Captain La Barge and several of the passengers went along with the father, and the interpreter translated the prayer to the Indians. They left the Indians satisfied, and at noon had them on the boat for a feast, after which they returned to their village. As good fortune would have it, along about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, there came up a heavy thunder shower which fairly deluged the place. Father De Smet laughed and said:
“They will think I did it. They will give me all the credit for it.”
Some time after the shower Pierre Garreau, a French Canadian, who had spent all his life among the Indians, and had become almost an Indian himself, came to the boat and said to La Barge:
“I want you to help me. I want to find out how Father De Smet did that.”
“Did what?” asked La Barge.
“Made it rain. I will pay a good price if he will tell me. I will give him ten horses.”
La Barge took him back to De Smet, where he presented his request himself. De Smet told him to be a good Christian, and pray when he wanted it to rain, and if he deserved it, it would come. Garreau went away disappointed, for he fully believed that the father had some secret art by which he produced so signal a result. After he had gone, De Smet laughed and said: “Did I not tell you they would say I did it?”
ATTEMPTED RETIREMENT.
After La Barge returned from this trip he laid the boat up for repairs, and soon after sold her. He had now about made up his mind to quit the river and retire from active business. He had already accumulated a snug fortune for those days, and concluded to enjoy it. He made the best financial move of his life in the purchase of a large tract of land in what is now Cabanné Place in St. Louis. Had he held on to this purchase, the mere growth of the city would have made him immensely wealthy.[31] But retirement from business is one of the hardest things for a man to do, even in old age. For a man in the prime of life, as La Barge was at this time, being only thirty-six, it was not to be expected; and fate soon threw in his way a temptation that brought him back to the river.
PURCHASES THE “SONORA.”