Chapter I: Front Matter

BROTHER VAN

Illustration: WILLIAM WESLEY VAN ORSDEL

But the Northwest knows him only as Brother Van

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BROTHER VAN

By

STELLA W. BRUMMITT

Illustration: (‡ Colophon)

NEW YORK
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Copyright, 1919, by
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

To the Best Known and
Best Loved Man in Montana

BROTHER VAN

CONTENTS

Foreword

I A Boy at Gettysburg

II Explorers of a Continental Purchase

III Westward

IV A Sky Pilot’s Race Up the Missouri

V Brother Van

VI A Brother to the Blackfoot

VII The Gospel Team

VIII Scouting for Uncle Sam

IX New Trails

X Great Heart with the Indians

XI Brother Van and New Montana

XII Seventy Years Young

ILLUSTRATIONS

1 William Wesley Van Orsdel, known as “Brother Van.”

2 The Battle of Gettysburg.

3 A statue in honor of Sacajawea in Portland, Oregon.

4 Sitting Bull was dressed in full war regalia.

5 Historic Fort Benton, where Brother Van ate jerked buffalo
meat.

6 Brother Van visiting a Blackfeet medicine lodge.

7 The ceremony of adoption into the Blackfeet tribe.

8 Indians were terrifying settlers everywhere.

9 Brother Van’s dispatch to the Helena _Herald_.

10 Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Percés at Big Hole.

11 Dr. Thomas C. Iliff and Brother Van, who had many adventures
together.

12 Brother Van was “hail fellow well met” with the people.

13 Brother Van shot the herd leader in the head.

14 The Van Orsdel Home for Nurses at Helena.

15 Great Heart with a Blackfoot brother.

16 A copper mine at Butte.