The Story of the Bitter Root
itself among a hostile band of Sioux, on the western borders of Missouri, only to be murdered, but one escaping to tell the fate of the rest. In the following year, another and a larger delegation was despatched on this Heaven-inspired duty, which succeeded in reaching the object of their destination, and prevailing on Father De Smet to accompany them to their wild mountain homes—the Flatheads thus becoming the first spiritual children among the red men of that venerated and distinguished Catholic missionary. Located among them, the Pend d'Oreilles soon sought his teachings, and bending their necks to the Christian yoke, both tribes in aggregate were duly received into the church, and to this day, although subject to failings and shortcomings, like the rest of humanity, they (particularly the Flatheads) will compare favorably, at least in morality, with a like number of people anywhere."
The capacity of the Indian nature to absorb and literally follow the teachings of a higher faith was never better illustrated than in the case of these tribes. During the years of warfare that followed the advent of the whites in search of gold, nearly all the tribes in the mountains of the great Northwest, alarmed at the flight of their game—their livelihood—before the reckless white explorers, resisted with the ferocity of despair this invasion of what they regarded as their own country. Throughout these bloody years the Flatheads, the Pend
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