ags of corn on the ground when they wanted the bag, and in every way
showed their contempt for the government, whose policy they believed to
be the result of cowardice. Thousands of dollars' worth of agricultural
machinery lay "rotting in the sun" while the noble red aristocrat played
poker in the shade; his original contempt for labor intensified by his
power to extract a living from laborers, through their fear of his
scalping knife.

Hole-in-the-day, the Chippewa chief, had been educated by Baptist
missionaries, and was a good English scholar, but would not condescend
to speak to the government except through an interpreter. For him six
hundred acres of land had been fenced, and a large frame cottage built
and painted white. In this he lived with six wives, and a United States
salary of two thousand a year and his traveling expenses. He dressed
like a white man, dined with State officers in St. Paul, went to church
with a lady on his arm, sat in a front pew, and was a highly
distinguished gentleman of the scalping school.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE INDIAN MASSACRE OF '62.

The Indians had been ugly from the first outbreak of the Rebellion, and
Commissioner Dole, with Senator Wilkinson, had come out to pacify them.
The party passed through St. Cloud, and had camped several miles west,
when in the night there came up one of those sudden storms peculiar to
this land. Their tents were whisked away like autumn leaves, and they
left clinging to such productions of mother nature as were at hand,
well rooted in her bosom, to avoid a witches' dance in the air. But it
grew worse when the rain had covered the level ground six inches deep in
water, and they must keep their heads above the surface.

They returned to St. Cloud in the morning in sorry plight, and the delay
was one of the injuries to the poor Indians, and counted as sufficient
justification for the subsequent massacre. The delay, however, saved
their lives. The messenger who aroused the people of St. Cloud in the
small hours was traveling post after this Dole commission, for whose
safety there was much anxiety, but none for St. Cloud, since the Indians
would not attack us while there were two companies of soldiers in town.
True, they were unarmed, but surely arms would be sent and their
marching orders rescinded. The outbreak was mysterious. It was of course
in the interests of the South, and meant to prevent the troops leaving
the State; but why had not the tri