Thomas Lawrence was Mary's second boy. He could hardly be reconciled with the idea that his mother should go away to the spirit land, while he was down in Mississippi teaching the freedmen. Now he had been two years in Chicago Theological Seminary, and was asking what he should do when the other year was finished. The Prudential Committee of the American Board were looking around for some one to send to the Upper Missouri. Thomas had been born and brought up, in good part, in the land of the Dakotas; but they deemed it only fair that he should now with a man's eyes see the field, and with a man's heart better understand the work before committing himself to it. And so, in his summer vacation of 1871, they said to him, "Go with your father to the land of the Teetons, and see whether you can find your life-work with them." We came to the land of the Teetons, and stopped for five or six weeks at Fort Sully, which was in the neighborhood of Cheyenne agency. There we found Chaplain G. D. Crocker, who had been much interested in our work among the Dakotas when stationed at Fort Wadsworth. We found also good and true Christian friends in Captain Irvine and his wife, and in the noble Mrs. General Stanley, the wife of the commandant of the post. In the mornings of our stay in the garrison, we often gathered buffalo berries--mashtinpoota, _rabbit noses_, as the Indians called them. During the day we talked with the Dakotas, and studied the Teeton dialect, and also the Assinaboine and the Ree. In our judgment, the time had fully come for us to commence evangelistic work in this part of the nation. Our friends at Sully thought so, and the prudential committee did not hesitate a moment. Indeed, they could not wait for Thomas to finish his seminary course, but sent him off in midwinter to Fort Sully. He was ordained by a council which met in Beloit. The Indians of the Cheyenne agency, a portion of them, were distributed along down in the Missouri bottom in little villages and clusters of houses. In a village of this kind, a little below the fort, and on the opposite side of the river, T. L. Riggs erected his first house. It was a hewed log cabin, with two rooms below, one of which was a school-room. The garret was arranged for sleeping apartments. This was called Hope Station, so named by Captain Irvine's little daughter, who about this time came into the Christian hope.