We are obliged to unload part of the cargo, to lighten the boat and permit it to cross, and this occasions great delays. These delays have given me opportunities to make excursions into the forests and prairies near the river, and practice my holy ministry. Here is the result.
In a point of woods called Oak Cove, in the Nebraska Territory, I found a Canadian who had been established there for eight years, and who was married after the fashion of the country, that is, by simple mutual consent, either before witnesses or a judge. His wife was a half-breed Blackfoot, and had received baptism in infancy, at the time of my first visit to her tribe. The first entrance of a priest at Oak Cove was a day of surprise and joy for the family. The father and mother were eager to have their four children baptized, and prepared at once to receive worthily the nuptial benediction.
Upon the opposite bank, in the Dakota Territory, I entered a cabin occupied by a young half-breed Yankton chief and his family. He recognized me and saluted me affectionately. I had baptized him upon one of my first visits to the Sioux. Later he had spent several years in our Indian school at St. Mary, among the Potawatomies. He presented to me his four sons, of whom the eldest was scarce six years old, and begged me to baptize them.
Along the banks and at some wooded points, I have regenerated in the holy waters of baptism eighteen children belonging to the nation of the Winnebagoes, a good part of which is Catholic. I will give a brief note of what I was able to learn concerning their sad and unfortunate condition.
Formerly they lived happy and contented near certain " branches " and lakes upon the upper Mississippi, where they occupied fine reservations. At the outbreak of the Sioux war in 1862, in which the Winnebagoes had taken no part, and in spite of their demonstrations of attachment to the whites, they were forced by the civil and military authorities to leave their peaceable abodes, their fair fields and gardens, and immediately their " reservation," which