different tribes, some of whom followed him to the termination of the chase, from the desire of learning their prayers. The Flatheads having prolonged their stay at St. Mary's as long as they possibly could, so as not to depart without receiving baptism, experienced such a famine, the first weeks of January, that their poor dogs, having not even a bone to gnaw, devoured the very straps of leather with which they tied their horses during the night. The cold moreover was so uninterruptedly severe that during the hunting season, which lasted three months, such a quantity of snow fell that many were attacked with a painful
blindness, vulgarly called " snow disease." One day when 1he wind was very high, and the snow falling and freezing harder than usual, Father Point became suddenly very pale, and would no doubt have been frozen to death in the midst of the plain, had not some travelers, Percéiving the change in his countenance, kindled a large fire. But neither wind, ice, nor famine prevented the zealous Flatheads from performing on this journey all they were accustomed to do at St. Mary's. Every morning and evening they assembled around the missionary's lodge, and more than three-fourths of them without any shelter but the sky, after having recited their prayers, listened to an instruction, preceded and followed by hymns. At daybreak and sunset the bell was tolled three times for the Angelical Salutation. The Sunday was religiously kept; an observance which was so acceptable to God, that once especially it was recompensed in a very visible manner.
whom he was accompanying would always be, as a matter of course, for lenity and mercy. But lenity and mercy were seldom, ;f ever, practiced by the natives toward an enemy captured in war. The Father was, therefore, liable to be suspected even by these, and thus his efficiency among them would be impaired. * * * Further, it was not long before the Fathers found out by their own experience that the Indians, whilst on the great hunts, were a prey to the wildest excitement, which left little, if any, room for religious instruction. The plan of accompanying them on their buffalo hunts was, therefore, very soon after abandone d."-Palladino.