and resting-places of the once noble sons
of the forest, covered by cities, towns, and hamlets. We asked but few
questions, being to our mind received as a strange animal; if nothing
worse."[193]

Among the others who served before 1858 as Indian agent were Amos J.
Bruce, R. G. Murphy, and Nathaniel McLean. The influx of whites had
greatly increased the difficulties of their position, and the memory of
their former agent made the Indians suspicious of their new advisers.
The Governor of the Territory became the Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, and his presence so near the agency took from the agent much of
his power.[194]

Scott Campbell, the interpreter at Fort Snelling, was the
intermediary between the Indians and their lords. He was a half-breed
whom Meriwether Lewis had met on his expedition up the Missouri River.
He took the boy with him back to St. Louis; and when Lewis died,
Campbell returned to his Sioux relatives and finally drifted to the
agency at Fort Snelling.[195] Having a knowledge of four languages, and
possessing the confidence of all the tribes within four hundred miles of
the post, he was indispensable. From August, 1825, to April, 1826, he
was engaged in the fur trade, but was lured back into service by a
salary of thirty-four dollars per month and one ration per day. By 1843,
however, he had become such a drunkard that he had to be dismissed.[196]

The veteran missionary, S. W. Pond, in recalling early days wrote that
"Scott Campbell no longer sits smoking his long pipe, and conversing in
low tones with the listless loungers around the old Agency House; but
who that resided in this country thirty or forty years ago can pass by
the old stone houses near Fort Snelling and not think of Major
Taliaferro and of his interpreter?"[197]

And who can pass the Old Round Tower without thinking of those men who
as officers at Fort Snelling ruled supreme over a vast region, and who
left the fort for places of greater trust and greater influence?

V

A SOLDIER'S WORLD

Instead of a world of city streets and country towns, of tilled fields
and rivers busy with commerce, the raw recruit at Old Fort Snelling
entered upon a world of stone barracks and Indian tepees, of tangled
prairies and rushing rivers.[198] The landing was directly under the
cliff which towered above to a height which to many a wanderer in a
frail canoe seemed twice the one hundred and six feet which the
scientist's instrumen