[Sidenote: BURIAL OF FATHER HOECKEN.] “The passengers were deeply moved at the sight of the lifeless body of him who had so lately been ‘all to all,’ according to the language of the apostle. Their kind father quitted them at the moment in which his services seemed to be the most necessary. I shall remember with deep gratitude the solicitude evinced by the passengers to the reverend father in his dying moments. My resolution not to leave the body of the pious missionary in the desert was unanimously approved. A decent coffin, very thick, and tarred within, was prepared to receive his mortal remains: a temporary grave was dug in a beautiful forest, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Little Sioux, and the burial was performed with all the ceremonies of the Church, in the evening of the 19th of June, all on board assisting.” On the return trip from Fort Union, Captain La Barge, despite the protests of the passengers, took Father Hoecken’s remains on board and delivered them to the Jesuits at St. Louis, and they were buried in the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Florissant, whither Father De Smet was to follow twenty-two years later. [Sidenote: ABATEMENT OF THE PLAGUE.] After the burial of Father Hoecken near the mouth of the Little Sioux River, Captain La Barge put everyone ashore, made the passengers roam around the neighborhood, unloaded and aired all the baggage, and completely renovated the boat. These measures, with the increasing healthfulness of the country as the boat entered the more arid sections, brought complete relief from the plague. Only one more death occurred, and in a short time everything assumed a normal aspect. The boat reached Fort Union on the 14th of July, and here Father De Smet left it to make a journey overland, southward to Fort John, on the Laramie River, where a great council of plains Indians was to assemble. Captain La Barge went on a hundred miles further, to the mouth of Poplar River, it being, as he then understood, the highest point reached by any steamboat; but it was not much, if any, farther than the _Assiniboine_ went in 1834. [Sidenote: CHARACTER OF FATHER DE SMET.]