When I left St. Louis, I had intended to see a very large number of Indians during the summer and fall, but local conditions and the dangers of the cruel Sioux war had absolutely blocked my plan. The contagion of war had spread to the upper tribes of the Sioux, who had hitherto been at peace with the whites. The reports that reached us every day of robberies and massacres committed by the Indians of the plains, on the one hand, and on the Salt Lake route by marauders and murderers of another species, the off-scourings of civilization, living by robbery and assassination on the unhappy travelers whom they meet, caused me to take the resolution of returning to St. Louis by the Pacific Ocean."
Father De Smet might have added that no steamboat succeeded in reaching Benton that year and that he would have had to make all the way back in an open boat, which would have been practically equivalent to suicide. He left Fort Benton for St. Ignatius Mission on the 25th of August. This proved to be his last visit to the mountains. At St. Ignatius he found missionary affairs prospering, but he noted with great apprehension the vast changes then sweeping over the country as a result of the discovery of gold in Montana. He thus refers to this important matter: "It is impossible to overestimate the dangers which, just at this time, are threatening all the mountain tribes, through the approach of the whites, the ease with which liquor, so fatal to the Indians, can be obtained, and the accompaniment of all the vices and excesses of our modern civilization; especially as understood and practiced by our American pioneers. These things must be seen to be appreciated and believed."
But if Father De Smet saw much to fear for his Indians, he also saw much to hope in the new field opening up in this region. Where there used to be one savage he saw that there would soon be a hundred settlers, and the Church began at once to establish missions in the little mining towns, thus laying the real foundation of its present prosperous condition in Montana. With an affectionate pleasure, born