What impulse stirred them up to break away from their own tribe, to which they had but just returned, and try the hard work of making a home among coldly disposed if not hostile whites? What made them leave all their old traditional ties and relationships and go forth as strangers and wanderers? It must be borne in mind that they left behind them the food which the government issued weekly on the agency, to seek a very precarious living by farming, for which they had neither tools nor teams. They also gave up the advantage of the yearly issue of clothing, and the prospect of such considerable gifts of horses, oxen, cows, wagons, and ploughs, as were distributed occasionally on the agency. More than this: those who had already received such gifts from the United States Indian Civilization Fund had to leave all behind, though they went out for the very purpose of seeking a higher civilization. They went forth in the face, moreover, of great opposition and derision from the chiefs of their tribe. The United States Indian agent was also against them. Whence, then, did they have the strength of purpose which enabled them to face all this opposition, brave all these dangers? The germs of this movement are only to be found in the resolves for a new life made by these men when in prison! There all were nominally, and the larger part were really, converted to Christ. All of them in some sense experienced a conversion of thought and purpose. There they agreed to abolish all the old tribal arrangements and customs. Old things were to be done away, and all things were to become new. And as they had been electing their church officers, so they would elect the necessary civil officers. But when they came to their people they found the old Indian system in full power, backed by the authority of the United States. Of the old chiefs who ruled them in Minnesota, Little Crow and Little Six, the leaders of the rebellion, were dead; but the others, who had been kept out of active participation, not by their loyalty to the United States, but by their jealousy of these leaders, had saved their necks and were again in power. A few had been appointed to vacancies by the United States agent, and the ring was complete. And our friends were commanded at once to fall in under the old chiefs before they could receive any rations. They must be Indians or starve! Nothing was to be hoped for from within the tribe, nor from Washington. The Indian principle was regnant there also. Nothing was left to them but to seek some other land. One said: "I could not bear to have my children grow up nothing but Indians"; so they all felt.