On the night of his conversion, when he had raised his hand high as he could reach, he in the after meeting mimicked the white folks who had slowly and with many side-lookings so slightly moved their hands upward. He said, "Huh, white folks heap scared, do this way;" and he imitated them grotesquely.
Often when leaving his teepee for the hills in order to haul his winter wood, he would go to the home of Miss F----, the missionary, and tell her he was going away, and at the same time asking her to be sure to care for his squaw and papooses if he did not return; for, said he, "Bad Injun ketchy me some day; no liky me; you savy me liky whity man."
So fair of mind was he, and so humanely progressive, that the government had chosen him as one of the men before whom petty cases among the tribe were taken. If he could not solve the problems, they were then carried to the Agent; then on up if not there adjusted.
When the Presbyterian Missionary Board assisted these Christians to build a neat house of worship it was, and still is, known far and near as Billy George's Church.
A Cornishman was once asked why there were no public houses (saloons) in his town. He replied, "Once a man by the name of John Wesley preached here, and there have been none since."
Once a man by the name of General O. O. Howard passed through eastern Oregon and northern Idaho, and the country has not been the same since. The occasion was the uprising of the Nez Perces Indians in 1877. Ridpath, the historian, tells of the long chase of the red men and the weary pursuit of "sixteen hundred miles." It was truly a Fabian retreat on the part of Chief Joseph and his band, but General Howard was dealing mercifully with them; at a dozen places he could have given battle, but he spared the useless slaughter, avoiding the needless scaring of the white settlers and the complement of dire scenes and death that would necessarily follow.
The story of Chief Joseph is one of the most interesting unwritten chapters in the history of the great Northwest. The fact of the capture of this wily Indian leader with most of his band is well known. They were banished from the Alpine regions of eastern Oregon and compelled to make their home across the marble cañon of the Snake in the State of Idaho, far from their loved Wallowa.