first time. Black-robe, you are only passing by our land; to-morrow we will hear your voice no more; we shall be, as we have always been, children who have no father to guide them, like the Wistonwish (prairie dogs) who have their lodges in the ground and know nothing. Black-robe, come and set up your lodge with ours; my heart tells me that you will be listened to. We are evil, we have bad hearts; but those who bring the good word have never got as far as to us. Come, then, Black-robe, and the Daeotha will listen to you, and our young men will learn to have sense."
Later that day I baptized four children of two Canadians married to Indian women, living nine miles from the fort.' Nothing noteworthy occurred during the three following days. The forests of oak and poplar which adorn the banks increase in vigor and extent as we descend; game is rare; ac
cordingly we only saw six lodges of Indians. On the loth we passed the mouth of the river L'eau qui court [Niobrara] ; it rises in a little lake at the foot of the Black Hills.
The swiftness of its current earns it the name it bears. It is here, on the banks of this fair river two miles above its mouth and in the midst of the desert, that some hundred families belonging to the sect of Mormon's have taken refuge, to find shelter from the unjust persecutions which other sectarians of the United States have made them suffer for several years past. Three times already their enemies have burned their homes and hunted them down like wild beasts.
On the 13th we came with a favorable wind to Fort Vermillion, 400 miles from Fort Pierre, where Mr. Hamilton liberally supplied us with provisions. Here I baptized seven
half-breed children. On the 14th we saw a Mormon on the shore; but he fled at our approach. After that we met two Canadians, who had killed several fine wild turkeys, which
s Here Father De Smet introduces, in his French version, the scalp story tuld by Rufus B. Sage in Chapter X of his Life in the Rocky Mountains, which he credits to " a recent traveler."