e. Many of them are old army
officers, men of education, who left the exploring parties to which they
were attached to make their homes among the wild allurements of this
fascinating valley. It is pleasant to hear their stories of life among
the Indians, and their accounts of the strange features of the
mountains, their animal life, their flora and minerals. Most of them
have squaw wives, and are rearing large families of ugly pappooses, and
many have amassed wealth by their long trade with the fur companies. The
great Hudson's Bay Company has for many years had a station in this
valley, and drawn from it large quantities of costly furs and skins.
Here and farther west is spoken the famous Chinnook jargon, invented by
the Company to facilitate its trade with the Indians. It borrows words
from the English, from the French, from all the Indian tongues, and
works them all into an incongruous combination. It has an entire lack of
system or rule, but is quickly learned, and is designed to express only
the simplest ideas. The powerful influence of the Company introduced it
everywhere, and it was found of indispensable utility. Ardent
Oregonians are said to woo their coy maidens in its unpronounceable
gutturals. The white man is called "Boston" in this tongue, because the
first whites whom the Oregon Indians met came in a Boston ship.

The best Indians of the mountains dwell in this valley,--the Flatheads
and Pend' d'Oreilles. Many of them are devoted Catholics, but liable at
times to lapse into intoxication. The Jesuits have a thriving mission
among them, with a neat church, whose clear ringing bell sounds
strangely enough in the mountain recesses. The strict asceticism of the
fathers, their careful nursing of the sick and wounded, and their
cordial co-operation in all objects of philanthropy, have enabled them
to wield an immense influence among the Indians. The white miners also,
who have often lain sick or frost-bitten in their hospitals, except
these zealous priests in their too common sneers at religion. Captain
Mullan quite reflects the universal sentiment when he says: "The only
good that I have ever seen effected among these people [the Indians] has
been due to the exertions of these Catholic missionaries."

I have hurried over the points of interest in the early days of Montana.
But any picture of its shifting life can only be a view of one of the
combinations of the kaleidoscope. The discovery of new mines, and the