Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/196

156 His first mission was St. Mary's, on the Flathead River, founded by the planting of the cross on September 24, 1841. Other missions were soon established on Cœur d'Alene Lake and Pend Oreille Lake. Branching out from them were missions in Colville, and ultimately in the Walla Walla, Yakima, Wenatchee, and Chelan valleys.

De Smet greatly overestimated the number of Indians, reckoning those in Oregon at one hundred and ten thousand. He numbered his converts by the thousands. So pressing seemed the needs that in 1843, he went to Europe for reinforcements. He was very successful in his quest, returning the following year in the ship L'Indefatigable, from Antwerp, accompanied by four fathers, six sisters, and several lay brothers. He gives a thrilling account of his entrance of the Columbia River on July 31, 1844. He vividly portrays the terrors of the bar with the mighty surges dashing across the entrance. The captain did not understand the channel and became diverted from the true course, which was then by the north channel, and got into the south. The latter is now the main channel, but then was dangerous. De Smet piously regards their escape from wreck as due to the special interposition of divine providence, and to the favour extended to them because of its being the day sacred to St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of their order. De Smet's brilliant and poetical descriptions of the grandeur of the river and its forests denote a keen appreciation of nature and a facile pen.

Demers, De Smet, and Blanchet entered upon their work with such energy that by the time of De Smet's