MY PEOPLE OF THE PLAINS       BY THE RIGHT REVEREND ETHELBERT TALBOT, D.D., S.T.D. BISHOP OF CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA                 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMVI

Photographs

Chapter I. Wyoming and Idaho in 1887
Chapter II. My First Missionary Journey
Chapter III. Old Chief Washakie
Chapter IV. A Mining-Camp in Idaho
Chapter V. A Visit to Clayton Gulch
Chapter VI. In and Out of the Stage-Coach
Chapter VII. The Coeur d'Alene Country
Chapter VIII. The Tenderfoot and Old Pete
Chapter IX. Some Wyoming and Idaho Missionaries
Chapter X. Two Familiar Types
Chapter XI. Here and There Among My Flock
Chapter XII. A Month in the Woods
Chapter XIII. Tessy
Chapter XIV. Making the Work Known
Chapter XV. Mormonism and the Mormons
Chapter XVI. The Red-Man and Uncle Sam

PREFACE

THE experiences herein related took place during the eleven years in which the author had the great privilege of ministering as a bishop to the warm-hearted and generous pioneers of the Rocky Mountain region embraced in the territory now included in the states of Wyoming and Idaho. During that time, he had the happiness of knowing the people as they lived in the mining-camp, on the ranch, in the excitement of the round-up, as they followed their herds of sheep, or indulged in the recreation of hunting big game in the forests or sage-chicken on the plains, or as they beguiled the happy hours with rod and line in that angler's paradise.

A more kindly hospitality no bishop ever received, and, as he recalls those years after the lapse of time, they are as vivid as the memory of yesterday's events. It has been a positive delight and refreshment, in the midst of the busy life of an Eastern bishop, to live over again the scenes so fondly cherished, and to summon before him the familiar faces of the friends whom he then learned to honor and to love.

The peculiar conditions in whose atmosphere this recital was made possible no longer exist; for the advent of the railroad, and the consequent customs and usages of the East, have caused that civilization, which had in it all the fascination of romance and adventure, to pass away.

Some of the stories with which this volume is made less tedious will no doubt be familiar to those of his readers who have heard the author relate them in his missionary addresses, when from time to time he would visit the East to gather funds to enable him to build the churches and schools in his widely scattered field, or to get men to aid him in the work of evangelization.

If he has not laid as much emphasis on the difficulties and discouragements which he encountered as upon the brighter side of his experience, it is not because there were no obstacles to overcome, but rather because, in the retrospect, the more pleasant memories stand out in bold relief. Even when the anxieties and responsibilities of his official life weighed most heavily upon him, the writer was often vouchsafed some measure of that saving grace of humor which enabled him to meet situations otherwise insuperable, and to gather courage whereby he could with better patience await results.

If in any small degree he has been enabled to put in more permanent form the picture of the life of the Far West as he then knew it, and thus to crystallize a civilization now almost, if not entirely, gone, perhaps he will have made some slight contribution to the history of that typically American part of our country, not only on its ecclesiastical, but also on its social and economic side.

Necessarily, in recounting the events so closely identified with his own life and work, these stories have assumed an autobiographical character to a larger extent than the author could wish. He can only humbly crave the indulgence of his readers if this feature should be more prominent than the canons of good taste might seem to justify.

E. T.

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