Gradually Brother Van’s resolution was formed――he must give his first attention to establishing churches in the new towns that the white settlers were building. It meant giving up the life among the people he had come to serve, and who already had shown many encouraging signs of response to his preaching. His decision led him away from his new friends and back among his own race, but he continued to come into contact with the Indians from time to time. His sympathy with them and his understanding of their habits helped him to teach them successfully. Through the years he proved himself to be “Great Heart,” a brother to the Blackfoot. CHAPTER VII THE GOSPEL TEAM THE unfriendly conditions which Brother Van found growing between the Indians and the whites led later to the Custer Massacre. While in the missionary’s mind there was no expectation of such a serious climax, yet he saw that the idea of a real brotherhood of man must be given as quickly as possible to the traders, miners, ranchmen, and settlers. Through their better understanding of Christ’s religion the Indian through example would be led to know the white man’s God. It was a fresh quest that made Brother Van set out for Helena, which was then a comparatively large settlement. The town was in the proximity of the gold mine called Last Chance Gulch. This mine has an interesting history. Prospectors had been for long, weary months at Silver Creek, which was twelve or thirteen miles from where Helena now stands. Luck had been against them, and they packed their horses and came down the trail disheartened and “broke.” They resolved to give up the search and go home. Coming into Helena in the evening, they made camp close to the tiny town, intending to leave early on the following day. On the next morning the horses were loaded, and everything was in readiness for the start, when the unquenchable faith of the prospector moved John Cowan to take up a pick and to make one more attempt to find ore. “Well, boys, here’s our last chance,” he said, carelessly, as he drove his pick into the ground. He struck gold. From that mine fifty to eighty million dollars’ worth of gold was taken. The words of the lucky prospector always stuck to the section, and it was called Last Chance Gulch. The mine was five miles long and the vein two hundred feet wide. One nugget was free from quartz, and was worth two thousand and seventy-three dollars. Last Chance Gulch has a thrilling record. Scenes of adventure and death took place there. Men made vast fortunes. Other men lost all that they had and went away broken in spirit. Gamblers won and lost; prospectors failed; but always Last Chance paid in gold.