in private
games of" hand " each successful player kept his own spoils.
Amid the monotonous chant that always accom panied gambling, the two polished bits of bone (the winning one marked, the other not) were passed secretly from hand to hand. The bets were made as to who held the marked stick and in which hand, then a show of hands was made and the game was lost and won.
From " hand " they passed to ahikia, a game like that of dice, played with figured beaver teeth or disks of ivory, which were tossed up, everything depending on the combination of figures presented in their fall. It was played recklessly. The Indians were carried away by excitement. They bet any thing and everything they had. Wealthy chiefs staked their all on the turn of the ivory disks, and some were beggared, some enriched. Cecil noticed in particular Mishlah the Cougar, chief of the Molal- lies. He was like a man intoxicated. His huge bestial face was all ablaze with excitement, his eyes were glowing like coals. He had scarcely enough intellect to understand the game, but enough com- bativeness to fling himself into it body and soul. He bet his horses and lost them; he bet his slaves and lost again; he bet his lodges, with their rude furnish ings of mat and fur, and lost once more. Maddened, furious, like a lion in the toils, the desperate savage staked his wives and children on the throw of the ahikia, and they were swept from him into perpetual slavery.
Then he rose up and glared upon his opponents, with his tomahawk clinched in his hand, as
