MANY acts of service rendered to his new brothers on his frequent visits to them had made the Blackfeet Indians know that Brother Van was truly their friend. One incident in particular is now of interest to illustrate the character of the red men and the manner in which the missionary won their liking.

One day when White Plume was chief of the Blackfeet and Piegan tribes, camp was made and the evening meal was prepared. Into this busy and picturesque scene came the preacher, and with the aid of an interpreter, he started to speak the good tidings to these people of the plains. The Indians were interested and listened respectfully. Suddenly a runner came quietly but swiftly into the group and uttered an Indian word. Instantly the audience dissolved. They went so quickly that the astonished preacher inquired of the interpreter as to the reason of their going. There was reason enough. While these people were listening to Brother Van, the Crow Indians, a rival tribe, had come and driven off the ponies which had been turned out to graze for the night.

When the preacher understood the plight of the Blackfeet, he offered his own fleet pony to them that they might overtake the raiders. Brother Van always had a good horse. The herd was easily overtaken and turned back to the camp. Then, much to the surprise of Brother Van, the Indians returned to the place of meeting and indicated that they wished the service to proceed.

Early on the following morning a messenger came to Brother Van telling him that the Blackfeet were going on a buffalo hunt, and a formal invitation was delivered requesting him to accompany them. Taking his sure-footed pony, Brother Van joined the riders, and soon the excitement of their hunt was on. An Indian honor was then conferred on this, their well-loved guest. After the herd of buffalo was sighted and had been started on the run, the Indians signified that the white man was to have the distinction of killing the magnificent specimen which was leading the herd. Riding toward the front of the stampeding beasts, the unskilled marksman picked out the herd leader and shot him in the head. It was a great shot. An Indian could have done no better. The herd was a large one, containing nearly one thousand of the great, brown giants of the plains. Once more the preacher by his prowess had won the favor of the Blackfeet.

With such experiences as the buffalo hunt, an Indian feast, a hurried visit to the bed of the sick or dying, and the preaching of the gospel, the years passed. After serving five years as a missionary at large without ordination, Brother Van consented to become a Conference Member, that is to say, a regularly ordained traveling-preacher according to Conference rules. The first missionary appropriation ever made to Montana Conference was given to Brother Van when he became the first regular supply. That allowance was three hundred and twenty-five dollars. He was given the Sun River and Smith River charge as his first aggressive work in North Montana.

So the Methodist circuit-rider started out once more on his pony with his little all in his saddle-bags. Ajourney was still one of many hazards, for Indians were everywhere and any sign of fear would have been fatal, while any weakness would have met with scorn from the cowboys. Brother Van visited Sun River, a settlement on the overland freight trail between Helena and Fort Benton, where he organized the first Methodist church north of the mountains. First, Brother Van held a meeting in this settlement and then started a church building. Afterward, he had to rescue the church from the sheriff’s hammer, but, finally, he completed the building—assuming responsibility for the rest of the debt. By and by there came a great day when he preached the dedication sermon of a church free from debt.

To this very settlement at Sun River, the tenderfoot Easterner had come with the Adjutant from Fort Shaw shortly after his arrival in Montana several years before, and had announced his desire to hold a service. The service had been held in the cabin home of Mr.Charles A. Bull. Now, as an experienced plainsman and missionary, Brother Van came again and built a church, over which through the busy years since then, he has kept loving watch.

In Philbrook, Judith Basin, Brother Van found that Indians were stealing horses and terrifying settlers. Prowling bands of raiders were scattered all through the region. Again the scout-preacher was frequently in danger as he went about his ministry. Riding one day along the bank of the Cut Bank River, he saw a powerful Indian in full war-regalia, making rapidly toward the crossing to which he, too, was going. Believing that discretion was the better part of valor, Brother Van turned his horse into a coulee, and rode hastily into the deep shelter of the ravine. From that vantage ground an approaching enemy was at the mercy of the watcher.

The Indian pursued him to the entrance and then gave up the chase. Had he known that the white man was unarmed, this history might never have been written, for the Indian was out to get revenge upon the whites, and the story of his pursuit afterward created nation-wide interest. It is a gruesome story, but has much of value as it reveals some reasons for the Indian traits which our government has not always understood in the past.

The first scene was enacted when a troop of United States soldiers under Colonel Baker who were quelling Indian troubles, came into an Indian village while the braves were out raiding. They laid waste the camp and killed some three hundred women and children. When the Indian men returned they found desolation, and, of course, could not understand the reason. All that they could think of doing was to set forth again on a raid of devastation. One big brave, Spoo Pee, made a vow to kill the first white man he met, for had not the white men taken the life of his aged mother?

The other scene was enacted when a Canadian prospector having seen enough of western life came down from the North on his way to the nearest railway station that he might return to his home in the East. He drove a fine team hitched to a good wagon. As he journeyed he met two Indians, one a big brave, the other a stripling of a boy. The Canadian asked his way. The Indian offered himself as a guide to the wealthy traveler and as such was accepted.

A friendship seemed to spring up between the white man and his red companions as they proceeded. The first camp was made and on the next day they were setting forth again when the boy, Good Rider, spied some deer in the distance and asked the loan of a gun that he might bring fresh meat for their evening meal. Walmesley, the Canadian traveler, promptly loaned him his gun and the boy went on his quest for meat. Spoo Pee, the Indian brave, now took his own gun and shot the white man. He threw the body on the muddy bank of the Cut Bank River along which they had been riding.

With the fine horses in their possession, the two Indians came to Fort Shaw, a Piegan Agency, where Major Young was in charge. They remained over night and then went on. These visitors caused much comment at the agency. Curiosity was aroused because the horses which they were driving were much finer than red men usually had. They were well kept and well fed. The second cause for speculation was that the dog which had come with them stayed behind after the departure of the Indians. An Indian’s dog is most faithful. He follows in spite of hunger, distance, or hardships, but here was a dog which preferred the agency to the master.

One day a traveler appeared who reported finding the body of a white man on the bank of the Cut Bank River. The Major sent a party to investigate. Among them was the agency doctor. As the body was examined, the doctor noticed a peculiar scar on the heel of the victim, and he exclaimed, “Iwent swimming with a man once who had a scar exactly like that one. The man’s name was Walmesley.” Detectives were put on the case; Spoo Pee was overtaken, and with the boy, Good Rider, was put into jail. The agency doctor, Major Young, and his daughter became the chief witnesses.

Miss Young describes the journey to court in the thirty-below-zero weather. As she was almost ready to start for Helena, an old, dirty squaw came to see her, and throwing her arms around Miss Young’s neck, implored her to save her boy. This was Good Rider’s mother. The woman was unwashed and disheveled, because it was the custom of the tribe that no ordinary practise of cleanliness should be observed when an individual was in trouble. Miss Young brought Good Rider back to his mother but Spoo Pee was committed to prison. From the day of his sentence to jail no word or sound passed Spoo Pee’s lips for twenty years. After a few years he was considered a harmless lunatic and moved, first to Michigan, and then to an asylum in Washington.

One day a party of western visitors came into the corridors of the asylum. Awoman of the party, Mrs.Ella Clark, observed the pathetic, blank face of Spoo Pee, and began to speak in an Indian language. The prisoner observed her with something akin to interest. Failing to secure a clearer response from him, the woman began to croon an Indian lullaby. She sang as a mother to a child. Alook of dazed intelligence appeared on the face of the prisoner. Eagerly Mrs.Clark ceased her singing and began to speak to him. She told of tribal wars and conquests. She repeated traditions held most sacred. The attendants and keepers watched her efforts interestedly. At last from Spoo Pee’s long sealed lips there broke an Indian word. The kindly woman’s victory was complete, and with tears flowing unchecked, Mrs.Clark told the Indian of his people.

She explained to the keeper the reason that the deed had been committed; how Spoo Pee had returned to his village on that dreadful day and had found the women all slain. The prisoner told of his strange vow and of the long silent years. Spoo Pee was pardoned and he returned to his tribe but only sorrow was his lot. New and strange customs had arisen since he had gone away. His family had become scattered. He could not learn the new ways, and he pined for the friends who had gone. In two years the broken spirit of the red man went to its long rest.

It was this revengeful warrior that Brother Van had met at the river crossing, but danger held no terrors for him, and that night in the coulee, near the scene of the tragic murder of the Canadian prospector, he took the saddle from his pony, pillowed his head on it, and slept peacefully with the stars smiling down on him. God’s protection was with the man who had a vision of the life of peace and righteousness which could come to the West only through the gospel that it was his privilege to preach.

The Epworth Piegan Mission is ministering to these Indians to-day under the leadership of one of Brother Van’s “boys,” Rev.A.W. Hammer, who, with his talented wife, is continuing the service begun many years ago. Mr.Hammer is peculiarly fitted for this task because he knows the habits and language of the people. He was but a youth when he went west to the plains of Texas as a cowboy in 1877. Later he came to Montana and worked on a ranch not far from Chinook. He craved the opportunity to enjoy the finer pleasures of life, and when a literary society was started at Chinook, he rode in from the ranch to attend it.

One night the meeting place was deserted. Everybody was at the revival meeting. Taking his pal with him, Hammer went to have some fun. They sat on the back seat and made flippant remarks about the meeting, but confessed to each other that they liked the preacher’s singing. The next night found them on that same back seat. Achange came to young Hammer in this meeting and he altered his manner of life. He joined the church and took charge of the Sunday-school. He was later given a preacher’s license. Then he began to want an education that he might work for his Master more acceptably. He attended school and college and went back to the range to ride and to serve as a shepherd of people, instead of as a cowboy. His life exemplifies the ideal missionary to the Indians.

In Brother Van’s new district were the famous great falls of the Missouri, which Lewis and Clarke had heard roaring in the distance as they pushed across the plains. Perplexed as to the cause of the strange sound that rolled to them over the lifeless prairies, they traveled seven miles before they reached the spot where the great river takes its tremendous plunge. The magnitude of the falls astonished them beyond measure. The largest falls were given separate names later and became known as Great Falls, Rainbow Falls, and Crooked Falls. It is claimed by local residents that the water in Crooked Falls runs in every direction, even upstream. Great power-plants are built along the river at this point, and they produce power second only to Niagara.

When Brother Van reached the settlement of Great Falls on his first visit, it was nothing but a great undeveloped possibility. “Here we must have a church,” said this apostle of first things. An ambitious, far-seeing group of men constituting the Townsite Company was interviewed. They gave several lots to the enthusiastic dreamer of a greater day for Montana. With the assured membership of two devoted souls and the gift of land, a church was started.

Is this record of “first things” beginning to make you dizzy? Does the recounting make you weary? But suppose you were the missionary! Through heat and cold, through drought and rain, over green prairie and bleak desert, you would have to travel. You would have met plainsmen and Indians, friends and foes. You would have endured hunger and thirst. You would have rested under the stars on the open prairie and in the rude shelter afforded by the ranchmen’s bunks. You would have been obliged to be the leader in the building of first churches and first parsonages. All this costs energy and vitality, as Brother Van, seemingly tireless though he was, once discovered.

One day death seemed about to claim the scout-missionary. He was very weary and very ill, for mountain fever had him in its firm hold. Then how the little churches rallied to their friend! After much praying and after careful nursing, he was sent on a vacation that he might get well. This was the only sick leave that he has ever had. Forty-five years Brother Van has spent with his “shoulder against the horizon.” He has pushed the frontier back and back, and in all those years he has never been ill but once; then nature demanded a rest.

Leaving his friends greatly concerned over his condition, Brother Van went to Seattle, Washington, to recuperate. That rest period turned out to be something of a joke. In an old record of the Battery Street Church in Seattle, there is an entry showing that certain meetings were held in the church at this time, and noting that the evangelist was W.W. Van Orsdel. He had gone away in October. In December he was back in Montana holding revival meetings from Helena to Glendive, a distance of two hundred and forty miles.