and wise; their names are not written. Two of them were young
and strong; their names were Rabbit-skin Leggins and
No-horns-on-his-head.

A long, long, dangerous road lay before them: three thousand miles,
across the mountains into the Blackfeet country, and across the plains
guarded by the Blackfeet and the Sioux and other hungry people as bad.

But they got through all right, for they were clever and in earnest.
They arrived at St. Louis in the summer.

St. Louis was then nothing like the St. Louis of today; but to the four
strangers from the Columbia River basin it was amazingly large. Never
had they dreamed of seeing so many white people. No one spoke their
tongue; still there were trappers and Missouri River boatmen who
understood signs, and by the sign language they inquired for the Red
Head Chief.

The kind-hearted Governor William Clark was glad to greet them. Their
fathers, almost thirty years before, had helped him and Captain Lewis
the Long Knife; he remembered the two old men when they were young.
The Indians of the West might always depend upon their friend the Red
Head.

So he took charge of the four Pierced Noses, and entertained them. He
showed them the sights of the white man's big village beside the big
rivers. They were entertained by banquets and balls and the theatre.
They went to services in the Roman Catholic church, where the white
people worshipped--for Governor Clark was a Catholic.

And they saw copies of the Book of Heaven--the Roman Catholic
testament, and the Bible: but the books did not speak their language!

In all the white man's village there was no one who might read from the
Book, in their own language.

After a few months they began to despair. The food of the white man
and the close air of the lodges made them ill. The two old men died.
Rabbit-skin Leggins and No-horns-on-his-head were homesick for their
country beyond the mountains. In the winter they prepared to go.

A farewell banquet was given to them, but they were tired of banquets.
They wanted a Book of Heaven that could talk to them.
No-horns-on-his-head delivered a speech, as best he might, in sign
language and broken English, through an interpreter.

I have come to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun.
You were the friends of my fathers, who have all gone the long way.

I came with an eye partly open for my people, who sit in darkness; I go
back with both eyes closed. How can I go