THE DANCE AT LAST BEGUN. 389 
But amid all this heart-felt mourning there were occasional manifes- 
tations of purely mechanical grief that were amusing. The venerable 
Sloknich, though he was a gifted and thrilling orator, a savage Nestor, pre- 
served a dry eye; but once in a while he would arise in his place and lift 
up his voice in mourning like a sandhill-crane, then presently sit down and 
calmly light a cigarette. After smoking two or three, he would stand up 
and fire away again. Cigarettes were burning everywhere. An Indian 
would take one out of his mouth and give a prolonged and dolorous bellow, 
then take a few whiffs again. 
Yet even these comical manifestations were so entirely in earnest that 
nobody thought of laughing at the time; and though one’s sense of humor 
could not but make silent note of them the while, they were greatly over- 
borne by the outpouring of genuine, unmistakable grief. So far even from 
smiling, one might, without being accused of sentimental weakness, have 
dropped a tear at the spectacle of these poor wretches, weeping not more 
perhaps for the loved and lost than over their own miserable and hapless 
destiny of extermination. 
These demonstrations continued a long time, a very long time, and I 
began to be impatient again, believing that the principal occasion had 
passed. It appeared afterward that they are compelled by their creed and 
custom to prolong the proceedings until daylight ; hence this extreme delib- 
eration. 
But now, at last, about one o’clock in the morning, upon some pre- 
concerted signal, there was a sudden and tumultuous rushing from all 
quarters of the quadrangle, amid which the interpreter and myself were 
almost borne down. For the first time during the night the women 
appeared conspicuously on the scene, thronged into the sacred circle, and 
quickly formed a ring close around the fire—a single circle of maidens, 
facing inward. The whole multitude of the populous camp crowded about 
them in confusion, jostling and struggling. A choir of male singers took 
their position hard by and commenced the death-song, though they were 
not audible except to the nearest listeners. 
At the same instant the young women began their frightful dance, 
