Transcriber’s Notes: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end. * * * * * [Illustration: THOMAS CROSBY. From a photo taken in 1874] Among the An-ko-me-nums Or Flathead Tribes of Indians of the Pacific Coast, BY REV. THOMAS CROSBY Missionary to the Indians of British Columbia. [Illustration] TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS 1907 * * * * * Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand nine hundred and seven, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the Department of Agriculture. INTRODUCTION. I have been requested to write a few words of introduction to this deeply interesting volume, and I gladly comply, although the task may seem to be quite superfluous. Thomas Crosby, or anything he may write, needs no introduction, at least in Methodist circles. For a generation his name has been a household word, and from time to time brief accounts of his heroic labors have found their way through the press into many homes. But these accounts were fragmentary and incomplete. They presented some striking incidents, but no connected story of the man and his work. Such a story Crosby alone could supply, and many will be glad that he has been induced to begin it; and the hope will be general that other volumes may follow, covering what is by far the most interesting period of his life. It is but seldom that men who lay the foundations of empire get credit for the achievement. Their work, for the most part, is done underground and out of sight. They are content to take up the work that lies nearest, leaving results with God, and are more concerned about doing their work faithfully than claiming credit for themselves. And yet all the while they are laying the only foundations on which an enduring civilization can rest, and are better entitled to the name and fame of empire-builders than some who have claimed the credit without doing the work. If it be true that he is a benefactor of his race who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before, much more is he a benefactor whose spiritual husbandry transforms a savage into a citizen--a pagan into a saint.