In the summer of 1869 they built for themselves sixteen very comfortable log-houses; in the summer of 1870 they built forty-four more; with their annuity money they bought cookstoves, cows, and useful implements of labor. They worked most assiduously in putting in their crops, but lost them all by drought, and are in real danger of starvation if the Government does not assist them. All this while they see herds of cattle driven across their reservation to feed the lately hostile Sioux—flour, coffee, sugar, tobacco, by the wagon-load, distributed to them—while their own always peaceable, always loyal, long-suffering tribe is digging wild roots to eat, and in actual danger of starvation. Nevertheless they are not discouraged, knowing that but for the drought they would have had ample food from their farms, and they make no attempts to retaliate on the Sioux for raiding off their horses and stock, because they hope "that the Government will keep its faith with them," and that suitable remuneration for these losses will be made them, according to the treaty stipulations.
For the next two years they worked industriously and well; three schools were established; a chapel was built by the Episcopal mission; the village began to assume the appearance of permanence and thrift; but misfortune had not yet parted company with the Poncas. In the summer of 1873 the Missouri River suddenly overflowed, washed away its banks hundreds of yards back, and entirely ruined the Ponca village. By working night and day for two weeks the Indians saved most of the buildings, carrying them half a mile inland to be sure of safety. The site of their village became the bed of the main channel of the river; their cornfields were ruined, and the lands for miles in every direction washed and torn up by the floods.
"For nearly two weeks," the agent writes, "the work of salvage from the ever-threatening destruction occupied our whole available force night and day. We succeeded in carrying from the river bank to near half a mile inland the whole of the agency buildings, mechanics' houses, stabling, and sheds—more than twenty houses—nearly every panel of fencing. The Poncas worked well and long, often through the night; and the fact that the disaster did not cost us ten dollars of actual loss is to be attributed to their labor, continuous and persevering—working sometimes over the swiftly-flowing waters, terrible and turbid, on the edge of the newly-formed current but a few inches below them, and into which a fall would have been certain death, even for an Indian."