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Rh The Indian family was engaged in its evening devotions. They were singing a hymn in the Nez Percés language. Having finished, they all knelt and bowed their faces on the buffalo-robe, and Creekie prayed long and fervently. Afterward they sung another hymn, and retired. To hospitality, family affection, and devotion, Creekie added honesty and cleanliness to a great degree, manifesting by these fruits, so contrary to the nature and habits of his race, the beautiful influence of the work of grace on the heart.”

The earliest mention of the Nez Percés in the official records of the Indian Bureau is in the year 1843. In that year an agent was sent out to investigate the condition of the Oregon tribes, and he reports as follows: “The only tribes from which much is to be hoped, or anything to be feared in this part of Oregon, are the Walla Wallas, Cayuses, and Nez Percés, inhabiting a district on the Columbia and its tributaries, commencing two hundred and forty miles from its mouth, and stretching four hundred and eighty miles in the interior.”

The Nez Percés, living farther inland, “inhabit a beautiful grazing district, not surpassed by any I have seen for verdure, water privileges, climate, or health. This tribe forms an honorable exception to the general Indian character—being more noble, industrious, sensible, and better disposed toward the whites and their improvements in the arts and sciences; and though brave as Cæsar, the whites have nothing to dread at their hands in case of their dealing out to them what they conceive to be right and equitable.”

When this agent arrived at the missionary station among the Nez Percés, he was met there by a large body of the Indians with twenty-two of their chiefs. The missionaries received him “with joyful countenances and glad hearts;” the Indians, “with civility, gravity, and dignified reserve.”

He addressed them at length, explaining to them the kind intentions of the Government toward them. They listened