. What they were there for I
don't know, and at this late day I don't care, but they were there, and
I know it. I shall insist that they were there to my dying day, and they
were there!

CHAPTER II. BOYHOOD DAYS AND MEMORIES.

What's in a name? Not much, to be sure, in many of them, but in mine a
good deal, for I represent two Michigan towns and two Roman Emperors,
Adrian and Constantine. My father had evidently not outgrown his liking
for Michigan when I came into the world, and as he was familiar with
both Adrian and Constantine and had many friends in both places he
concluded to keep them fresh in his memory by naming me after them.

I don't think he gave much consideration to the noble old Romans at that
time. In fact, I am inclined to believe that he did not think of them at
all, but nevertheless Adrian Constantine I was christened, and it was as
Adrian Constantine Anson that my name was first entered upon the roll of
the little school at Marshalltown.

I was then in my "smart" years, and what I didn't know about books would
have filled a very large library, and I hadn't the slightest desire to
know any more. In my youthful mind book-knowledge cut but a small, a
very small, figure, and the school house itself was as bad if not worse
than the county jail.

The idea of my being cooped up between four walls when the sunbeams were
dancing among the leaves outside and the bees were humming among the
blossoms, seemed to me the acme of cruelty, and every day that I spent
bending over a desk represented to my mind just so many wasted hours and
opportunities. I longed through all the weary hours to be running out
barefoot on the prairies; to be playing soak-ball, bull pen or two old
cat, on one of the vacant lots, or else to be splashing about like a big
Newfoundland dog in the cool waters of Lynn Creek.

About that time my father had considerable business to attend to in
Chicago and was absent from home for days and weeks at a time. You know
the old adage, "When the cat's away," etc.? Well, mouse-like, that was
the time in which I played my hardest. I pl