were overjoyed at Father De Smet's return and conducted him to their camp amid volleys of musketry and every demonstration of rejoicing. Then began a general interchange of news, the Indians relating what had happened in the past two years, and Father De Smet relating his wondrous journeys by sea and land, through great cities and nations and over vast oceans. To the simple Indians he must indeed have seemed like an envoy from the Great Spirit himself.
Father De Smet now turned his attention to planting an establishment among the Kalispels of the Bay, this last word being then applied to a great bend in Clark's Fork of the Columbia river some forty miles above its mouth. To this reduction the name St. Ignatius was given. It was Father De Smet's intention to visit the Flathead mission that fall and as the season was far advanced it was necessary for him to set out at once. He stopped for a time at the new mission, the Sacred Heart, among the Coeur d'Alènes, and then continued his journey. It was the 19th of November and winter in the mountains was already so far advanced that he could not get through. After several attempts, he was compelled to return and he passed the winter among the Kalispels of the Bay.
Early in February, 1845, while the snow was yet deep on the ground, Father De Smet started for St. Mary's, thinking he could make the journey and return before the spring melting should come. In this he was successful, and he got back to the Bay just as the snow-melting had well begun. After helping start the new buildings for this establishment, he went to Fort Vancouver and the Willamette for further supplies. With eleven horses laden with implements and provisions he soon started back to the upper country, and on his way established two new stations - one at Kettle Falls and the other at Lake de Boey.
When the 31st of July, the Feast of St. Ignatius, came, and Father De Smet reviewed the past year, he could not