"The _suspense_ was terrible. The ignorant women had not seen much of the world, and didn't know anything about law. They, however, knew that their husbands and sons had been murdering the whites, and were now in prison therefor, and they themselves dependent for life on the mercy of the whites. The ever-present query was, What will become of us, and especially of the men? With inquisitive eyes they were always watching the soldiers and other whites who visited them, for an answer, but the curses and threats they received were little understood, except that they meant no good. With what imploring looks have we been besought to tell them their fate. Strange reports were constantly being whispered around the camp. Now, the men were all to be executed, of whom the thirty-eight hanged at Mankato was the first installment, and the women and children scattered and made slaves; now, they were all to be taken to a rocky barren island somewhere, and left with nothing but fish for a support; and, again, they were to be taken away down South, where it was so hot they would all die of fever and ague." Rev. John P. Williamson, having been providentially absent in Ohio at the time of the outbreak, returned to accompany this camp of despised and hated Dakotas in their journey from the Lower Sioux Agency to Fort Snelling. But it did not immediately appear what he could do for them. He and I were in much the same condition, looking around for other work. He says of himself that at this time he "made some effort to secure a place as stated supply in the neighborhood of St. Paul or Minneapolis, but was unsuccessful; and then he felt such drawing toward the Indian camp that he took the nearest available quarters, and spent the winter ministering temporally and spiritually to this afflicted people." When, in the spring following, they were taken down the Mississippi and up the Missouri to Crow Creek, he did not forsake them, but stayed by them in evil and in good report, with the devotion of a lover. Everywhere, and at all times his thoroughly honest, devoted, and unselfish course commanded the respect and confidence of white men in and out of the army. And his self-abandonment to the temporal and spiritual good of the families of the men in prison begot in them such admiration and confidence that scarcely a prayer was made by them, in all those four years of their imprisonment, without the petition that God would remember and bless "the one who is called John." The camp at Snelling was on the low ground near the river, where the steamboats were accustomed to land. A high board fence was made around two or three acres of ground, inside of which the Dakotas pitched their cloth tents. In them they cooked and ate and slept, and read the Bible and sang and prayed, and wrote letters to their friends in prison.