hing, spasmodic step never varied. Ambrose asked Watusk about
it.

"This is the lame man's dance," his host explained.

"What lame man?" asked Ambrose. "How did it begin?"

Watusk shrugged. "It is very old," he said.

The first man dropped out, and the second chose a new partner.
Sometimes there were two or three couples dancing at once. Partners
were chosen indiscriminately from either sex.

In each case the knotted handkerchief was offered with the same spoken
formula. Ambrose asked what it was they said.

"This is give-away dance," Watusk explained. "He is say: 'This my
knife, this my blanket, this my silk-worked moccasins.' What he want
to give. After he got give it."

Ambrose observed that each dancer laid two matches on the cold stove as
he took his place, and when he retired from the dance picked them up
again. He asked what that signified.

Watusk shrugged again. "How do I know?" he said. "It is always done."

Ambrose learned later that this was the invariable answer of the
Kakisas to any question concerning their customs.

Watusk was exerting himself to be hospitable, continually pressing cups
of steaming bitter tea on Ambrose and Simon. Ambrose, watching him,
made up his mind that the chief's unusual affability masked a deep
disquiet.

The sharp, shifty eyes were continually turning with an expectant look
to the door. Ambrose found himself watching the door, too.

To Ambrose the uncouth dance had neither head nor tail; nevertheless,
it had a striking effect on the participators and spectators.

Minute by minute the excitement mounted. The stick-kettles throbbed
faster and ever more disquietingly. It seemed as if the skin of the
drums were the very hearts of the hearers, with the drummers' knuckles
searching out their secrets.

Eyes burned like stars around the walls, and the chant was renewed with
a passionate abandon. The figures hitched and sprang around the homely
iron stove like lithe animals.

Suddenly the noise of running feet was heard outside, and a man burst
in through the door with livid face and starting eyes. The drumming,
the song, and the dance stopped simultaneously.

The man cried out a single sentence in the Kakisa tongue. Cried it
over and over breathlessly, without any expression.

The effect on the crowd was electrical. Cries of surprise and alarm,
both hoarse and shrill, answered him. A wave of rage swept over them
all, distorting their faces. They