States be confided to the care of the Society of Jesus. In July of the "following year the Holy See acceded to the request. Hence, when the deputation of Indians visited St. Louis and obtained from Bishop Rosati the promise of missionaries, it was to the Jesuit Fathers that the Bishop turned for volunteers. In a letter to the Father General of the Society in Rome, under date of October 20, 1839, Bishop Rosati relates in detail the story of the various journeys of the Indians in search of the Black-robes and gives us the following interesting account of young Ignace and his companion, Pierre Gaucher:
"At last, a third deputation of Indians arrived at St. Louis after a long voyage of three months. It is composed of two Christian Iroquois. These Indians who talk French have edified us by their truly exemplary conduct and interested us by their discourse. The Fathers of the college have heard their confessions, and today they approached the holy table at my Mass in the Cathedral church. Afterwards I administered to them the sacrament of Confirmation; and in an allocution delivered after the ceremony, I rejoiced with them in their happiness and gave them the hope of soon having a priest."
Father DeSmet, deeply impressed by the visit of young Ignace, offered to devote himself to the Indian missions. The oflfer was gratefully accepted by his Superior and by the Bishop, and DeSmet set out on his first trip to the Oregon country late in March, 1840. Past Westport (now Kansas City), he journeyed along the Platte River, through herds of antelope and buffalo, across the country of the Pawnees and Cheyennes to the South Pass across Continental Divide. Here, on the 25th of June, he passed from the waters tributary to the Missouri to those of the Colorado. "On the 30th (of June)", says Father DeSmet, "I came to the rendezvous where a band of Flatheads, who had been notified of my coming, were already waiting for me. This happened on the Green River, a tributary of the Colorado, it is the place whither the beaver hunters and the savages of diflferent nations betake themselves every year----
