s, in a way akin to the Christian way. They did not eat,
drink nor sleep without first giving thanks to God. They had one day
each week, like Sunday, when they did not hunt or fish or work, but
listened to talks by their priests or medicine-men.

It was said that they had been taught first by a Christian Iroquois
Indian, who in 1816 came in from Canada and told them the things that
he had been told by the French priests. At any rate, when the Roman
Catholic priests themselves arrived to live among them, these Pierced
Noses already had learned a great deal. They were anxious to learn
more.

However, before the missionaries of any church visited them, the
Pierced Noses tried to learn more, by themselves. In particular, they
wanted a copy of the Book of Heaven. And what started them on the
trail of the Book of Heaven, was this:

Among the leaders of white fur-hunters in beaver-trapping days in the
west, there was Trapper-Captain Jedediah S. Smith--the Knight in
Buckskin. This Captain Jedediah Smith was fearless and upright.
Hunting beaver, he traveled far and wide, from the Missouri River to
California, and from New Mexico to the Columbia, protected only by his
rifle and his Bible.

Wherever he carried his rifle, he carried his Bible; used them both,
and no man but that respected him. The Comanches of the Southwest
finally killed him, in 1831, when fighting alone against great odds he
died a real hero's death.

He had spent the winter of 1824-1825 in the Pierced Noses' country. Of
course he told them much about the white man's religion. They saw him
frequently reading in his little, black-leather book, which, they said,
must be the White Man's Book of Heaven. He would not sell them the
book, for any amount of horses or beaver skins. When he had left, they
took counsel together and decided that they should get such a book.

Twice they sent into the East for it; and no word came back. But the
Pierced Noses did not give up. They were still without the wonderful
Book of Heaven which, had said Captain Jedediah Smith the trapper,
guided the white men on the straight trail to the Great Spirit above.

In the early part of 1832 they called a council of the nation, and
chose four men, to set out, again, for the big, unknown village where
dwelt the Red Head Chief, and where, they hoped, a copy of the Book of
Heaven might be found.

The snows had scarcely melted when the four men started. Two of them
were old