lizzard.

I may say here that I had a surgeon at each agency, who were brothers,
Dr. Asa W. Daniels at the lower agency and Dr. Jared Daniels at the
upper, and this excursion presented a pleasant opportunity for the
families to meet. The upper agency was in charge of my chief farmer, a
Scotch gentleman by the name of Robertson. He was a mystery which I
never unravelled,--a handsome, aristocratic, highly educated man about
seventy years of age, with the manners of a Chesterfield. He had been in
the Indian country for many years, had married a squaw, and raised a
numerous family of children, and had been in the employment of the
government ever since the making of the treaties. I always thought he
once was a man of fortune, who had dissipated it in some way, after
travelling the world over, and had sought oblivion in the wilds of
America.

There was a large comfortable log house at the Yellow Medicine agency,
occupied by Robertson, which answered for all his purposes, both
business and domestic, and furnished a home and office for me when I
happened to be there; and on one occasion, during the Ink-pa-du-ta
excitement, I found it made a very efficient fort for defense against
the Indians.

Our trip was uneventful, and we arrived in the evening. That night a
blizzard sprang up that exceeded in severity anything of the kind in my
experience, and I have had nearly half a century of Minnesota winters.
It raged and rampaged. It piled the snow on the prairie in drifts of ten
and twenty feet in height. It filled the river bottoms to the height of
about three feet on the level. It lasted about ten days, during which
time, we of course, did not dream of getting out, but amused ourselves
as best we could. It was what the French called a _poudre de riz_, where
there is more snow in the air than on the ground. Although I have been
entertained in many parts of the world, and by many various kinds of
people, I can say that I never enjoyed a few weeks more satisfactorily
than those we spent under compulsion at the Yellow Medicine river on
that occasion.

Personal association with Mr. Robertson was not only a delight, but an
education. He had been everywhere, and knew everything. He was charming
in conversation and magnificent in hospitality, and the unique nature of
his entertainment under his savage environments lent an additional charm
to the situation. He soon became aware that we needed something
exciting to sustain us in our en