One morning as I rode a horse down to the Minnesota River to water it, I noticed a stolid looking Indian, with a gun by his side, sitting on a boulder by the river bank. Just as my horse began to drink, the Indian raised his gun and fired; the horse kicked up his heels, and I promptly became a Baptist by immersion. I can still show you the boulder, but you will have to imagine the Indian. When I was a small boy, a party of Sioux Indians returned to Traverse from an attack upon the Chippewas at Shakopee, and proceeded to celebrate the event with a scalp dance. This dance and the whoops of the Indians attracted spectators from Traverse and St. Peter; and with boyish curiosity, I was as near as possible to the dancers. Suddenly I spied one brave, dancing about, with a skunk skin tied to his heel and trailing on the ground behind him. Obeying a mischievous impulse, I jumped upon the trailing skin, and stopped the wild dancer. The savage wheeled, quickly raised his tomahawk, and was ready to strike; but when he saw a white boy, he merely kicked me out of the ring, and kept on with the dance. Mr. J. C. Bryant. When Governor McGill, came to St. Peter as a young man, he was obliged to practice strict economy to make both ends meet. The revenue he derived from teaching was so very meager, that he had to do without some of what we regard as actual necessities. Late in the fall he was passing Jack Lamberton's store, when the warm-hearted proprietor noticed that the school-master wore no overcoat. He guessed the reason; but he asked Mr. McGill why he wore no overcoat. "Well, I haven't one, and I am not able to buy one yet," he replied with sturdy honesty. "Just come right in, and help yourself to one, and pay for it when you can," said Mr. Lamberton with characteristic generosity. This kindness was a bond that made the two men friends for life, although later they were often arrayed against each other politically. When certain men in the state were trying to steal the Capital from St. Peter for St. Paul, Captain Dodd is said to have traveled on foot from St. Peter to St. Paul between sunrise and sunset in the interests of St. Peter. This feat would seem to me a physical impossibility, but it was a story current when I was a boy in St. Peter. It is a matter of history, too, that all the attempts to save the Capital were futile, and the indomitable Captain Dodd had his long walk in vain.