He went out to sound the two women on the subject, and they presently rushed into the room; one of them caught up Rover in her arms, and, both bursting into floods of tears, vehemently declared nothing would induce them to part with their favourite. We were fairly vanquished by such a scene, and slunk away, feeling quite guilty at having proposed to deprive these poor lonely women of one of the few creatures they had to lavish their wealth of feminine affection upon. As we were on the point of starting, however, the man came up, leading poor Rover by a string, and begged us to take him, as he had at last persuaded the women to let him go. We demurred, but he urged it so strongly that we at length swallowed our scruples, and paid the money. As we drove off, the man said good-bye to him, as if parting with his dearest friend, and gave us many injunctions to “be kind to the little fellow.” This we most solemnly promised to do, and it is almost needless to state, we faithfully kept our word. A fortnight afterwards, these kindly people--in common with nearly all the whites in that part of Minnesota--suffered a horrible death at the hands of the invading Sioux. This fearful massacre, accompanied as it was by all the brutalities of savage warfare, was certainly accounted for, if not excused, or even justified, by the great provocation they had received. The carelessness and injustice of the American Government, and the atrocities committed by the troops sent out for the protection of the frontier, exasperated the native tribes beyond control. Several thousand Indians--men, women, and children-- assembled at Forts Snelling and Abercrombie, at a time appointed by the Government themselves, to receive the yearly subsidy guaranteed to them in payment for lands ceded to the United States. Year after year, either through the neglect of the officials at Washington, or the carelessness or dishonesty of their agents, the Indians were detained there for weeks, waiting to receive what was due to them. Able to bring but scanty provision with them--enough only for a few days--and far removed from the buffalo, their only means of subsistence, they were kept there in 1862 for nearly six weeks in fruitless expectation. Can it be a matter of surprise that, having been treated year by year in the same contemptuous manner, starving and destitute, the Sioux should have risen to avenge themselves on a race hated by all the Indians of the West?