Not in many, many years have I been so affected as I was this morning. For some days I have had a high fever, and have slept but little at night. In-si-mak´-i (Growth Woman), Yellow Wolf's wife, had been doctoring me with the good old remedy for fevers, sweet sage tea, but it seemed to have no effect. So Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill announced that he would have his Elk Medicine ceremony for my benefit, and that he was sure that it would cure me of my illness. We had it this morning, and to-night I have a normal pulse and the fever has left me. I will not go so far as to say that it was his prayers that cured me,--prayers far better, far more earnest than those of any Christian preacher I ever heard,--but yet, I am well! To me, all religions are nothing more than the codified superstitions of the ages, but of them all, Christian and pagan, I like best the faith of these, my people, faith that the sun is the conservator of all life and the orderly ruler of this, our earth. And what absolute faith they have in their Sun-religion! Should Christians live as closely to their beliefs as the Blackfeet do to the laws of conduct given them by their Sun god, what a different, what a happy world this would be! Before I relate the details of the ceremony, I must tell something of the medicine itself. The Blackfeet believe that, when they lie down and sleep, their shadows, or, as we say, their souls, their spiritualities, leave the body and go on far adventure. Their name for this is Ni-pup´-o-kan (my dream; my vision); and when they awake they really believe that they have experienced all the incidents of their dream, and relate them as having been of actual fact. When men and animals were first created, they had a common language, and the latter had the power to change themselves at will into the form of man. It was in that long ago time that a man seeking knowledge, and praying earnestly for it, was in his vision visited by an elk in the form of a man, whose name was Po-no-kai´-ût-sĭn-in-ah (Elk-Tongue Chief). "I have heard you praying, asking for help. What is it you want? Perhaps I can help you," the elk man said. The man answered: "I seek some way to relieve my people from sickness; some way to give them long life and happiness. Help me if you can do so."