repose. * * * Each one wraps himself in his buffalo robe, with his saddle for a pillow, and thanks to the fatigues of a forty-mile ride in a burning sun, falls to sleep the moment he lies down."
After a brief and enjoyable delay at Fort Union Father De Street, with Ignatius and Gabriel, set out in a skiff for St. Louis. On their third day out they had the good fortune to meet a steamboat - the first one that had ever ascended the river so far at that season of the year - and they displayed no false modesty in accepting all invitation to ride in it the rest of the way to St. Louis. After returning with the boat to Fort Union all set out again down the river. The voyage was a tedious and dangerous one. "The waters were low;" says Father De Smet, "the sandbars and snags everywhere numerous; the boat consequently encountered many obstacles in her passage. We were frequently in great danger of perishing. Her keel was pierced with pointed rocks, her sides rent by the snags. Twenty times the wheels had been broken to pieces. The pilot-house had been carried away in the tempest; the whole cabin would have followed if it had not been made fast by a large cable. Our boat appeared to be little more than a mere wreck, and in this wreck, after forty-six days navigation from the Yellowstone, we arrived safely at St. Louis."
In deep gratitude for his preservation amid the manifold dangers that he had passed through, Father De Smet repaired at once to his church and offered up a grateful prayer of thanksgiving for the signal favors he had received.