It appears that during the winter some rumors of peace visits from the Ojibwas had reached the Dakotas, so that this hunting party were somewhat prepared to meet Ojibwas who should come with this announced purpose. The half-dozen teepees had divided. Mr. Pond was with Round Wind, who had removed from the three teepees that remained. On Thursday evening there came Hole-in-the-day, an Ojibwa chief, with ten men. They had come to smoke the peace-pipe, they said. The three Dakota tents contained but three men and ten or eleven women and children. But, while starving themselves, they would entertain their visitors in the most royal style. Two dogs were killed and they were feasted, and then all lay down to rest. But the Ojibwas were false. They arose at midnight and killed their Dakota hosts. In the morning but one woman and a boy remained alive of the fourteen in the three teepees the night before, and the boy was badly wounded. It was a cowardly act of the Ojibwas, and one that was terribly avenged afterward. When Mr. Pond had helped to bury the dead and mangled remains of these three families, he started for home, and was the first to bring the sad news to their friends at Lac-qui-parle. To him quite an experience was bound up in those two weeks, and the marvel was, why he was not then among the slain. To Mary and me it opened a whole store-house of instruction, as we listened to the wail of the whole village, and especially when the old women came with dishevelled heads and ragged clothes, and cried and sang around our house, and _begged in the name of our first-born_. We discovered all at once the power of a name. And if an earthly name has such power, much more the Name that is above every name--much more the Name of the Only Begotten of the heavenly Father. * * * * * Lac-qui-parle was in those days much shut out from the great world. We were two hundred miles away from our post-office at Fort Snelling. We seldom received a letter from Massachusetts or Ohio in less than three months after it was written. Often it was much longer, for there were several times during our stay at Lac-qui-parle when we passed three months, and once five months, without a mail. We used to pray that the mail would not come in the evening. If it did, good-by sleep! If it came in the early part of the day, we could look it over and become quieted by night. Our communication with the post-office was generally through the men engaged in the fur-trade. Some of them had no sympathy with us as missionaries, but they were ever willing to do us a favor as men and Americans. Sometimes we sent and received our mail by Indians. That was a very costly way. The postage charged by the government--although it was then twenty-five cents on a letter--was no compensation for a Dakota in those days. It is fortunate for them that they have learned better the value of work.