In the month of June following, rumor came to the capitol of a new Indian outbreak on our western frontier. It was said that Indians had come in the night and committed depredations, and quite an alarm was caused all along the frontier; the bloody massacre of 1862 was still fresh in the memories of our people, and while the state authorities did not believe this rumor, we deemed it necessary to take measures at once for pacifying the people by protecting the frontier. Therefore I started out at once with several hundred stand of arms, with ammunition and authority to organize the settlers into militia companies and commission officers for the same. Selecting a few friends for company and aids, we went by rail as far as Benson, Swift county, thence by ox teams northward, following the frontier settlements to the northern portion of Otter Tail county. Four companies of militia were organized and officers duly appointed, the last being in Otter Tail county, with a Swedish count, Ragnar Kalling, as captain. This prompt action stopped the panic, and all has been quiet since that time. The rumor of the Indian depredation proved to have originated with some settlers who, in the disguise of Indians, had tried to scare away a Norwegian from a claim which he had taken from another man. During this year one of the greatest railroad enterprises in the world was commenced, namely, the building of the Northern Pacific, extending from Lake Superior to the Pacific coast, a distance of over two thousand miles. The celebrated financier Jay Cooke, of Philadelphia, who had acquired a great reputation as the financial agent of President Lincoln's administration during the war, was at the head of the enterprise. The Northern Pacific Company had received a government grant of many millions of acres of land along the proposed railroad, and it required millions upon millions of dollars to build the road. One of the important financial questions with Jay Cooke was how to derive a revenue from the sale of lands, and how to get settlers and communities started along the line of the road. So ignorant were the people of this country about the region lying within the limits of the Northern Pacific railroad that it was generally supposed to be either barren or too far north for successful agriculture; yet that very region has since proved to be the greatest wheat producing country in the world. Mr. Cooke himself had been all over it with a small party, under the escort of United States cavalry, on an exploring tour, and he was perhaps the only man of that day who foresaw the future greatness of the Northern Pacific region.