Note B — Chapter XVII

Soon after this great deliverance, the Blackfoot Indians who belonged to our little colony became discontented and homesick for their hunting grounds among the Rocky Mountains, and made their preparations for an exodus so secretly that we were taken entirely by surprise when one evening they were all missing. They had taken their women and children and as much of their stuff as they could carry on two or three horses, and turned their backs upon us, permanently, as they supposed. Immediately our oldest son started in pursuit, and we watched him with a field-glass as long as we could see, and then by the lights he struck from time to time, as he went farther and farther away, to enable him to see their tracks or the votive offerings to the sun which they had placed on the shrubs and bushes by the wayside as they journeyed westward. At the close of the second day he found them encamped near a stream making snow-shoes, and so uncertain as to their route to the home they loved and pined for, as to be somewhat disheartened. A few persuasive words from the lad, who understood their ways thoroughly, with a promise that they should return to their mountains when the warm weather came, prevailed, and they came back to the Prairie somewhat subdued and not a little chagrined at their failure.