MASSACRES BY THE SIOUX. 15 



The man hesitated, said lie was very unwilliiig to 

 part. with him, and, indeed, he thought his wife and 

 sister would not hear of it. If, however, they could 

 be brought to consent, he thought he could not afford 

 to refuse so good an offer, for he was very short of 

 money. 



He went out to sound the two women on the 

 subject, and they presently rushed into the room ; one 

 of them caught up Rover in her arms, and, both burst- 

 ing into floods of tears, vehemently declared nothing 

 would induce them to part with their favourite. We 

 were fairly vanquished by such a scene, and slunk 

 away, feeling quite guilty at having proposed to 

 deprive these poor lonely women of one of the few 

 creatures they had to lavish their wealth of feminine 

 affection upon. 



As we were on the point of starting, however, the 

 man came up, leading poor Rover by a string, and 

 begged us to take him, as he had at last persuaded 

 the women to let him go. We demurred, but he 

 urged it so strongly that we at length swallowed our 

 scruples, and paid the money. As we drove off, the 

 man said good-bye to him, as if parting with his 

 dearest friend, and gave us many injunctions to "be 

 kind to the little fellow." This we most solemnly 

 promised to do, and it is almost needless to state, 

 we faithfully kept dlir word. 



A fortnight afterwards, these kindly people — ^in 

 common with nearly all the whites in that part of 

 Minnesota — suffered a horrible death at the hands of 

 the invading Sioux. This fearful massacre, accom- 



