CHAPTER V.
ST. LOUIS TO THE PLATTE RIVER 1841.1
How Father De Smet raised the money to keep his promises to the Flatheads - Delays at Westport - The mixed company that started - The missionary party- A visit to the Kansas Indians in their villageFather Point's whiskers - White Plume - Catholic and Protestant - - The Pawnees.
To the Editor the Catholic Herald, Steamboat Oceana, Mo. River, May I, 1841.
Reverend and Dear Sir:
CANNOT set out for my distant mission, without expressing through the medium of your excellent paper, my grateful thanks to the friends who have come forward with such noble and disinterested generosity, and offered the means of carrying the gospel of peace and salvation to the uninstructed savage of the mountains. You, Reverend Sir, who are engaged in the same sublime vocation, the salvation of souls, may form an idea from my former letter of my ardent desire to labor among the poor forsaken children of the Oregon; among whom I resided three months and who hailed my arrival with so much joy; listened with so much eagerness and docility to my instructions, and exhibited in their whole conduct the wonderful fruits which the word of God produced in a few weeks in hearts well disposed.
1 This chapter consists of Letter III, Letters and Sketches, and Letter I, Second Voyage, Voyages aux Montagnes Rocheuses, dated as above in both and addressed respectively to the Father Provincial and to Father De Smet's brothers Charles and Francis. The published letters also contain a brief account of a case of human sacrifice among the Pawnees, which is omitted here because described more fully elsewhere in this work. The English text is followed in the main.