A short time after the legislature had dissolved George was standing in a saloon on Third street, with his right arm in a sling, and a glass of whisky in his left hand, which he was about to drink, when who should walk in but the big sergeant. Without a word George discharged the contents of his glass into the face of the sergeant, and prepared for battle, crippled as he was; but the interruption of friends and the chivalry of the sergeant prevented an encounter, and so ended the legislative career of the gentleman from Canada. Whether it would have terminated otherwise had we set up our coach and livery and changed our moccasins for patent leather boots I leave to the decision of the reader. He went with General Sibley's command to the Missouri, where I believe he remained. THE VIRGIN FEAST. In all ages, and among all people who had progressed beyond absolute individualism and gained any kind of government or community interests, there must have been some kind of law to settle disputes and controversies, whether of a public or private nature, and I remember once, in the very early days of Minnesota, of witnessing a test which bore a close resemblance to a trial by jury, and involved an important question of individual character which would have been classified under our jurisprudence as an action of slander. It occurred among the Sioux Indians, and presented many features of much interest that made an impression on me which I have never forgotten. The whole proceeding was absolutely natural and aboriginal in its character and conduct, and free from the technicalities which sometimes obstruct the progress of the administration of justice in modern times. It is well known that the value of the testimony of a witness depends very much upon his demeanor and manner of delivering it in court, and that the judge usually tells the jury that they must take these matters into consideration in giving it its true weight; but in the case I am about to relate there was nothing but the appearance and manner of the witnesses testifying upon which to base a judgment of their truth or falsity, and it was this novel feature that lent additional and peculiar interest to the controversy. The Sioux Indians have a rude kind of jurisprudence which gets at the truth by a sort of natural intuition, and the case I witnessed convinced me that justice had been reached with more certainty than in nine out of ten of our jury trials. We have all heard of trial by battle, under the old English law, and the trial of witches by water, where, if they sank and drowned they were innocent, and if they floated they were guilty and were hanged. But this trial was based on public sentiment or the ability of bystanders to detect guilt or innocence from the appearance and conduct of the litigants during the trial, which, although a crude method, is, in my judgment, much safer than some of those practised by our ancestors at no very remote date.