should arrive. He lodged at the house of the agent and there set up his altar and ministered to the spiritual welfare of the Indians while he was among them.
Upon the arrival of the Bighorn Father De Smet resumed his journey. All along the river from the Yankton Agency to Fort Buford at the mouth of the Yellowstone,- at Forts Thompson, Sully, Rice and Berthold - there were hundreds and thousands of Indians in waiting. Father De Smet's interviews with them were everywhere satisfactory and it seemed to him that peace was clearly in sight if the Indians could be assured of fair treatment on the part of the whites. " I am firmly convinced," he writes, " that if the just claims of the Indians are attended to; if their annuities are paid them at the proper time and place; if the agents and other employees of the Government treat them with honesty and justice; if they are supplied with the necessary tools for carpentry and agriculture - the tribes of the Upper Missouri will maintain peace with the whites; and the warlike bands who to-day infest the plains of the Far West and the valley of the Platte, where there is so much destruction of property and loss of life, will promptly cease their depredations and would not be long in joining the stay-at-home tribes."
This was undoubtedly the case; but the conditions named by Father De Smet were impracticable. The onward rush of emigration could not be checked, and it was that that made the difficulty. It drew all the lesser evils in its train.
Father De Smet sent several embassies to the hostile Indians and succeeded in getting upward of a hundred chiefs and warriors to come to Fort Rice and meet Generals Sully and Parker; but owing to the delay of arrival of these two officers, the Indians were compelled to leave, on account of lack of provisions, without having seen them. They sent back word that they were very anxious to see them and that they were desirous of peace.
Father De Smet spent nearly four months on this mission, in which time he did a great deal to prepare the minds