ABOUT seven o’clock on the first day of July, 1872, a gloomy, clouded Sunday morning, the Far West drew up to the landing at Fort Benton and established the record for an up-river trip on the Missouri, seventeen days and twenty hours from Sioux City. That was an exciting Sabbath day for the settlement. The Nellie Peck arrived an hour later; while from St.Louis came the Josephine after a sixty-days’ trip.

A number of ox-trains were waiting to take the incoming freight to the towns and settlements beyond; some of these were many days distant. Wagons drawn by mules and horses were crowded around the landing, eager for what business might turn up. Cowboys, Indians, and soldiers from the Fort mixed in the crowd, making the motley assembly which greeted our Sky Pilot as he stepped on shore. All the white families came from the tiny shacks of the new town to join in the curious throng as it welcomed this unusual stir in the monotony of frontier life.

The tenderfoot did not know the terror of “gumbo,” but as he made his way through the streets in the rain, he found the soil sticking to his shoes in such quantities as to make walking difficult. It was God’s day, and in spite of the dismal weather, the missionary trudged through the town seeking a place to hold services. He was told that he could use the courthouse. This sounded encouraging and he turned toward the building eagerly. Disappointment was awaiting him, for it was only an adobe structure, and the rain had washed holes in the roof and walls through which muddy streams of water were pouring.

In continuing his search for a place in which to hold worship, William learned that a Roman Catholic priest, Father Van Gorp, was conducting a service in a saloon near by. He sought him out and was received cordially. On hearing the desire of the newcomer, the priest assured him that he could have the room as soon as his service was concluded, for he intended to take passage on a boat which was to leave the Fort in a few hours.

It was at that afternoon meeting of his first day in Fort Benton that William Van Orsdel received the name of Brother Van. There was a frankness and kindness in the young man’s manner toward these strangers before him. The years of unselfish service for others, and his conviction regarding the work he must do in the West had developed a magnetic personality. The rough and hearty frontier people were keen judges of character. They saw at once in the stranger, who had come among them so naturally and courageously, a sincere, helpful spirit. “Brother” was just the word that described him. “Van” was as much of that lengthy and dignified name of his as they felt that they could take the trouble to say. So, with the good-natured bluntness of the West, “Brother Van” he became. It now rarely occurs to any of his friends and neighbors that he has any other name. They would probably assure you, if you were to raise the question with them, that he was christened “Brother Van.”

Crowded in the saloon on that afternoon were the steamboat officers, roustabouts, freighters, cowboys, Indians, and settlers, making a strange audience for the young missionary’s first Montana sermon. He would talk for a while, and then, when the attention wavered, he would sing the songs that some of them had heard back East before they had come under the hardening influences of the rough western life. Brother Van asked if they would like an evening service and received an eager request for one. The news of the arrival of this tenderfoot and of his message and singing had traveled fast; so in the evening a larger congregation gathered. Again he gave the message that many of them had been missing in a long period of separation from church life, and again hearts were stirred, as for the first time in years the uncertain voices tried to follow the singing of the gospel songs which had been sung “back home.”

There is no written record of the sermons of that day; but the simple, straightforward manner of the preacher made a lasting impression on the hearts of that strange crowd. The missionary spirit of the zealous youth so won the respect of the cowboys that they withheld from this tenderfoot the “initiation” which they were accustomed to give to strangers. Brother Van was a vigorous youth with a florid complexion and light hair. The simple directness of his manner and the good humor showing in his blue eyes, so ready to twinkle with fun, gained fast friends for him in the odd mixture of peoples.

While the Far West was in port, Captain Coulson extended the hospitality of the boat to his missionary passenger, though his obligations had really ceased when he reached the town. When the boat started back down the river, carrying the only people whom he knew, pangs of homesickness came to the lonely youth; now he felt himself truly a stranger in a strange land. But a new friend appeared. Agood woman who had been at the service on Sunday opened her home to him, and established that night an “institution” which gradually extended throughout the state of Montana, “Brother Van’s room.” Even in the newest town where a beginning was just being made, there was always some home in which a place was set apart to receive the welcome traveler whenever he could come that way.

On the Monday following that eventful Sabbath, Brother Van set out to explore the town. The central interest of Fort Benton was its fur trading. This industry was developed in the United States by the enterprise of John Jacob Astor. He saw that Canada was profiting by this trade, and in 1812 he petitioned Congress to establish fur trading posts within the boundaries of the United States, and to introduce such goods as were necessary for bartering with the Indians.

Trading posts soon began to dot the vast wilderness of the North and West. They were all built on the same general plan. Aheavy stockade was made by driving tree trunks into the earth so close together as to make a wall, the only opening left being a massive double gate. In one of the sections of this gate was a small door through which in times of danger the trader could admit a single person at a time. He could open it and talk with any Indian who came, without allowing the visitor to enter. Within the outer stockade was an open space; then in the center was a strongly built log or adobe structure containing the trader’s quarters, storeroom, and the fort. In the wall of the storeroom was an opening about eighteen inches square. This was called the “trading hole” and was protected by heavy shutters controlled from the inside.

When the Indians came with their packs of furs the trader’s men met them outside the stockade, and took from them all guns, bows, arrows, tomahawks, and any other dangerous weapons which they might be carrying. Then, in a group at a time, they were admitted to the stockade and the heavy gates locked behind them. They were virtually prisoners, and advancing across the open space between the stockade and the fort, they would come to the trading hole, where the agent of the fur merchant’s company was waiting to barter with them.

One by one the Indians would offer to the trader, who was often an unscrupulous cheat, the beautiful soft furs which had been secured by trapping and shooting amid the dangers and the hardships of the cold and lonely North. Gaudy calico, cheap blankets, or the bad combination of bullets and whisky, were given in exchange for the valuable pelts. To such traders, to certain selfish and designing settlers, and to some of the government agents, who have steadily driven the Indians back and back from wide prairie to a hunting ground, and then to a reservation, the red man owes much of the degradation and humiliation which overtook him.

As we look curiously at the straggling herds of buffalo, deer, and antelope in our parks and preserves to-day, we can scarcely realize how abundant was the game which the early hunters and trappers found roaming over the “Great American Desert.” There is evidence of one herd of buffalo that made the earth brown for a stretch of country seventy miles long by thirty miles wide. On one of the first railroads to be laid across the plains of Kansas, a train was once held up for nine hours while a herd crossed the tracks. Both whites and Indians slaughtered these vast herds carelessly and wantonly, using a variety of methods. Agovernment report of 1875 speaks of one hundred thousand buffalo that were killed near Dodge City, Kansas. Only the saddles were used for food. The same report says: “It is known that south of the Arkansas River, west of Wichita, there were from one to two thousand men killing buffalo for hides alone.” At one place on the south forks of the Republican River in 1874, there were six thousand and five hundred carcases from which the hides had been stripped.

Towers for religious purposes, or medicine lodges, were built by the Indians with the horns of buffalo, antelope, and deer. Some of these towers were so high that they could be seen for many miles. Father De Smet speaks of seeing one of them from the Missouri River as he made his way westward in the year 1846. As a result of this enormous destruction of the herds, the hide markets became so glutted that the skins of bulls brought only one dollar, and the hides of cows and calves from forty to sixty cents each.

Just outside of the city of Fort Benton there was pointed out to Brother Van a famous cliff about one hundred and twenty feet high and rising sheer from the river. There the Indians were in the habit of killing buffalo by a method that is interesting if brutal. Afleet, active young man of the tribe would disguise himself as a buffalo by wearing a buffalo skin with the head attached. He was possessed also of a “Iuis Kini” (iuis-kini) or buffalo stone, which gave power to call buffalo. Before a run to a “falling place,” he spent the night invoking the aid of the gods by burning sweet grass and sweet pine to draw the spirits. He purified himself by passing through the smoke of this fire.

When all was ready the buffalo hunter would attract the attention of the herd by strange antics, and then begin to call: “Hoo-hoo-hoo-ini-uh-ini-uh.” Men and women concealed behind rocks began to yell; and the buffalo, terrified, ran with ever increasing speed toward the decoy, who led them toward the precipice. The herd, which might vary in number from one hundred and fifty to ten thousand, would rush blindly forward and plunge over the wall to death in the shallow water beneath. The decoy would dodge into a crevice previously chosen in the edge of the cliff.

Brother Van had arrived in this interesting country of Indian exploits just before an eventful day, the Fourth of July. He was invited to the Fort as a guest of the non-commissioned officers. The Stars and Stripes fluttered over the rude barracks every day, but in the town the flag was displayed to show that it was a holiday. Wild scenes were enacted in the saloons, and Indians, who were waiting with their hard-earned furs, learned of the white man’s “fire-water,” which was used freely in the celebration.

Out in the stockade of the fort a feast was spread. The boat had brought bread and dried fruit, both of which were great delicacies. These, combined with the usual western fare, made a sumptuous repast. The western fare consisted of “jerked buffalo,” which is simply dried buffalo meat, fresh antelope meat, a great delicacy even to the westerner, and the best dish of all, dried buffalo tongue.

Speeches were made and weird stories told of the warfare with the Indians. The eastern youth listened and wondered, and on that day he pondered over the subject of the red man’s condition. Later he decided the matter in his own mind; he knew that the Indian had been more sinned against than sinning, and that the original American had been greatly misunderstood.

Those days of tarrying were fruitful days for William Van Orsdel. Not only were the cowboys and freighters won to friendship by his sympathy, but the Indians’ confidence was gained. Friends, whose helpfulness was to last through his busy lifetime, became interested in him. Young Tatton, a tall, vigorous, fighting scout, a member of CompanyB of the Seventh Infantry, was one of the men who became one of Brother Van’s fast friends in those days. He knew the West and understood its joys and privations thoroughly. He had noticed the new preacher as he faced the motley crowd that first day in Fort Benton. Though Tatton was a Roman Catholic, he admired the zeal which had found a way and a place for religious services on the very day on which the missionary had set foot on the new soil. With leveled eyes the soldier scout had watched the crowd as they listened to that first earnest sermon of the eager newcomer, and to Brother Van he gave his support and a loyal and lasting friendship.