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132, an Indian runner came to Brown, with information that moccasin tracks had been found at a crossing of the James River, near Lamoure, in North Dakota, and that the indications were that a hostile party had gone down

toward the settlements.

Brown wrote a dispatch, stating the facts, to the commandant at Fort Abercrombie, on the Red River, which was to be sent there the following morning; then, mounting his pony, he set out across the prairie directly west, to reach a scouting camp fifty-five miles distant, on the site of the village of Ordway, in Brown County. He reached this scouting camp at midnight, and was informed that the moccasin tracks which had caused the alarm were made by a party of friendly Indians who were going out to the Missouri River to meet the peace commissioners, that the peace treaties made the previous fall had been ratified by the government and the Indians, and that the war was over.

Fearing that the dispatch which he had written to be sent to Fort Abercrombie would create unnecessary