300 INDIANS. 



take her choice of us, but that, as the other husband had 

 not seduced or stolen her back, he was entitled to keep 

 the ponies and the mules. So,' added Borneo, ' I lost my 

 wife, my ponies, and my mules. I did not care for the 

 ponies and the mules, but I did for my wife. She was so 

 beautiful and so good.' After some moments of silence, 

 in which he struggled manfully with his emotions, Romeo 

 turned to me with the tears forced back in his eyes, and 

 said, in a choked voice, * Colonel, I think that was a put- 

 up job.' 



Should the wife of a chief be seduced from her 

 allegiance, nothing, as a rule, is said about it. The chief 

 is too great a man, too high and mighty, far too removed 

 from the feelings of common humanity, to waste -a moment's 

 thought on so insignificant a thing as a woman. His 

 runaway wife may be in the same camp, in the very next 

 lodge, and he may pass her every day without even 

 deigning to bestow a word or a look upon her. 



The unmarried women have a similar right of self- 

 protection against their arbitrary sale by their fathers. 

 The girl may be sold. She goes with her purchaser to 

 his lodge, but resists, with all her power and strength, 

 his efforts to consummate the marriage. If in two or 

 three days and nights his entreaties or passions have 

 failed to make her his, she has a right to go back to her 

 father's lodge, who, however, in this case is obliged to 

 pay back to the purchaser the price he received for her. 



An- American had been for a long time with the 

 Brule Sioux. He had already one Sioux wife, but, taking 

 a fancy to a girl, he, without any previous courtship, 

 bought her of her father for one pony. She remained in 

 his lodge three days and nights, resisting all his entreaties, 

 protestations, and promises. At the end of that time she 

 went back to her father, and the marriage became null 

 and void. The purchaser got his pony back, but this 

 was the only satisfaction he received from his conjugal 

 investment. 



