Among the most unforgettable of all our Oklahoma experiences was a dinner which we had with the Jesuit Missionary priest at "Chickashay" on the last day of our stay. It had been raining in torrents for several hours, and as the Mission was four miles out I would have despaired of getting there at all had it not been for the Agency Clerk who was a man of resource and used to Oklahoma "showers." Commandeering for us the Agency "hack," a kind of canvas-covered delivery wagon, he succeeded in reaching the priest's house without shipwreck, although the road was a river.
The priest, a short, jolly Alsatian, met us with shining face quite unlike any other missionary I had ever seen. He was at once a delight and an astonishment to Zulime. His laugh was a bugle note and his hospitality a glow of good will. The dinner was abundant and well served, the wine excellent, and our host's talk of absorbing interest.
We were waited upon by a Sister of severe mien, who, between courses, stood against the wall with folded arms eyeing us with disapproving countenance. It was plain that she was serving under compulsion, but Father Ambrose paying no attention to her frowns, urged us to take a second helping, telling us meanwhile of his first exploration of Oklahoma, a story which filled us with laughter at his "greenness." Chuckling with delight of the fool he was, he could not conceal the heroic part he had played, for the hardships in those days were very real to a young man just out of a monastery. "I was so green the cows would have eaten me," he said.
The whole incident was like a chapter in a story of some other land than ours. The Sisters, the little brown children, the book-walled sitting room, the sturdy little priest recounting his struggles with a strange people and a strange climate,—all these presented a charming picture of the noble side of missionary life. Nothing broke the charm of that dinner except an occasional peal of thunder which made us wonder whether we would be able to navigate the hack back to the hotel or not.
What a waste the plain presented as we started on our return at ten o'clock! The lightning, almost incessant, showed from time to time what appeared to be a vast lake, shorelessly extending on every side of us, a shallow sea through which the horses slopped, waded and all but swam while Carroll, the Clerk, as pilot, did his best to reassure my wife. "I know the high spots," he said, whereat I fervently (though secretly) replied, "I hope you do," and when we swung to anchor in front of our little hotel, I shook his hand in congratulations over his skill—and good luck!
On our return to Chicago I found Lorado in his studio, modeling a more or less conventional female form, and my resentment took words. "If you will come with me, down among the Cheyennes, I will show you men who can be nude without being naked. In White Eagle's camp you can study warriors who have the dignity of Roman Senators and the grace of Athenian athletes."
To illustrate one of my points, I caught up a piece of gray canvas and showed him how the chiefs of various tribes managed their blankets. Something in these motions or in the long gray lines of the robe which I used fired his imagination. For the first time in our acquaintanceship, I succeeded in interesting him in the Indian. He was especially excited by the gesture of covering the mouth to express awe, and a few days later he showed me several small figures which he had sketched, suggestions which afterwards became the splendid monuments of Silmee and Blackhawk. He never lost the effect of the noble gestures which I had reproduced for him. The nude red man was a hackneyed subject, but Brown Bear with his robe, afforded precisely the stimulus of which he stood in need.
This trip to Indian Territory turned out to be a very important event in my life. First of all it enabled me to complete the writing of The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop, and started me on a long series of short stories depicting the life of the red man. It gave me an enormous amount of valuable material and confirmed me in my conviction that the Indian needed an interpreter, but beyond all these literary gains, I went back to Wisconsin filled with a fierce desire to own some of that beautiful prairie over which we had ridden.
This revived hunger for land generated in me a plan for establishing a wide ranch down there, an estate to which we could retire in February and March. "We can meet the spring half-way," I explained to my father. "I want a place where I can keep saddle horses and cattle. You must go with me and see it sometime. It is as lovely as Mitchell County was in 1870."
To this end I wrote to my brother in Mexico. "Leave the rubber business and come to Oklahoma. I am going to buy a ranch there and need you as superintendent."