than by paeking them on the shoolders of the men, the quick sand bottom rendering it unsafe to trust them on the backs of aninals; even the wagons having to be drawn across by hand."

Let us dwell for a moment on this picturc. Scven hundred helpless, heart-broken poople beginning their sad journey by having The infirm, the sick, the old, the infants, all carried "by pack ing them on the shoulders of the men!" What a scene! The Honorable Sccretary of the Interior said, in one of the letters to ford this icy strcam with quicksands at bottom in his newspaper controversy with the inspeetor in regard to the accounts of this removal, that "the highly-colored stories which are told abont the brutal military foree employed in compelling their [the Poneas'] removal from Dakota to the Indian Territory are sensational fabrieations; at least, the of ficial record, wlich is very full, and goes into minute details, does not in the least bear them ont."

There was never any accnsation bronght against the "mili The brutality The simple presence of the "military force" was brutal. It meant but one tary force" of "brutality" in this removal. was on the part of the Government thing. The Indians understood it, and the Government intended that they should utnderstand it; and when the agent of the Govern ment said to these Indians that they answer whether they would gq peaceably or by force," he intended that they should nderstand it. donbt what were the orders under which that "military force" must give him their final Ilas anybody any was there? any doubt what it would have bcen the military duty of Major Walker to have done in case the Poncas had re fused to "consent" to go?

And now let us return to the "Official Record," which is, indeed, as the Honorable Seeretary of the Interior says, " very full," and "goes into minnte details," and let us see in how much it will"bear us out " and when we have done with this