CHAPTER VIII.1
JOURNEY TO FORT COLVILLE AND RETURN.
Autumn of 1841.
Need of provisions and seeds - Start for Fort Colville - Hell Gate - Animals of the country - The ingenious carcaj ou - Meetings with Indians - Kalispels raising potatoes - Scenery and dangers of Clark's Fork - Large timber - Lake Pend d'Oreille - Arrival at Colville - Hospitality of Macdonald-Return journey-Adam and Eve and the buffalo fat-Hell unchained among the Kalispels-Sixty baptisms.
HAVE just finished a little journey to Fort Colville on the Columbia river, about 32o miles from our establishment. Although the season was far advanced, two reasons determined me to make the journey: First, -,ve had to have provisions for the winter; seeds for the coming spring; tools for the Indians so well disposed to work; cattle, and in short whatever the establishment of our first reduction required: second, my desire to visit the Pend d'Oreilles who generally spend the autumn upon Clark's Fork.
On the eve of my departure I informed the Flatheads of my intentions. .I requested them to procure some horses, and a small escort, in case I should meet with any of their enemies, the Blackfeet. They brought to me seventeen horses, the number I had asked them; and ten young and brave warriors, who had already been often pierced with
1 This chapter comprises a portion of Book II, Letters and Sketches, purporting to have been written at the Madison Forks, August r5, r842, and Letter IX, Second Voyage, Voyages aux :lfo0agncsRocheuses, dated St. Mary's, December 28, 1841, and addressed "To A Father of the Company of Jesus." The two are parallel, but the French narrative contains additional matter. here translated for the first time. Aside from this, the English text is followed.