I intend leaving St. Louis on the 7th of April, on the Fannie Ogden. I hope I shall have the honor of meeting you on my way up the river. Should I meet the head men of the Santee tribe and the chiefs at Fort Berthold I shall do my best to encourage them.
With sentiments of the highest consideration of respect and esteem, I have the honor to be, dear General, etc.
Tribe of the Yanktons, in the vicinity of Fort Randall, July, 1866.1
Very Reverend Father Provincial:
In this letter I shall give you a faithful statement of my mission among the Yanktons. I do not doubt in the least that your Reverence and the consulting Fathers will take under consideration the position of these good savages and their admirable disposition toward the faith. Permit me to go into minute details concerning all my relations with them. If the consolations are sometimes great in the holy ministry among the savages, I have also, at the station from which I write, shared in a good portion of human misery. The more fruitful were the days, the more miserable and exhausting have the nights been. The following recital will give you a faithful account of it.
Upon my arrival among the Yanktons, Indians and halfbreeds welcomed me among them with the utmost good will. Every one expressed in particular his desire that I should come and share his lodge or cabin, as the case might be. As the families are usually quite numerous and their quarters rather cramped, and in order that I might have more free use of my time among them, I expressed my intention of occupying some little private abode, in whatsoever condition, where I might discharge in quiet my spiritual
1 From the French of the Linton Album, p. 94.