Besides the regular freight for the company trading posts, the boat carried up a large quantity of annuities for the several Indian tribes. A more extended reference to this annuity business and the abuses to which it led will be made further on. It is enough here to say that the agents were sent into the country without any protection; that the Company traders adroitly worked on their fears until they were fain to place themselves under the shelter of the trading posts; and that the Company was thus enabled to manage the government business to its own great profit. On this particular trip there was a new agent by the name of Matlock, and a good deal of time had to be spent at the various agencies to permit him to confer with the Indians. At Crow Creek there was a band of Yankton Sioux near a trading establishment under charge of Colin Campbell. Here agent Matlock gave the Indians a feast and left part of their annuities, but not all, being induced by the Company’s agent to deposit the balance at Fort Pierre. The Indians were sharp enough to see that they had not received all they were entitled to and naturally could not understand why. Campbell assured them that they would receive the balance at Fort Pierre. “Why not here?” asked the Indians. “Why make this long journey for what we can just as well get right here?” Campbell turned them off by saying that the Indian agent could attend to the matter there better. [Sidenote: SULLEN ACQUIESCENCE.] [Sidenote: BADLY SCARED.] The Indians sullenly acquiesced, evidently much dissatisfied. Campbell had cut ten or twelve cords of wood at this place for use of the boat, but it was not needed till the down trip. Captain La Barge feared, however, that, if it was left, the Indians, in their present temper, would burn it, and he therefore concluded to take it along. The Indians refused to let the wood be taken without pay, and seated themselves on the pile so that the men could not get at it. The captain was compelled to pay for the wood, although it had been cut by Company men. But the matter did not end here. Etienne Provost, who, as elsewhere stated, was employed on these trips to take charge of the rough and turbulent mountain men, was asked to attend to the loading of the wood, as it was feared there might be trouble. Provost came up on the boiler deck and sat down by La Barge, saying: “We are going to have some fun before that wood is on board.” He then shouted “Woodpile! Woodpile!” and enough men rushed out to the bank, to take the whole woodpile at once. Provost ordered them to pick up all they could carry and then to move on to the boat one after another, so as to have no crowding or confusion on the gang plank. Meanwhile a dozen or more Indians were standing by, looking on. When the men were loaded up and were jammed close together in single file on their way to the boat, the Indians jumped upon them and began to belabor them with the rawhide horsewhips