wit: to the chapel trunk I had left among the Rocky Mountain tribes at my departure from them, as an assurance of my promise to return to the mountains. For nearly a year they had carried it with the greatest care in all their expeditions and returned it to me intact and in the best state
of preservation. I may here add a short statement of what occasioned my visit to these Indians. The Rocky Mountain tribes, Flatheads, Kalispels, Coeur d'Alenes, Kootenais and others had heard of the Savior and of his holy laws to mankind, by means of a few Christian Iroquois from Canada who had come to the mountains as engages of the Hudson Bay Company, and who had finally settled among the above tribes. They had aroused the minds of the mountain Indians with a religious feeling to which they had been hitherto strangers, and in a council they resolved to send a deputation to St. Louis of some of their wisest men,
to obtain Black-robes (priests) from the Bishop. I always looked upon it as a particular favor to have been appointed to accompany this deputation and with pleasure I can bear witness, that during the long and tedious traveling at that time (1840) their conduct toward me was one continued act of kindness and of attention.
After some two or three months' travel to the appointed rendezvous in the plains of the Green river, we met great numbers of the above-mentioned tribes who had come hundreds of miles from their habitual hunting grounds to meet us and welcome us to their country. Their kindness, attention and zeal exceeded my expectations. From the very start of my missionary operations they listened with the utmost anxiety and earnestness to the holy word of God and put in practice immediately what they were made to
understand. In this first visit I remained with the Indians about three months. They daily attended at the morning and evening prayers and instructions, which holy practice, as I learn, has never been discontinued among them. They keep the Lord's day in the highest veneration. As soon as it became practicable they abandoned polygamy and with