In the month of August, 1862, the distribution of the Government payment, for various reasons, had been long delayed, and the wild Indians, waiting in idleness for it to come instead of being, as they should have been, out on the prairies hunting buffalo, became constantly more restless, suspicious and arrogant as time went on. The idea gained strength among them that the Government intended to cheat them of the payment. Moreover, they had heard many rumors of the great civil war in which the United States was engaged, and many white people among them did not hesitate to make them believe that the Nation was about to be overthrown, which, indeed, did not seem improbable in 1862 in view of the many reverses which the Union armies were suffering. Such reports, coupled with the fact that most of the United States troops along the Minnesota frontier had been sent to the South and that those remaining were few and scattered, caused the leaders of the hostile element among the Minnesota Indians to believe that the time had come when the whites might be driven back beyond the Mississippi, leaving the Indians again in possession of all their old territories west of that stream. At the time the Briscoe family had come into the country this feeling did not yet exist among the Indians, but during the Spring and Summer of 1862 many exciting incidents had occurred at the Agencies and elsewhere, in which the growing arrogance and self-confidence of the hostiles had been made plain. Of these incidents Mr. Briscoe had been made aware through his occasional trips to Fort Ridgely after supplies, and, having had some previous experience of the ways of Indians in the Southwest, he had been disquieted and apprehensive for the future. But he had kept his misgivings to himself as far as possible, not caring to alarm his family needlessly.