These Indians, the Mandans, the Hidatsa, and the Rees, live in one village at Berthold, in all numbering something over two thousand; and they have lived together, as we know, more than a hundred years, and yet the languages are kept perfectly distinct and separate. Many of them learn each other's language; and many of them talk Dakota also. "Many years ago they were considered ripe for the experiments of civilization; they stand to-day just as fit subjects as ever for the experiment, which never has been, and possibly never will be, tried." This is Dr. Matthews' statement. Let us hope that the latter part may not be prophetic. "They worship a deity," says Dr. Matthews, "whom they call 'The First Made' or 'The First Existence.'" Sometimes they speak of him as "The Old Man Immortal." They believe in _shades_ or _ghosts_, which belong not only to men, but to animals and trees and everything. "In the 'next world' _human shades_ hunt and live on the shades of the buffalo and other animals who have lived here. Whether the shade of the buffalo then ceases to exist or not, I could find none prepared to tell me; but they seem to have a dim faith in shades of shades, and in shadow-lands of shade-lands; belief in a shadowy immortality being the basis of their creed." By all these means our interest in Fort Berthold and its people grew, and we became impatient of delay. But step by step we were led by the hand of the Lord, until at the meeting of the American Board in Chicago in the autumn of 1875, after an animated discussion on Indian Missions, and the debt of the Board was lifted by a special effort, Secretary S. B. Treat arose and said: "We are ready to send a man to Fort Berthold." The man and the woman, Charles L. Hall and Emma Calhoun, were ready, and the next spring they were commissioned to make their home among the Mandans, Arickarees and Hidatsa. On leaving Berthold in May, 1874, I proceeded down the Missouri to Bismarck, where I was subjected to considerable delay; and then stopping a few days with Thomas at Hope Station, and making a short call at the Yankton agency, I went to the Santee to attend our annual meeting of the Dakota Conference, which commenced its sessions with the Pilgrim Church on the 18th of June.