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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1901)
8 'Cbe Conservative * ARGO Gloss Starch Is the whitest , purest and strongest of all Starches ; 'is peculiarly adapted to fine Fabrics and Laces , and gives to all Clothes a beautiful - ' tiful , snow-white Satiny Finish that is so much desired and ad mired. x * A Pure Starch is a White Starch , and a4Whito Starch ( being pure ) is a Strong Starch. ARGO STARCH satisfies every demand , causes no injury , and is perfect for all uses. : ARGO STARCH is packed in all styles and sizes of pack ages and can be obtained of all Leading Grocers. National vStarch Co. NEBRASKA CITY. NEB. The > - ! Land of Open Skies That's California always summer there. Travel luxuriously on the daily California Limited , Santa Fe Route Address Gen. Pass. Office , A * T. & S. F. R'y.'Topeka. INDIAN PUZZLES. There are some things that the North American Indian is able to do which are beyond the skill of any white man. It is quite generally believed that he sur passes his pale-face brother in strength , agility and endurance : but I tliink this belief is unfounded. I have in mind one old-timer who tells of outstripping a whole baud of Indians in a foot-race ; another who found , after it occurred to him to turn his toes in , that he could keep at the head of a party throughout one all-day march after another : a third who could not bend an Indian bow at all when he first tried , but as soon as he had learned the "slight" of it could send an arrow through a buffalo with the best of them. As to endurance , the Apaches were long supposed to be in comparable in this regard : but when the time came , Dr. Leonard "Wood and the late General Lawton wore the Apaches out at their own game. There ore , however , certain lines in which the Indians have acquired a skill which seems not to be communic able to white men ; and about all of these there is something queer , as if the ordinary facts of our knowledge were not adequate to explain them. Snakes. The Shoshonien tribe called the Moki apparently have-the power , common to all the men of the tribe , and hereditary , of handling venomous reptiles without harm. Once a year they gather snakes indiscriminately from the surrounding country , and thirty or forty of the priests spend a week with them in an under ground room. The ceremonies end with a public parade , in which each man carries in his hands and mouth all the snakes for which he has accommodations. This yearly snake-dance is described by those who have witnessed it as a most wonder ful thing to see , and one quite past ac counting for. Stones. Professor Hewett of Las Vegas once showed me two peculiar stones , which had the singular property of becoming lum inous when rubbed by an Indian. They were some five inches in length and tw6 in diameter , rounded and perfectly smooth , and appeared to'be of simple quartz , being clouded or milky to look at , like ground glass. One side was flattened , and in one of them slightly hollowed. They were so shaped that they could conveniently be held in one hand and rubbed with the thumb'and the flatten ing or hollowing of the one side hod probably been effected by such rubbing , continued through no one can guess how many years. _ An Indian or at least some Indians in the Pueblos of New Mexico would take one of these stones in.his hand , without any preparation or treatment whatever , and after holding it and rubbing it gently "for a time it 'it'would begin to glow with a distinct light. A certain sacredness is attached to these stones in an Indian's eyes , and
