a strong dominant chord of sound as a tremendous shout arose upon the appearance of the ball-players of Ioco.  Fresh from the river, they made a glittering show with the tossing feathers of their crested heads, their faces painted curiously and fantastically in white, the bright tints of their gaudy though scanty raiment, their bare arms and legs suppled with unguents and shining in the sun.  This note of welcome had hardly died away and the echo of the encompassing mountains grown silent, when an agitated murmur of excitement went sibilantly through the throng.

A cloud of dust was approaching in the distance, heralding a band of men.  A new sound invoked the echoes.  The breath was held to hear it.  The throb of a drum—­faint—­far.  And here thunderously beating, hard at hand, overpowering all lesser sounds, the drums of loco responded.  To the vibrations of these sonorous earthen cylinders, the sticks plied with a will on the heads of wet deerskins tightly stretched, the ball-players of Niowee advanced.  In a diagonal direction and at a sturdy trot they came for a space,—­a sudden halt ensued, and eighty pairs of muscular feet smote tumultuously on the ground.  Then once more forward diagonally, at that swinging jaunty pace, and the stamping pause as before.  The sound seemed to shake the ground, the impact of the feet with the earth was heard despite the turmoil of the drums; the stamping vibrations were felt in the midst of the stir of the crowds, and now in the nearer approach the individual faces could be distinguished, wildly painted; the athletic figures, gaudily clad and barbarically decorated; the ball-sticks, held aloft in a sort of rhythmic vibration as if quivering for a chance at the ball; and fourscore wild young voices howled defiance at loco Town, whose youth in return howled its municipal pride, failing only with failing breath.

They were all in the course at last.  The judges, elderly warriors and absolutely impartial, chosen from towns which had no interest at stake in the match, were seated on a little knoll, commanding a view of the ground, but at a sufficient distance to be in no danger from a maladroit handling of the ball.  This was made of deerskin, stuffed hard with hair, and sewn up with deer sinews.  The ball-sticks, of which each player owned his pair, were also partly made of deerskin, the two scoops or ladles being fashioned of a network of thongs on a wooden hoop, each furnished with a handle of hickory three feet long, worked together with a thong of deerskin to catch the ball between the rackets,—­it being of course prohibited to catch the ball in the hand.