Father De Smet's doings in later years suggests only too clearly that the end of his life was at hand. It was indeed so, but before recording this inevitable event in human life, it will be well to note some facts regarding the failing health of the good priest.
In spite of his longevity and great physical powers, Father De Smet was far from enjoying uninterrupted good Health, and in the last twenty years of his life was never free from bodily ailments. This condition was undoubtedly due in large degree to the hardships of his missionary work and it began to develop soon after his return from Oregon in 1846. He was at this time and for several years afterward at the maximum of his physical weight, about 215 pounds. His corpulency did not please him, although he carried his flesh well, and was considered a remarkably fine looking man. " Pray hard for me," he wrote to a friend to 1851, " for my bones are getting too much covered. I begin to be uncomfortable, and daily must I hear `How well you look!' ' You are improving!' ' What a fine country the Rocky Mountains must be! ' Should I ever return to my old haunts, a great number of the lean gentry of St. Louis are determined to follow me and try their luck on buffalo, bear, badger and dog meat."
He was ailing a good deal in the years 1849-51, and in 1853 writes: " For two or three years back I find myself sensibly on the decline," his eyesight, in particular, failing rapidly. For the next few years he was very well, and in 1856 he records that " for years I have not been compelled to have recourse to a physician." But at the time of the Utah and Oregon expeditions he was suffering a good deal from an affection of his throat, and in 1861 he was very ill with some form of dyspepsia, and later in the same year with erysipelas. In the winter of 1863-4 he was dangerously ill with a combination of troubles, and he fully expected, at one time, that his end had come. He was ordered by his physician to let his beard grow for a