The fort was on the west side of the river. It has been called "one of the seven historic points of Dakota." There the long expansion of valley attracted the prehistoric dweller in lodge circles, the later tent-man, the hunter, the explorer, the fur-trader, the army fort-builder and the locator of town sites. The intrepid Chouteau, manager of the dominant fur company then in the Northwest, was virtually the river king, with posts and forts subordinate to Fort Pierre. It naturally became a center of trade and of treaties with the Indians. From it, in 1839, Nicollet" and Fremont, "the pathfinder," started on their exploration so important to the development of the West. In 1855-6 General Harney and his force of 1,200 men had their winter encampment at this point, thereafter regarded as prominent on a highway of civilized men. It was sold to the United States government and became a national station."

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There George Catlin, 1832, painted reluctant Sioux chiefs and roused the wrath of those whom he did not finish on canvas. He wrote of the fine grass in the valley, grass on the bluffs, and grass for the immense buffalo herds on the plains over which he led his pack horse from the Indian village where Yankton now stands to Fort Pierre. He advertised, even in Europe, the valley of the Missouri, by his letters, paintings and exhibitions of live Sioux, but who then cared to question the correctness of the blank stamped on the map as "The Great American Desert?"

UNDER WHICH GOVERNMENT?

Meanwhile there was a new deal of laws among the territories. Dakota had passed under the foreign flags of Britain, Spain and France; then, in 1803, under the American. During forty-six years it had lain successively and dividedly under the territorial names of Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. In 1849, it was still the plum pudding to be cut in shares for the new territories, and there was "enough to go round." During five years, three of them had these shares. Minnesota had the east part, Mandan the west, and later Nebraska had the part southwest of the Missouri River. A united future Dakota might be dimly discerned in these mosaics.

In 1851, the legislature of Minnesota created the immense Dakota county. With his warrant, its sheriff might chase a horse

thief from Lake Pepin to Yankton or Fort Pierre. In it was the fine strip of land just ceded by the Indians to the federal government, and lying between the Big Sioux River and the present west line of Minnesota." It was the first land in Dakota obtained from the Indians. On it was made the first attempt at white settlement in South Dakota. The Iowa men who first located land at Sioux Falls (1856) were ordered off by the Sioux, and they went; but soon returning, they took possession of 320 acres, and built a small stone house. In May, 1857, certain St. Paul men formed the Dakota Land Company, with flying colors came up the Minnesota River on a steamer to New Ulm, drove overland to the Big Sioux, located a town site and named it for Governor Medary, passed down that river and founded another town. The air was fresh with the name of the Indian agent, Charles E. Flandrau," whose troops had just chased the murderous Inkpaduta" and his band across that stream to the James River to rescue captives," and the site was named Flandreau. The speculative efforts of the land company were arrested the next year, when the Indians rose in their might and drove the settlers from the upper Sioux Valley. For years the place was a ruin, so that the rise, decline and sudden fall of the old town is a distinct and mournful prelude to the history of the renewed and prosperous Flaudreau. And the anomaly is that the rehabitation of the town was largely due to Indians. They had now learned the alphabet of culture from teachers who had been dispersed by the Sioux massacre of 1862 in Minnesota, and they came to make homes in the Sioux Valley, not far from the famous Pipestone quarry, which furnished them the red rock for the pipe of peace. For them a trading post (1869) was established at Flandreau, and the town grew. It has its Sioux church and a government Indian school, with a goodly population of white Dakotans.

With no foresight of such results, the town founders passed down the river to Sioux Falls, where they laid out a city-their happiest investment. It had a hopeful population of five men, and it was in July, 1857, the largest city in South Dakota. Not long was their prosperity assured. Learning that bands of Sioux were sweeping down the valley, they left in a canoe, and thus began the oft-mooted navigation of the Big Sioux to its junc

tion into the Missouri at the then village of Sioux City, Iowa. For a few months the rich Sioux Valley was again in possession of the red man, who, reversing the usual order, "followed close on the track" of white settlers, and routed them from lands of the United States. At least three of the fugitives and a dozen Iowa men returned to the valley that fall, doffed their hats and waved out three cheers at the Falls and gave the town a new start. They built three dwelling houses, a store, a sawmill and a sod fort." The population ran up to sixteen men. Raiding Indians accepted their hard bread and coffee, tendered "in hope of conciliating them," and then made the town red with burning hay stacks and wagons.

In December, 1857, the legislature of Minnesota constituted the county now called Minnehaha. At the Falls of Laughing Waters was the county seat. Among the officers were: district attorney, W. W. Brookings; justice, J. L. Phillips; sheriff, James Evans; and commissioner, A. L. Kilgore. Thus began organic civilization in South Dakota.

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By this time white men were following hard upon the tracks of the Indians living on the unceded land lying between the Big Sioux and the Missouri rivers. Some land seekers crossed over the line, chose town sites and built trading houses, in hope of coming treaties and clear titles. But the Indians quite justly drove them off. A notable man for the adjustment of difficulties was Charles F. Picotte, the son of a partner in the American Fur Company, and his Sioux wife, who lived at Fort Pierre and became a heroine. This educated half-breed, loyal to the federal government and a trusted leader of his mother's people, appeared uninvited at Fort Randall when the chiefs of the Yankton Sioux were hesitating to enter into the treaty of 1857-8," so important in the history of Dakota. He tells us how the head chief, Struck-by-the-Ree," said to the officers that "I was the man they were waiting for," but he was treated rather bluffly by them. "So I said nothing and walked out, and all the Indians followed me. I told them to start off on their fall hunt, as we were not prepared to go to Washington, while I went to Fort Pierre." The officers saw their mistake, and sent an order for him to return or leave the country. Questioning their right to exile him, he went to Fort Randall. He was happily brought into