Among the Kalmucks both abduction and pretended flight are found. According to De Hell, among the noble or princely class, after the bridegroom has arranged with the father for the price of the girl, he "sets out on horseback, accompanied by the chief nobles of the horde to which he belongs, to carry her off." A "sham resistance is always made by the people of her camp, in spite of which she fails not to be borne away on a richly caparisoned horse, with loud shouts and _feux de joie_."[517] A different custom is described by Dr. Clarke. After stipulation of the price the "ceremony of marriage among the Kalmucks is performed on horseback. A girl is first mounted, who rides off in full speed. Her lover pursues: if he overtakes her, she becomes his wife, and the marriage is consummated on the spot." But the race sometimes has a different ending. "We were assured," continues Clarke, "that no instance occurs of a Kalmuck girl being thus caught, unless she have a partiality to the pursuer. If she dislikes him she rides, to use the language of English sportsmen, 'neck or nought,' until she has completely effected her escape, or until her pursuer's horse becomes exhausted, leaving her at liberty to return, and to be afterwards chased by some more favored admirer."[518] [517] XAVIER HOMMAIRE DE HELL, _Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea_ (London, 1847), 259; cited by MCLENNAN, _Studies_, I, 15. _Cf._ LETOURNEAU, _op. cit._, 119. [518] CLARKE, _Travels_, I, 433; MCLENNAN, _op. cit._, I, 15, 16. _Cf._ KOEHNE, "Das Recht der Kalmücken," _ZVR._, IX, 462; DARGUN, _op. cit._, 89; LUBBOCK, _op. cit._, 116, 117. With the Kalmuck case may be compared the following, communicated by Dawson: "One day in 1872, when the writer was on the Ponka Reservation in Dakota, he noticed several young men on horseback, who were waiting for a young girl to leave the mission house. He learned that they were her suitors, and that they intended to run a race with her after they dismounted. Whoever could catch her would marry her; but she would take care not to let the wrong one catch her. La Flèche and Two Crows maintain that this is not a regular Ponka custom, and they are sure that the girl (a widow) must have been a 'mickeda,' or 'dissolute woman.'"--DAWSON, "Omaha Sociology," in _III. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 260.