ife of the two. The Government relations
differ materially. If the supplies were withheld from the Indians, and
they were compelled to take land in severally, and not hustled over the
prairie every month or two weeks for meat, sugar and coffee, I think the
change for the better would be perceptible in a twelvemonth. There is
general hopefulness on the part of the missionaries among the red men,
now that two Christian men stand at the head of the Indian Department.

It was my privilege to take a cordial letter of greeting from Supt.
Dorchester of the Government Indian Schools to the A.M.A. missionaries
at Santee Agency, Neb. It was an encouragement to these earnest toilers
in this far-away field to know that there was appreciation on the part
of the Government of the Christian work among these Indians. Great care,
intense study, great deliberation of action will be necessary if these
new Government officers succeed in bettering the condition of the red
men, as they are doubtless sincerely desirous of doing. They must know
what they are doing, before they do it.

The Government schools which I visited furnished abundant evidence that
considerable time would be necessary to correct the evils existing in
these, and to make them what they should be before any radical policy
could be safely adopted by the Government in reference to contract
missionary schools. The Roman Catholic influence seems to have been a
dominant power in the control of these schools for some time.

Wolf Chief, a Mandan Indian, called on me while at Fort Berthold and
begged that his tribe be protected against a Catholic priest who, he
said, wanted to compel them to send their children to a school that he
proposed to establish near them. "We Mandans are Congregationalists,"
said this Indian chief, "and we want to send our children to your
mission."

* * * * *

Incidents both amusing and pathetic are of frequent occurrence in this
Indian work. Such incidents throw light upon the inside life of the
Indians and missionaries, and are often useful in the "Monthly Concert,"
and so I record some of them here.

"Cherries-in-the-mouth," a somewhat aged and highly-painted Indian, was
very much taken with one of the missionaries. He came to the
Superintendent of the mission and offered eight ponies for her, or, I
believe, more correctly, said he would give eight ponies, if he had
them. His affection was larger than his pocket-b