"We are building, this summer, a plain, snug, one-story house, with a sitting-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms on the lower floor, and two rooms above, if ever they should be completed. We have been hoping to have a young lady to assist in teaching, etc., for an occupant of one of our bedrooms, but the prospect is rather discouraging. And yet I feel that it is no more so than we deserve, for I have not exercised faith in this respect. I have, however, some hope that He 'who is able to do exceeding abundantly, above all that we ask or think,' will send us such fellow-laborers as we need." During these two buffalo winters, almost the whole village removed up to the Pomme de Terre, or _Owobaptay_ River as the Dakotas called it. That was a better point to hunt from. For the regulation of the hunt, and to prevent the buffalo from being driven off, they organized a _Soldiers' Lodge_. This was a large tent pitched in the centre of the camp, where the symbols of power were kept in two bundles of _red_ and _black_ sticks. These represented the soldiers--those who had killed enemies and those who had not. To this tent the women brought offerings of wood and meat; and here the young and old men often gathered to feast, and from these headquarters went forth, through an _Eyanpaha_ (cryer), the edicts of the wise men. For these two winters, I arranged to spend every alternate Sabbath at the camp, going up on Saturday and returning on Monday. This soldiers' tent was, from the first, placed at my disposal for Sabbath meetings. It was an evidence of a great change in the general feeling of the village toward Christianity. It was a public recognition of it. All were not Christians by any means; but the _following_ was honorable and honored, and we usually had a crowded tent. Our evening meetings were held in the tent of one of our church members. So the Word of God grew in Dakota soil. Where the village of Lac-qui-parle now stands is the site of Wakanmane's planting-place and village of those days. In one of the summer bark houses, we were accustomed to hold a week-day meeting. Our mission was three miles from there, and on the other side of the Minnesota; but it was only a pleasant walk of a summer day, and I was sure to find a little company, chiefly women, of from half a dozen to a dozen present. After two years' absence, Dr. Williamson returned to Lac-qui-parle on a visit, and remarked that he had found no meetings among the Dakotas so stimulating and encouraging as that weekly prayer-meeting. I have since spent a Sabbath, and worshipped with white people on the same spot. It seemed like Jacob coming back to Bethel, where the angels of God had been.