e,
is necessary because there is no best strain in Indian ponies. They
are as native and unimproved as the horses of Diomedes that roamed the
hills of Arcadia.

The tents, booths, and dining-rooms skirt the track, and so the squaws
can leave their cooking to engage in their own contests without any
unnecessary loss of time. These include a tug-o'-war, a horse race and
foot races. The men engage in canoe and tub races, boxing bouts,
swimming and smoking contests, bucking-broncho exhibits and other
physical tests for which they have a fondness and natural aptitude.
Gambling is in full swing and no one thinks it necessary to apologize.
Several men squat side by side on the ground and pass a jack-knife from
one to the other under a blanket which covers their knees. The gambler
has to guess in which hand the knife is to be found. It is the same
game as "Button! Button! Who has the button?"

The drum-song, that rude rough song of the suitor, does not start till
after nightfall. As a general thing, the man sings it in a tent lying
on his back, his face flushed and his eyes suffused. "Hai! Hai!" he
cries with a blurred staccato that is without response,
"otato-otooto-oha-o."

After awhile, he seems to become hypnotized by the recurrence of this
measured rhythm which is without melody and without gaiety. These
drum-songs are indubitably the survivals of earlier days when the
man-animal roamed through the land and made love-calls in the trees.

The drum-man has one pronounced characteristic; you can never mistake
him for a Christian. On one of the drums, there was a sun-symbol
marked in blue, but this may have been an accidental ornamentation. Or
it may be the drum-suitor is a Christian who merely claims the
masculine prerogative of changing his principles with his
opportunities. You can never tell.

But on the whole, the discordancy of the drum is no worse than that of
the fiddle which supplies the music for the dance. Why people say "fit
as a fiddle" I can never surmise, for a fiddle is always becoming unfit.

One hears much complaint in our province over oak floors well waxed,
but here is a dancing floor that is laid while you wait. Cross-beams
are placed on the ground and over them are put planks of uneven
thickness. When in use, the floor seems almost as active as the feet
of the dancers.

The crowd is made up of dusky belles from the tribes of the Athabasca,
Slave, and Mackenzie Rivers; many braves