Page:Whitman's Ride through Savage Lands.djvu/205

Rh Cayuse was a trading tribe of Indians, and were almost as unscrupulous in their dealings as Wall Street is to-day. Dr. Whitman had hard uphill work in changing their customs. Yet many of the Cayuse became Christians. Old Istikus was a prince among Christian men, savage as he was. For sixteen years after the death of his loved friends, he regularly went to the door of his wigwam, rang the old mission bell, and invited all to come in to prayers. General Joel Barlow, who was one of the commissioners after the treaty of peace in 1855, to settle the Indians upon their reservations, says:

""I found forty-five Cayuse and one thousand Nez Perces who have kept up regular family worship, singing from the old hymn books, translated into their language by Mrs. Spalding. Many of them showed surprising evidences of piety.""

The most successful of the missions, as far as good to the Indians was concerned, was doubtless that of Mr. and Mrs. Spalding among the Nez Perces. They were the friends and companions of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman on that long wedding journey over plains and mountains. They were pushed far out in the wilderness by the Hudson Bay Company in what is now eastern Washington, and the Spokane country near where the city of that name is located. They were gentle, kind, and self-sacrificing, and perhaps were fortunate in being so