The chief was more than eighty years old; the priest is a dozen years younger; and yet they represented in their experiences the two great epochs of life on this continent--the barbaric and the progressive. In the chief's boyhood the red man held undisputed sway from the Lakes to the Rockies. In the priest's youth he led, like a scout, beyond the advancing hosts from Europe. But Father Lacombe came bearing the olive branch of religion, and he and the barbarian became fast friends, intimates in a companionship as picturesque and out of the common as any the world could produce. There is something very strange about the relations of the French and the French half-breeds with the wild men of the plains. It is not altogether necessary that the Frenchman should be a priest, for I have heard of French half-breeds in our Territories who showed again and again that they could make their way through bands of hostiles in perfect safety, though knowing nothing of the language of the tribes there in war-paint. It is most likely that their swarthy skins and black hair, and their knowledge of savage ways aided them. But when not even a French half-breed has dared to risk his life among angry Indians, the French missionaries went about their duty fearlessly and unscathed. There was one, just after the dreadful massacre of the Little Big Horn, who built a cross of rough wood, painted it white, fastened it to his buck-board, and drove through a country in which a white man with a pale face and blond hair would not have lived two hours. It must be remembered that in a vast region of country the French priest and _voyageur_ and _coureur des bois_ were the first white men the Indians saw, and while the explorers and traders seldom quarrelled with the red men or offered violence to them, the priests never did. They went about like women or children, or, rather, like nothing else than priests. They quickly learned the tongues of the savages, treated them fairly, showed the sublimest courage, and acted as counsellors, physicians, and friends. There is at least one brave Indian fighter in our army who will state it as his belief that if all the white men had done thus we would have had but little trouble with our Indians.