The lower Sioux did not assemble and raid the warehouses, but resorted to a less riotous procedure. On the warpath or the hunt it was Indian law that a kind of provost guard composed of active warriors should maintain order on the march and in bivouac. It was called the Ti-yó-ti-pi, or “Soldiers’ lodge,” had a large discretion, and exacted instant obedience. A modified soldiers’ lodge was now set up (June, 1862) on the lower agency, attended by one hundred and fifty warriors. In its frequent councils all the grievances of the past and present were rehearsed, and schemes for redress broached and discussed. Evidence is wanting to support the assertions of contemporaries that in this soldiers’ lodge there was concocted a definite scheme of murder and pillage to be carried out later. Possibly some braves, more patriotic than judicious, pictured the consequences to the cowardly white man if the great Sioux nation should launch its hosts against his undefended farms and villages. But the oratory of the lodge fed fat the ancient grudge of the red men and added to their chronic exasperation. The dog days drew on, but there was no outward sign of insurrection. Although he felt that the Indians were in an evil and turbulent state, Agent Galbraith did not think it injudicious for him to leave his people in charge of his assistants and go off to New Ulm with a batch of forty-nine volunteers for the army on the afternoon of August 15. The same day he had passed through some of the villages and had conferred with Little Crow about the brick house he was to build for that chief. Two days after that, Crow attended morning services in the Episcopal mission chapel, and gave no sign of excitement or enmity. But for an unforeseen incident the peace might have lasted another day, and lasting that other day, on which the annuity gold arrived, might not have been broken by one of the bloodiest Indian wars of the continent. On Sunday, August 17, 1862, a party of Sioux from Rice Creek were hunting in Meeker County for deer, and, if chance should offer, for Chippeway scalps. Early in the afternoon, in Acton Township, Meeker County, a detachment of these hunters, four or more in number, coming to a settler’s cabin, where three families were assembled, wantonly murdered five out of eleven persons. The motive for this crime is not easy to conjecture. The houses were not plundered nor fired. The evidence that the savages were drunk has not been found. There may be some value in the story that the first shot was fired by a young man who, having been twitted by his companions with cowardice, wished to show them that he dared shoot a white man.