Voyageurs and Iroquois trappers from the Jesuit schools of Canada said the same. Then Ellice, a chief's son, came back from the Red River country whither the Hudson's Bay Company had sent him to be educated. From several sources at once they learned that the white men had a Book that taught of God.
"If this be true it is certainly high time that we had the Book." The chiefs called a national council. "If our mode of worship is wrong we must lay it aside. We must know about this. It cannot be put off."
"If we could only find the trail of Lewis and Clark they would tell us the truth."
"Yes, Lewis and Clark always pointed upward. They must have been trying to tell us."
So, benighted, bewildered, the Nez Percés talked around their council fires. Over in the buffalo country Black Eagle's band met the white traders.
"They come from the land of Lewis and Clark," said the Eagle. "Let us follow them."
And so, four chiefs were deputed for that wonderful journey, two old men who had known Lewis and Clark,—Black Eagle and the Man-of-the-Morning, whose mother was a Flathead,—and two young men,—Rabbit-Skin-Leggings of the White Bird band on Salmon River, Black Eagle's brother's son, and No-Horns-On-His-Head, a young brave of twenty, who was a doubter of the old beliefs.
"They went out by the Lolo trail into the buffalo country of Montana," say their descendants still living in Idaho.
One day they reached St. Louis and inquired for the Red Head Chief.
Very well Governor Clark remembered his Nez Percé-Flathead friends. His silver locks were shaken by roars of laughter at their reminders of his youth, the bear hunts, the sale of buttons for camas and for kouse. The hospitality of those chiefs who said, "The horses on these hills are ours, take what you need," should now be rewarded.