The little settlement of Georgetown is placed under cover of the belt of timber which clothes the banks of the river, while to the south and east endless prairie stretches away to the horizon. The place is merely a trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, round which a few straggling settlers have established themselves. A company of Minnesota Volunteers was stationed here for the protection of the settlement against the Sioux. They were principally Irish or German Yankees; _i.e._, emigrants, out-Heroding Herod in Yankeeism, yet betraying their origin plainly enough. These heroes, slovenly and unsoldier-like, yet full of swagger and braggadocio now, when the Sioux advanced to the attack on Port Abercrombie, a few weeks afterwards, took refuge under beds, and hid in holes and corners, from whence they had to be dragged by their officers, who drew them out to face the enemy by putting revolvers to their heads. On the day of our arrival two half-breeds came in from a hunting expedition in which they had been very successful. They had found a band of twenty elk, out of which they killed four, desisting, according to their own account, from shooting more from a reluctance to waste life and provision!--a piece of consideration perfectly incomprehensible in a half-breed or Indian. We went down to their camp by the river, where they were living in an Indian “lodge,” or tent of skins stretched over a cone of poles. Squatted in front of it, engaged in cutting the meat for drying, was the most hideous old hag ever seen. Lean, dried-up, and withered, her parchment skin was seamed and wrinkled into folds and deep furrows, her eyes were bleared and blinking, and her long, iron-grey hair, matted and unkempt, hung over her shoulders. She kept constantly muttering, and showing her toothless gums, as she clawed the flesh before her with long, bony, unwashed fingers, breaking out occasionally into wild, angry exclamations, as she struck at the skeleton dogs which attempted to steal some of the delicate morsels strewn around.