shone upon me. When I first beheld all this I was frightened, but afterward my fear left me; my heart was warmed, my mind clear, and I do not know how it happened, but all at once I knew my prayers." (To be brief I omit several circumstances.) He ended his account by saying that several times the same person had appeared to him whilst he was sleeping; and that once she had told him she was pleased that the first village of the Flatheads should be called " St. Alary." The child had never seen or heard before anything of the kind; he did not even know if the person was a man or woman, because the appearance of the dress which she wore was entirely unknown to him. Several persons having interrogated the child on this subject, have found him unvarying in his answers. He continues by his conduct to be the angel of his tribe.
On the 23d of December, Father Point, at the head of the inhabitants of forty lodges, started for the buffalo huut.Z On the road they met with huntsmen of five or six
2 "The plan of accompanying the Indians on these long hunting excursions had seemed advisable to the Fathers at first, and was adopted by them a few times at the beginning of the missions. The object the missionaries had in view, was that the Indians might not be left so long a time without instruction and the comforts of religion; that assistance be rendered to such as might fall sick and die during the hunt; also, that the presence and influence of the Black-robe among them might restrain the Indians from the disorders and excesses, of which the great hunts were always the cause or the occasion. All good and solid reasons.
" But, notwithstanding, the position in which the missionary was here placed was a most delicate one. The buffalo plains were not only the common hunting-grounds of many hostile tribes, but their ordinary battle-fields, and the presence of the Father with any one tribe under these circumstances, was very apt to commit him alike to the friendly and the hostile, greatly to the detriment of his authority and efficiency in promoting the spiritual welfare of the Indians: to the hostile, since from the fact of his being in the enemy's camp, he would naturally be looked upon as being in league with the enemy. On the other hand, in the case of prisoners, his advice to the Indians