d their feet. Then the squaws, with the
scalps held aloft, dance in between the lines of men from opposite
directions, until they meet, when they chasse to the right and left,
then dance back and forward again, every once in a while emitting a
sharp little screech which I have never known to be successfully
imitated. During the dance, the men join in a kind of shuffle from right
to left, and back again, keeping the music going all the time. The whole
performance is one of the most savage and weird ceremonies I have ever
witnessed. It is kept up for weeks.

It was a frequent amusement for half a dozen of us to throw blankets
over our heads, and join in the dance for half an hour or so. I have
been lulled to sleep many times by this wild music, heard from a
distance of half a mile, on a still night.

It was supposed that when the scalp was taken while the leaves were on
the trees, it was danced over until they fell, and then buried, and when
taken in winter it was buried when the leaves came in the spring, but I
never was quite sure about this. I wanted one very much once, and a
party of us went in the night just back of St. Peter, where we supposed
they had been buried, and dug for them, and to our horror struck the
toes of a dead Indian. That cured my desire in this direction.

BRED IN THE BONE.

In the early days of what is now Minnesota there were two families of
missionaries living among the Sioux of the Mississippi, who, like many
of their profession, devoted their whole lives to spreading the gospel
of Christ among the savages. They were those of Dr. Williamson and the
Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, both of whom had lived with these Indians long
before I came among them. When I first became connected with these
Indians I found the missionaries comfortably installed at the Yellow
Medicine agency, with quite a village around them. They had dwelling
houses, and a commodious schoolhouse, where they took Indian children at
a very early age, with a view of civilizing and Christianizing them.
They had also a very pretty church, with a steeple on it, and a bell in
the steeple, and all the other buildings necessary for the complete and
efficient operation of their laudable undertaking. They were full of
zeal and enthusiasm in the cause, and had progressed to a point where it
looked to an outsider as if success was only a question of a short time,
if it was not already an accomplished fact. The Bible had been
translated