about Christianity, although he did not give up his native religion or customs. Two of Taoyateduta's wives converted to Christianity, though they later left the church, and missionary Stephen Return Riggs wrote at the time that he thought Taoyateduta himself could be "saved." During this time, Taoyateduta also engaged in the liquor trade, transporting alcohol to the west to trade for fur or horses. It was a lucrative source of income for many fur traders including Joseph Renville and Joseph R. Brown. Taoyateduta was a shrewd entrepreneur who was good with numbers; he was fond of gambling and apparently had a system for winning poker, "a skill for which he had few equals, white or Indian." Dr. Daniels described Taoyateduta's memory as "remarkably retentive" and argued that in later years, it enabled him "to state accurately promises made years before to these Indians and by government officials and to give the exact amount of money owing them, to the dollar and cent." In 1841, Taoyateduta went on a hunting trip with Henry Hastings Sibley, the regional manager of the American Fur Company, "mixed-blood" fur trader Alexander Faribault, and many others. Sibley and his friends were mounted on horses and pursued a large herd of more than a thousand elk at a steady pace for five days; Taoyateduta kept up on foot the entire way, conversing with them as they covered 25 miles each day, and impressed everyone with his stamina. Historian Anderson writes, "The incident also showed that Taoyateduta was a man who, when he chose to participate in an event, was willing to exert whatever effort was required to impress others." During his Lac qui Parle years, Taoyateduta's reputation suffered from his association with friends and hunting partners such as Jack Frazer, a "mixed-blood" hunter who had grown up with the Dakota and also became a close friend of Henry Sibley. Among Dakota elders, Frazer was known as a "rather disreputable fellow...sacrilegious, constantly poking fun at Dakota customs, and even mimicking Dakota spirits," and was notorious for his cavalier attitude toward authority. Other complaints against Taoyateduta were that he was "lazy," preferring to deal in furs rather than hunt himself because it was more profitable, and that he did not join war parties against the Ojibwe, except on one occasion. However, Taoyateduta had also gained many admirers in Lac qui Parle "because of his smooth speech, agreeable manners, and