A few years ago Brother Van made a long trip across the country and came again to Gettysburg, where, as a boy, fifty-four years before, he had witnessed that great battle. A large part of the land where the battle was fought has been bought by the United States government, and the government and the states spent seven million dollars in erecting the memorials that do honor to the men who fell in those July days of 1863. Brother Van saw again the house in which President Lincoln was entertained when he made that memorable address familiar to-day to every schoolboy and schoolgirl. He recalled how he had gone to seek the sad-faced man. He had come into his presence a towsled, barefoot, awkward boy, and with new appreciation he remembered how that great man had shaken hands with him. Since then other presidents have shaken hands with the boy grown into a missionary. Grant, Roosevelt, and Taft have all done honor to the man so well loved in Montana. CHAPTER XII SEVENTY YEARS YOUNG THE haze of Indian summer hangs over the prairies of Montana as they flaunt their golden flowers. There could be no more perfect days than these for a journey with Brother Van through the great state. One might almost call it his parish, so closely has he been associated with the settlement and growth of vast stretches of its territory. He shall be our guide as we visit the widely scattered villages and thriving towns, where he is eagerly welcomed by men, women, and children of all faiths and of none. There are no strangers to Great Heart of the Indians. Brother Van greets every one he meets with the Indians’ guttural “Oi-Oi-Oi,” meaning “How do you do!” When we ask why he always uses the expression, he replies, “Oh, just to show that I’m a friendly Indian.” We start our trip at Fort Benton, where, in a well kept park, stand the ruins of the old fort, a crumbling relic of days forever past. The stockade is gone and only a blockhouse remains. It is carefully guarded, for inside are precious relics of the past. Let us stand on the very spot where Brother Van celebrated his first Fourth of July in Montana by eating a dinner of jerked buffalo meat. Our eyes sweep the horizon and we try to imagine the scenes of former days when over those flashing waters of the Missouri came bull-boats or birch canoes, bringing precious furs to the Northwest Fur Company’s post. In the town itself we pass the site of the old mud saloon where, on that far-away Sunday, the tenderfoot missionary preached to a curious throng. What of the church life of to-day? We spend a Sabbath in the historic town and go to the old mother church. It is a small building, simple in style, but we enter it in a spirit of reverence. Repairs are in progress; with his own hands the minister, a college and seminary graduate, has painted the woodwork and papered the walls. He has been aided in the evenings by the earnest men of his congregation.