I met with Major Halton, who is agent for the Upper Missouri.
He employed all his eloquence to persuade me to accompany him as far as Fort Pierre, which is the post of the Little Missouri. lie will probably stop there, at about the middle of January. God alone knows what the weather will prove at that time. He presented us a beautiful buffalo-robe, and told me, that if we would establish a mission in these sections, he would contribute annually $loo. Another gentleman added, I have three children to educate; I will furnish $300 per year, and be assured, continued he, that every white man residing in this locality that has a family of mixed race (and there are a great number of them), will assist you to the best of their ability - one in one manner and another in another, according to their means. The Brules, and Yanktons, and the other Sioux tribes assembled in council said: " The missionaries shall not perish with hunger among us; we will bring them an abundance of buffalo-robes and buffalo-meat, so that they can purchase clothes for the children who will be confided to them."
For the love of God and of souls, I conjure you, Reverend Father, not to defer any longer. All the good that Father De Smet and others have produced by their labors and visits will be lost and forgotten, if these Indians are disappointed in their expectations. They weigh men's characters in the balance of honesty; in their eyes whosoever does not fulfill his promises is culpable; they do not regard or consider whether it be done for good reasons, or that there is an impossibility in the execution. Some of them have sent their children to Protestant schools, and they will continue to do so as long as we form no establishments among them.
From all this you may easily conclude that there is apostasy and all its attendant evils. Immortal souls are precious in the sight of God. You are acquainted with my dispositions- arrange everything according to your own