the man of sin.
--_Montgomery_.

A peculiar wireless telegraphy has ever been in vogue among the
aborigines of many lands. The interior tribes of Africa have it and
use it to perfection. The plains Indians and those of the mountains
know its use, and messages are sent which cause much wonderment to the
white man.

In 1899 the ghost-dancing was in progress among all the Indians of the
United States. All Indiandom was excited to the highest degree.
Disturbances among them were watched and feared by the government. The
Bannocks and Shoshones of Fort Hall were nerved to a high tension and
quickly athrill to any new movement. Hearing that an unusual interest
was being displayed among the Nez Perces of the north, a committee of
the Fort Hall men was sent to ascertain what it was. It proved to be a
revival of religion conducted by the Presbyterians. The committee was
composed of heathens, but they saw, were conquered, and came home
reporting it was good, and requested that there be similar meetings
held among them. It was so planned and arranged. A Nez Perce
Presbyterian minister was to be their visitant evangelist.

The various Protestant churches in Pocatello had been by turns
supplying preaching to the people of Fort Hall's tribes, and to the
whites who were the residents at Ross Fork, the seat of the Agency. On
the particular evening when the special meetings were to begin it was
the turn of the writer to preach. The Rev. James Hays, a full-blood
Nez Perce, was there as evangelist. But he could not speak a word of
the Bannock-Shoshone mixed jargonized dialect. He had been educated in
English and could understand me so as to interpret, rather translate
into Nez Perce, but who could reach the people to whom we had the
message? There was present a renegade fellow, Pat Tyhee (big Pat, or
chief Pat), _not an Irishman_. He was a Shoshone who years before had
gone to live among the Nez Perces and had married a woman of them. He
could interpret Hays, but could he be trusted? He was a very
heathenish heathen. The missionary teacher, Miss Frost, consulted with
Mr. Hays and myself as to the wisdom of asking Pat to play interpreter
for the momentous occasion; after fervently praying we concluded to
take the risk and trust to God's leading. Pat, the heathen, was
chosen. It was a queer audience. There were some whites, some Indians.
It was odd to see Gun, the Agency policeman, there with his onl