wings," and finally disappeared in
the south. With lightened hearts and willing hands we went to work,
replanted some things, and labored thankfully, hopefully and
successfully to provide for the next winter.

The experience of the past had taught us much. We felt our hearts
stronger and richer for its lessons, and we all look back on that
memorable time as something we would not willingly have missed out of
our lives, for we learned that one may be reduced to great straits,
may have few or no external comforts, and yet be very happy, with that
satisfying, independent happiness which outward circumstances cannot
affect.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote B: Soon after this great deliverance, the Blackfoot Indians
who belonged to our little colony became discontented and homesick for
their hunting grounds among the Rocky Mountains, and made their
preparations for an exodus so secretly that we were taken entirely by
surprise when one evening they were all missing. They had taken their
women and children and as much of their stuff as they could carry on
two or three horses, and turned their backs upon us, permanently, as
they supposed. Immediately our oldest son started in pursuit, and we
watched him with a field-glass as long as we could see, and then by
the lights he struck from time to time, as he went farther and farther
away, to enable him to see their tracks or the votive offerings to the
sun which they had placed on the shrubs and bushes by the wayside as
they journeyed westward. At the close of the second day he found them
encamped near a stream making snow-shoes, and so uncertain as to their
route to the home they loved and pined for, as to be somewhat
disheartened. A few persuasive words from the lad, who understood
their ways thoroughly, with a promise that they should return to their
mountains when the warm weather came, prevailed, and they came back to
the Prairie somewhat subdued and not a little chagrined at their
failure.]

_CHAPTER XVIII._

MALCOLM CLARK.

A few years ago, Colonel Wilbur F. Sanders, President of the
Historical Society of Montana, justly claiming my brother as one of
the earliest pioneers of Montana Territory, requested me to furnish
the society with a sketch of his life, feeling that without it, the
records would be incomplete.

His career was peculiar, and in order that those who come after us may
have a correct account of it, I insert here the substance of the
sketch prepared at t