When Mary and the children had safely reached friends and civilization at Mr. Pond's, I was pressed in spirit with the thought that I might have some duty to perform in the Indian country. At Lac-qui-parle, twenty-five miles beyond our station at Hazelwood, were Amos W. Huggins, with wife and children, and Miss Julia La Framboise. They had been in the employ of the government as teachers at Wakanmane's village. What had befallen them, we knew not; but we knew that white men had been killed between our place and Lac-qui-parle. Then, our native church members--they might need help. And so I took a boat at Shakopee, and went down to St. Paul, and offered my services to Governor Ramsay, in whatever capacity he chose to put me. He immediately commissioned me as chaplain to General Sibley's expedition. The last day of August I was at St. Peter, where I learned from Mr. Huggins' friends the story that he had been killed, and that his wife and children were captives. In regard to them I received a special charge from Mrs. Holtsclaw, and I conceived a plan of immediately sending for Mrs. Huggins. But circumstances made it impossible to carry out that plan for several weeks. The next day, Sabbath though it was, I rode up with Colonel Marshall and others to Fort Ridgely, where General Sibley's command was encamped. He was waiting for reinforcements and ammunition supplies. At the first news of the massacres, a large number of citizens had impressed their neighbors' horses, and had started for the Indian country. Many of them were poor riders, and they were all poorly armed. They were without military organization and drill, and were felt to be an element of weakness rather than strength. A night or two before I reached the camp, a couple of shots had been fired, supposed to have been by Indians. The drum beat the "long roll," and the men that formed this "string-bean cavalry," as they were called, crawled under the wagons. The next morning many of them had had a clairvoyant communication with their families at home, and learned that their wives were sick. They were permitted to depart.