eriousness was not
ascetical or moroseful. Far from it. Those missionary heroes were full
of gladness. With all the disadvantages of such a childhood was the
rich privilege of understanding the meaning of cheerful earnestness in
Christian life."

[Illustration: REV. STEPHEN R. RIGGS, D.D., LL.D.,
Forty-five Years a Missionary to the Dakotas.]

Chapter III.

Thus for more than a quarter of a century, the glorious work of
conquering the Sioux nation for Christ went on. It was pushed
vigorously at every mission station from Lac-qui-Parle to Red Wing and
from Kaposia to Hazelwood. Great progress was made in these years. And
such a work!

The workers were buried out of sight of their fellow-white men.
Lac-qui-Parle was more remote from Boston than Manilla is today.
It took Stephen R. Riggs three months to pass with his New England
bride from the green hills of her native state to Fort Snelling. It
was a further journey of thirteen days over a trackless trail,
through the wilderness, to their mission home on the shores of the
Lake-that-speaks. Even as late as 1843, it required a full month's
travel for the first bridal tour of Agnes Carson Johnson as Mrs.
Robert Hopkins from the plains of Ohio to the prairies of Minnesota.
It was no pleasure tour in Pullman palace cars, on palatial limited
trains, swiftly speeding over highly polished rails from the far east
to the Falls of St. Anthony, in those days. It was a weary, weary
pilgrimage of weeks by boat and stage, by private conveyance and
oft-times on foot. One can make a tour of Europe today with greater
ease and in less time than those isolated workers at Lac-qui-Parle
could revisit their old homes in Ohio and New England.

Within their reach was no smithy and no mill until they built one;
there was no post office within one hundred miles, and all supplies were
carried from Boston to New Orleans by sloops; then by steamboats almost
the whole length of the Mississippi; then the flatboat-men sweated and
swore as they poled them up the Minnesota to the nearest landing-place;
then they had to be hauled overland one hundred and twenty-five miles.
These trips were ever attended with heavy toil, often with great
suffering and sometimes with loss of life.

Small was the support received from the Board. The entire income of the
mission, including government aid to the schools, was less than one
thousand dollars a year. Upon this meager sum, three ordaine