I had early taken the precaution to construct a sleigh especially adapted to winter travel in this exposed region. It had recesses where were stowed away provisions, fuel, tools, and many things to meet possible emergencies. The cushions were made of twelve pairs of four-point Mackinaw blankets, and the side rails were capable of carrying two carcasses of venison or mutton, so I felt quite capable of conquering a blizzard. I may say here that I had a surgeon at each agency, who were brothers, Dr. Asa W. Daniels at the lower agency and Dr. Jared Daniels at the upper, and this excursion presented a pleasant opportunity for the families to meet. The upper agency was in charge of my chief farmer, a Scotch gentleman by the name of Robertson. He was a mystery which I never unravelled,--a handsome, aristocratic, highly educated man about seventy years of age, with the manners of a Chesterfield. He had been in the Indian country for many years, had married a squaw, and raised a numerous family of children, and had been in the employment of the government ever since the making of the treaties. I always thought he once was a man of fortune, who had dissipated it in some way, after travelling the world over, and had sought oblivion in the wilds of America. There was a large comfortable log house at the Yellow Medicine agency, occupied by Robertson, which answered for all his purposes, both business and domestic, and furnished a home and office for me when I happened to be there; and on one occasion, during the Ink-pa-du-ta excitement, I found it made a very efficient fort for defense against the Indians. Our trip was uneventful, and we arrived in the evening. That night a blizzard sprang up that exceeded in severity anything of the kind in my experience, and I have had nearly half a century of Minnesota winters. It raged and rampaged. It piled the snow on the prairie in drifts of ten and twenty feet in height. It filled the river bottoms to the height of about three feet on the level. It lasted about ten days, during which time, we of course, did not dream of getting out, but amused ourselves as best we could. It was what the French called a _poudre de riz_, where there is more snow in the air than on the ground. Although I have been entertained in many parts of the world, and by many various kinds of people, I can say that I never enjoyed a few weeks more satisfactorily than those we spent under compulsion at the Yellow Medicine river on that occasion.