He wore his long hair braided behind, and banged and plastered with clay in front so that it stood upright, and he dressed in blanket, breech clout, leggings and moccasins, and the lower joints of several of his fingers were cut off in accordance with the Indian custom of mutilating themselves at the burial of a friend.  His first appearance to a new teacher who came the following spring caused her no little trepidation, but she soon learned to prize him as her best pupil, and the next year the influence of God’s word upon him was seen by his saying, after recounting some of his Gros-Ventre religious fables, in which his belief had been shaken; “I have been coming to school now more than a year.  Since reading these books about God and angels I cannot sleep at night, but have had dreams.  I think some harm will come to me.  I am poor and cannot help myself, but I pray God to keep me from harm, and I want to trust him.”

From that time on, we hoped he would take a decided stand for Christ.  As yet, none among his people had been converted.  A few passages of the Bible and a few words of song had been given to the Gros-Ventres in their own tongue, and every Sabbath there were attentive Indian listeners, but would there ever be a Gros-Ventre convert?  “The Bear’s Tooth” continued to come to us, and learned to understand quite fully the requirements of our faith.  He became a trusted helper in charge of the mission cattle and the milking, working regularly as few Indians would do at Berthold, and he soon had stock of his own in which he took great pleasure.  He read the Bible on Sabbath afternoons with one who was soon called to her reward; it was almost her last prayer that he might be saved.  He came in spite of dissuasions, jeers, and even persecutions from his people, and yet he took no stand for Christ.  Three years after, there were Indian inquirers, and he helped to explain to them the demands of Christ, but they all felt that “the way was too hard for them” and “went away sorrowful.”

Some of the young people who had been taken away to school and removed from the opposition of their people had confessed Christ, but there were none to face it here and say that they loved him.  “The Bear’s Tooth” took a wife in the Indian way, unwilling to marry, and removed, as it seemed, away from our influence, to a claim forty miles up the river from our mission station.

But God dealt with him and afflicted him in the loss of his babes, and of his stock, so that he said, “It seems as though I could acquire nothing.  Explain it to me; the Indians say it is because I follow your teaching.”  I taught him from the book of Job, and the words of Christ.  His soul was hungry, and when he came once in two weeks for his government rations, he sought the bread of life at the mission.  Finally, after nearly eight years, one summer day he came and sat on a bench in the shade of the house in a little flower garden, and after we had talked