At Oahe, fifteen miles west of Pierre, Dakota Territory, is a second mission station, under the charge of the American Missionary Association. Up and down the river, on what is known as the Peoria Bottom, are perhaps a hundred families of Indians, each living on their own homesteads, off reservation limits, cultivating their farms, dwelling in comfortable log-houses, dressed in civilized garb, and showing as much neatness and industry as the average white man. These people are recognized as citizens and are voters. They have a neat chapel, a native pastor, sustain admirable prayer-meetings--a woman's prayer-meeting among them--and live good reputable lives. In this spot and at Santee Agency the Indian is seen at his best. Life and property are respected, the land is fairly tilled, the homes are happy, intelligence is general, and religion is the universal motive-power. [Illustration: WIGWAMS AMONG THE SIOUX.] On the west side of the Missouri in Dakota lies the great Sioux Reservation, containing 8,000 Indians at the Pine Ridge Agency, nearly 8,000 at the Rosebud Agency, 1,500 of the Lower Brule Indians, 3,000 along the Cheyenne River and northward, and nearly 4,000 on the Standing Rock Agency. It was my fortune to visit a number of villages on the Cheyenne, Morrow, and Grand Rivers and at Standing Rock. The Indians at these places are all wild--that is, still wear blankets, breech-cloths, and leggings, feathers and geegaws, do little toward cultivating the land, and are ignorant heathen. A Sabbath in a village on the Cheyenne showed what wild Indians were. The morning opened with two men disguised in buffalo-skins with the heads on, running through the village. They had had a dream, were supposed to be possessed of spirits, and as they chased the villagers all ran from them, affrighted lest some witchcraft be wrought by them. Presently the church-bell rang at the missionary's tent, and fifty Indians came in, gaudy in paints and wampum, ornaments, and dangling queues tied up with mink-skins, the chief wearing a broken down beaver hat with a faded weed upon it, and the rest supplied with fans of eagles' wings, pipes, and other accompaniments of Indian gentlemen. They listened with occasional grunts of approval during worship, and filed out at the close with a cordial handshake, one remaining, named from his height Touch-the-Clouds, to say that he felt the importance of this new way, and that he wished for himself and his people schools and churches. This was encouraging, but as the evening came on there set up a hideous noise; a dance was in progress, and all night long a relay of three Indians kept up the hideous and monotonous tom-tom of their kettle-drums, while the shrill scream of the women pierced the air.