Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/69

 leaving St. Louis, one of the Indians was taken 57 sick and died, and but one reached his home in safety.

When I reached Oregon in 1850, the first tribe of Indians I visited in their home was the Flatheads. But whether the story is true in all its minutiae or not, it matters but little. It was believed true, and produced grand results. It can hardly be said, from the standpoint of the Christian missionary, that the work in Oregon was a grand success. And yet, never were missionaries more heroic, or that labored in any field with greater fidelity for the true interests of the Indian savages to whom they were sent.

They were great, warm-hearted, intelligent, educated, earnest men and women, who endured privation, isolation and discomfort with cheerfulness, that they might teach Christianity and save souls. There was no failure from any incompetency of the teachers, but from complications and surroundings hopelessly beyond their power to change.

They brought with them over their long, weary journey the Bible, Christianity and civilization, and the school. They were met at first with a cordial reception by the Indians, but a great corporation, dependent upon the steel trap and continuous savage life, soon showed its hand. It was a foreign un-American opposition. It had met every American company that had attempted to share in 58