Page:Old ninety-nine's cave.djvu/199

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  • ily, and gave a brief sketch of "Old Ninety-Nine's"

cave and the mine.

"Strange that they found nothing besides the mine!" Miss Kurtz mused. "Do you think that the old man taken there exaggerated?"

"No," replied Jack, "some one had undoubtedly been in the cave recently, my father thinks, and that the money and jewels were probably carried off by the finder. All the other rare things seen by Benny must have long ago disappeared."

"It sounds like one of Aladdin's tales," she said, deeply interested.

"We thought it such until the discovery," Jack replied, "but since then I am inclined to think that many of the legends of which that valley is so full may deserve investigation. The Delawares were a noble tribe, unjustly treated, and degraded by the whites who had only themselves to blame for the atrocities that occurred in the early history of the Rondout Valley. The Delaware tongue is the most beautiful of any in the Indian