commission will inform you, there is reason to believe that his mission has been wholly successful.
I could give you only an imperfect idea of the privations and dangers of this journey, unless you were acquainted with the great plains and the Indian character, which is naturally inclined to vengeance. Father De Smet, alone of the entire white race, could penetrate to these cruel savages and return safe and sound. One of the chiefs, in speaking to him while he was in the hostile camp, told him, " if it had been any other man than you, Black-robe, this day would have been his last."
The Reverend Father had with him, as interpreter, Mr. Galpin, who is married to an Indian woman of the Hunkpapa tribe. This lady is a good Catholic and an excellent person, a striking example of what the influence of religion and civilization can accomplish for the welfare of the Indian. On leaving Fort Rice, Father De Smet had to direct his course straight west. The enemy had pitched his camp a little above the mouth of the Yellowstone river, near Powder river. The distance to be traveled, going and coming, was 700 miles. The country is a barren desert. Nothing in the way of vegetation is to be seen save sagebrush, the artemisia of the plains. No buffalo are to be found except along the Yellowstone, where they are very numerous.
The Reverend Father is known among the Indians by the name of " Black-robe " and " Big Medicine Man." When he is among them he always wears the cassock and crucifix. He is the only man for whom I have ever seen Indians evince a real affection. They say, in their simple and open language, that he is the only white man who has not a forked tongue; that is, who never lies to them. The reception that they gave him in the hostile camp was enthusiastic and magnificent. They came twenty miles to meet him, and the principal chiefs, riding beside him, conducted him to the camp in great triumph. This camp comprised more than 500 lodges, which, at the ratio of six persons to Too