At Fort Alexander, which was the American Fur Company trading post for the Crows, Father De Smet's escort turned back at his request, and he was left with his Flemish friend to make the rest of the journey alone. This post was on the left bank of the Yellowstone opposite the mouth of the Rosebud river. The two travelers set out by land, keeping along the left bank of the river, and with great caution hastened their course to Fort Union on the Missouri, a little above the mouth of the Yellowstone. This journey was one of great risk and peril. They were liable at any moment to be slain by some wandering band of Indians and on one occasion escaped this catastrophe by the narrowest margin. Commenting upon their dangers, Father De Smet made the following beautiful reflection: "Such a solitude, with all its horrors and dangers, has notwithstanding one very real advantage; it is a place where one is constantly looking death in the face, and where it presents itself incessantly to the imagination in the most hideous forms. There one feels in a very special manner that he is wholly in God's hands. It is then easy to offer him the sacrifice of a life which belongs less to you than to the first savage who may see fit to take it; and to form the most generous resolutions a man is capable of. That was, in fact, the best ‘retreat' that I have ever made in my life. My only consolation was the object for which I had undertaken the journey; my guide, my support, my refuge, was the fatherly providence of God."
But the great danger did not prevent the good priest from seeing the humorous side of things. On the second day of their journey they were in imminent peril of being discovered by a party of savages whose fresh trail they had come upon. They built no camp fire that night and cooked no supper. "I rolled myself in my blanket," says Father De Smet, "and stretched out on the sod, commending myself to the good God. My grenadier, braver than I, was soon snoring like a steam engine in full swing. Running through all the notes of the chromatic scale, he closed each move-