missioners formally acknowledged that, but for Father De Smet, their work would have been a failure. "We are well aware," they wrote him, " that our thanks can be of little worth to you, and that you will find your true reward for your labors and for the dangers and privations which you have encountered in the consciousness that you have done much to promote peace on earth and good will to men."
Father De Smet stopped at Fort Sully on his way down the river to minister to the spiritual welfare of the Indians there, and then resumed his voyage. He next stopped at Fort Leavenworth and went to St. Mary's Mission, and finally arrived in St. Louis about August 20th.