So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.––Isaiah.

A peculiar wireless telegraphy has ever been in vogue among the aborigines of many lands. The interior tribes of Africa have it and use it to perfection. The plains Indians and those of the mountains know its use, and messages are sent which cause much wonderment to the white man.

In 1899 the ghost-dancing was in progress among all the Indians of the United States. All Indiandom was excited to the highest degree. Disturbances among them were watched and feared by the government. The Bannocks and Shoshones of Fort Hall 83 were nerved to a high tension and quickly athrill to any new movement. Hearing that an unusual interest was being displayed among the Nez Perces of the north, a committee of the Fort Hall men was sent to ascertain what it was. It proved to be a revival of religion conducted by the Presbyterians. The committee was composed of heathens, but they saw, were conquered, and came home reporting it was good, and requested that there be similar meetings held among them. It was so planned and arranged. A Nez Perce Presbyterian minister was to be their visitant evangelist.

The various Protestant churches in Pocatello had been by turns supplying preaching to the people of Fort Hall’s tribes, and to the whites who were the residents at Ross Fork, the seat of the Agency. On the particular evening when the special meetings were to begin it was the turn of the writer to preach. The Rev. James Hays, a full-blood Nez Perce, was there as evangelist. But he could not speak a word of the Bannock-Shoshone mixed jargonized dialect. He had been educated in English 84 and could understand me so as to interpret, rather translate into Nez Perce, but who could reach the people to whom we had the message? There was present a renegade fellow, Pat Tyhee (big Pat, or chief Pat), not an Irishman. He was a Shoshone who years before had gone to live among the Nez Perces and had married a woman of them. He could interpret Hays, but could he be trusted? He was a very heathenish heathen. The missionary teacher, Miss Frost, consulted with Mr. Hays and myself as to the wisdom of asking Pat to play interpreter for the momentous occasion; after fervently praying we concluded to take the risk and trust to God’s leading. Pat, the heathen, was chosen. It was a queer audience. There were some whites, some Indians. It was odd to see Gun, the Agency policeman, there with his only prisoner. There were Billy George, the tribal judge; and Hubert Tetoby, the assistant blacksmith, as well as others of local importance. To add to the excitement of the evening, it was the night before ration day at the Agency, when all the Indians from the entire Reservation were 85 present––fifteen hundred of them––for their share. It was a wild time––the raw blanketed man was there for a Saturnalia. He knew no law but his desires. The unprotected young woman had no security from him. Indeed, while we were gathering in the mission house for this service, I noticed a slight stirring at my feet, and looked, and there was Mary, a young widow, who had scuttled in silent as a partridge and was snuggling down on the floor just back of my feet, successful in getting away from some red Lothario who had pursued her to the door.

The service began. I preached from the words of Martha to Mary, “The Master is come and is calling for thee.” It was an attempt to show that Jesus needs us as living agents to work with him. Mr. Hays, I suppose, and always have believed, translated to Pat in Nez Perce what I said. Pat in turn interpreted to the assembled band of mixed Indians. To be sure, I understood not a thing either said: but when I looked at the earnest, love-ridden, and sweat-covered face of the yearning Nez Perce, I believed that what he was saying 86 was all I said and more. And Pat––he was a sight! Had his hands been tied, I really believed he could not have expressed himself at all. He is about six feet six in his moccasins, and those long arms accompanied the lengthy guttural expressions in an intensely effective manner. At the close of the three-cornered sermon the question was asked, “How many of you from this time forward are willing to follow Jesus and be known as his assistants?” Among the most prominent and enthusiastic replies that came were those of Hubert Tetoby, Billy George, and Pat Tyhee, the heathen interpreter. Looking me straight in the eyes, swerving neither to the one side nor the other, these madly-in-earnest men of the mountains held their hands up high as they could reach them. And in six weeks from that date there was a Presbyterian church there composed of sixty-five members, of whom only one, the teacher, Miss Frost, was white; and Pat Tyhee was made one of the elders. There had been no Christians there at all before those meetings. It was an Indian Pentecost.