GENS AND PHRATRY OF THE DAKOTA. 199 
numbers, a selected few broke in the door of the warehouse with axes and 
carried out a large quantity of flour and pork. ‘To this the attention of 
Agent Galbraith was immediately called, who made an ineffectual effort to 
have it carried back. The howitzer was turned towards the Indians and 
there was a prospect of a collision, but the numbers were so disproportion- 
ate that it was judged best to avoid it. Scarcely had they reached their 
own camp when those four hundred tents were struck, and all removed off 
to a distance of 2 or 3 miles. That was supposed to mean war. 
The next morning the writer visited the agency, having heard some- 
thing of the trouble. When I met the agent he said, ‘Mr. Riggs, if there 
is anything between the lids of the Bible that will help us out of this diffi- 
culty, I wish you would use it.” I said I would try, and immediately drove 
up to Standing Buffalo’s camp. [represented to him the necessity of having 
this difficulty settled. However perfect they might regard their right to the 
provisions they had taken, the Government would not be willing to treat 
them kindly until the affair was arranged. The breaking in of the ware- 
house was regarded as a great offense. 
He promised to gather the chief men immediately and talk the thing 
over and come. down to the agency as soon as possible. 
It was afternoon when about fifty of the principal men gathered on the 
agent’s porch. They said they were sorry the thing had taken place, but 
they could not restrain the young men, so great was the pressure of hunger 
in the camp. They wished, moreover, the agent to repair the broken door 
at their expense. Some of the young men who broke it down were present, 
but they did not want to have them punished. It was rather a lame justi- 
fication, but Agent Galbraith considered it best to accept of it and to give 
them some more provisions, on condition that they would return immedi- 
ately to their planting places at Big Stone Lake and Lake Traverse. This 
he desired them to do because the time when the payment could be made 
was unknown to him and their own corn patches would soon need watching. 
Standing Buffalo and his brother chiefs accepted the conditions, and in a 
couple of days the northern camp had disappeared. 
Four or five weeks after this, these warriors came down again to the 
Yellow Medicine and the Red Wood; but it was not to meet the agent or 
any white people, but to see Little Crow and the hostile Indians and ascer- 
tain whereunto the rebellion would grow. It is reported that, on this ocea- 
sion, Standing Buffalo told Little Crow that, having commenced hostilities 
with the whites, he must fight it out without help from him; and that, failing 
