6 DECEMBER 1902, Page 8

man. This time he has taken a subject that borders

upon history.

Logan—he was a pure Indian by birth, notwithstanding his Scottish name—is a personage known to frontier history ; another

of the dramatis personae is George Washington, though he does not play a prominent part. Of course we cannot but be reminded as we read of Fenimore Cooper. Logan is of the Chingacbgook rather than the Unces type, and therefore, we imagine, more like to the real Indian. Anyhow, this is an exciting story full of adventure. Mr. Ellis, severely faithful to facts, leaves us in a

somewhat melancholy mood by telling the sad end of Logan's career.—The Secret of the Everglades, by Bessie Merchant (Blackie and Son, 3s. 6d.), is also an Indian story, but with a difference, for it is with the Seminoles of Florida that we are concerned. The interest is of another kind. It is not of wood- craft and strategy, of the fighting among trees and rocks, that we read ; but if the incidents are somewhat tamer, they are not unexciting, and there is a strong domestic interest.— With Kitchener in the Soudan, by G. A. Henty (same publishers, Cs.), is another tale that comes close to the border of history. The romance of a private life is interwoven with the story of the vicissitudes of Anglo-Egyptian fortunes in the Soudan. Gregory Hartley's lot is cast in the evil days ; his son comes in for happier times. This story is in its main lines that with which we are all more or less familiar, and which we must all recall with pride, the conquest of the Soudan. Thus there is an abundance of detail with which Mr. Henty's knowledge enabled him to amplify his narrative ; and finally, there is a romantic close which will fully satisfy those who have followed the young hero's career. —A Little Captive Lad, by Beulah Marie Dix (Macmillan and Co., 6s.), takes us back to the days of the Commonwealth. The "Little Captive Lad" has a Puritan half-brother and a Cavalier friend. His relations to these two are described with much sympathy. The boy is a pathetic figure, not too heroic to be quite human. This is a good story of its kind.