There is some courtship in the night time; either in the early part of the evening, on the outskirts of dances and other public affairs, or after every- body is supposed to be asleep. This is the secret courtship. The youth may pull up the tentpins just back of his sweetheart and speak with her during the night. He must be a smart young man to do that undetected, for the grandmother, her chaperon, is usually "all ears."

Elopements are common. There are many reasons for a girl or a youth to defer their wedding. It may be from personal pride of one or both. The well-born are married publicly, and many things are given away in their honor. The maiden may desire to attend a certain number of maidens' feasts before marrying. The youth may be poor, or he may wish to achieve another honor before surren- dering to a woman.

Sometimes a youth is so infatuated with a maid- en that he will follow her to any part of the country,

even after their respective bands have separated for the season. I knew of one such case. Patah Tankah had courted a distant relative of my uncle for a long time. There seemed to be some objec- tion to him on the part of the girl's parents, al- though the girl herself was willing.

The large camp had been broken up for the fall hunt, and my uncle's band went one way, while the young man's family went in the other direction. After three days' travelling, we came to a good hunting-ground, and made camp. One evening somebody saw the young man. He had been fol- lowing his sweetheart and sleeping out-of-doors all that time, although the nights were already frosty and cold. He met her every day in secret and she brought him food, but he would not come near the teepee. Finally her people yielded, and she went back with him to his band.

When we lived our natural life, there was much singing of war songs, medicine, hunting and love songs. Sometimes there were few words or none, but everything was understood by the inflection. From this I have often thought that there must be a language of dumb beasts.

The crude musical instrument of the Sioux, the flute, was made to appeal to the susceptible ears of the maidens late into the night. There comes to me now the picture of two young men with their robes over their heads, and only a portion of the hand-made and carved chotanka, the flute, protrud- ing from its folds. I can see all the maidens slyly turn their heads to listen. Now I hear one of the youths begin to sing a plaintive serenade as in days gone by:

"Hay-ay-ay! Hay-ay-ay! a-ahay-ay!" (This "Listen! you will hear of him-- Maiden, you will hear of him-- Listen! he will shortly go

(Editor：science)