Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/82

 hands rattles, large cumbersome things decorated with teeth and feathers. This dress varied with different people and different medicine men, but the one idea was to make it as hideous and awe-inspiring as possible so as to impress and frighten the demons who had wrought the evil witchcraft upon the sufferer. Not for one moment did the dancing, chanting or pounding cease or vary in its monotony.

The medicine man howling dismally, circled with great leaps and bounds about his patient, in sporting phrase, "sparring for an opening" to get to close grips with the evil spirit. Finally his chance came. The spirit, invisible to all but him, had been caught off his guard. He rushed in, seized the sick man, and with hands and teeth attempted to drag from him the demon that tormented him. In the contest the patient was