When the autumn came, the victories of the Sioux had been turned into a general defeat. Many of them, as they claim, had been opposed to the war all along. The attacks, they say, were all made by the white soldiers. _They_--these Dakota men--were anxious to have peace, and used all their influence to abate the war spirit among the more excited young men. This made it possible for the military to carry out the order to _dismount_ and _disarm_ the Sioux. But in doing this all were treated alike as foes. Such men as _Long Mandan_ complain bitterly of this injustice. From him and his connections the military took sixty-two horses. He cannot see the righteousness of it. As a matter of course, this excited state of the community was unfavorable, in some respects, to missionary work during the winter. The military control attempted to interfere with the sending away of Teeton young men to the Santee school. But on the whole no year of work has proved more profitable. In all the schools, Thomas reported about two hundred and forty scholars. They were necessarily irregular in attendance, as they were frequently ordered up to the agency to be counted. Still, the willing hearts and hands had work to do all the time. And so the spring of 1877 came, when the women folks of Bogue Station had all planned to have a little rest. Mrs. Nina Riggs was to go as far as Chicago to meet her father and mother from Bangor. Miss Collins and Miss Whipple were going to visit their friends in Iowa and Wisconsin. And so they all prepared for the journey and _waited for a boat_. By some mischance boats slid by them. They put their tent on the riverbank and waited. So a whole month had passed, when, at last, their patient waiting was rewarded, and they passed down the Missouri River and on to Chicago. The ladies of the Woman's Board of the Interior had arranged to have them present and take an active part in several public meetings in and around Chicago. This was unwise for the toilers among the Dakotas. The excitement of waiting and travel--the summer season--the strain on the nervous system incident to speaking in public, to those unaccustomed to it--all these were unfavorable to the rest they needed. We must not quarrel with the Lord's plan, but we may object to the human unwisdom. So it was; before Miss Whipple had visited her friends she was stricken down with fever. Loving hearts and willing hands could not stay its progress. It is said, and we do not doubt it, that all was done for her recovery that kind and anxious friends could do. Miss Collins, her special friend, did not leave her. Delirium came on, and she was _waiting for the boat_. It was not now a Missouri steamer, but the boat that angels bring across from the Land of Life. She saw it coming. "The boat has come and I must step in," she said. And so she did, and passed over to the farther shore of the river.