this disposition renders them attentive to the least word that seems to convey the slightest knowledge of a Supreme Being, and hence the facility with which they believe anything that at all resembles the Word of God.
Very Reverend and Dear Father Provincial'
The eighth day after my departure from Fort Vancouver, I landed safely at Walla Walla, with the goods destined for the different missions. In a few days all was ready, and having thanked the good and kind-hearted Mr. McBride,' the superintendent of the fort, who had rendered me every assistance in his power, we soon found ourselves on the way to the mountains leading a band of pack mules and horses over a sandy dry plain, covered with bunch grass and wormwood. We made about sixteen miles without wood or water, and encamped for the night in a beautiful little meadow, watered by the Walla Walla river, where we found abundance of grass for our animals -these were soon unloaded and left free to graze at leisure; we next made a fire, put on the camp-kettle, stretched the bed, consisting of a buffalo-robe, and smoked together the friendly Indian pipe, whilst supper was preparing. We found ourselves at home and perfectly at ease in less than a quarter of an hour. The evening was clear and beautiful -not a cloud - our sleep, sound and refreshing, prepared us for
an early start at dawn of day. We had a hot day's march, with pack animals, again without wood or water, over an undulating plain, before we could reach the crossing of the Nez Perces or Lewis Fork, whose source is in the angle of the Rocky and Snowy Mountains, between the forty
7 Dated St. Ignatius, near the Kalispel Bay, July 26, 1846; dated in French edition, July 17, 1847.
8 Probably William McBean, who succeeded Archibald McKinlay at Walla Walla. Being a Catholic, he was the subject of serious and doubtless totally unfounded charges at the time of the Whitman massacre.