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Title: The Log School-House on the Columbia

Author: Hezekiah Butterworth

Release date: February 2, 2005 [eBook #14881]
                Most recently updated: December 19, 2020

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Emmy and Ben Beasley, Audrey Longhurst, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA

A Tale of the Pioneers of the Great Northwest

by

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH

Author of the Zigzag Books

ILLUSTRATED

1890







[Illustration]


New York
D. Appleton and Company


[Illustration: _Gretchen at the Potlatch Feast._]





PREFACE.


A year or more ago one of the librarians in charge of the young people's
books in the Boston Public Library called my attention to the fact that
there were few books of popular information in regard to the pioneers of
the great Northwest. The librarian suggested that I should write a story
that would give a view of the heroic lives of the pioneers of Oregon and
Washington.

Soon after this interview I met a distinguished educator who had lately
returned from the Columbia River, who told me the legend of the old chief
who died of grief in the grave of his son, somewhat in the manner
described in this volume. The legend had those incidental qualities that
haunt a susceptible imagination, and it was told to me in such a dramatic
way that I could not put it out of my mind.

A few weeks after hearing this haunting legend I went over the Rocky
Mountains by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and visited the Columbia River
and the scenes associated with the Indian story. I met in Washington,
Yesler, Denney, and Hon. Elwood Evans, the historian; visited the daughter
of Seattle, the chief, "Old Angeline"; and gathered original stories in
regard to the pioneers of the Puget Sound country from many sources. In
this atmosphere the legend grew upon me, and the outgrowth of it is this
volume, which, amid a busy life of editorial and other work, has forced
itself upon my experience.

                                                H.B.

    28 WORCESTER STREET, BOSTON, July 4, 1890




CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

    I.  GRETCHEN'S VIOLIN

   II.  THE CHIEF OF THE CASCADES

  III.  "BOSTON TILICUM"

   IV.  MRS. WOODS'S TAME BEAR, LITTLE "ROLL OVER"

    V.  THE NEST OF THE FISHING EAGLE

   VI.  THE MOUNTAIN LION

  VII.  THE "SMOKE-TALK"

 VIII.  THE BLACK EAGLE'S NEST OF THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI

   IX.  GRETCHEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF OF THE CASCADES

    X.  MRS. WOODS MEETS LITTLE "ROLL OVER" AGAIN

   XI.  MARLOWE MANN'S NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE

  XII.  OLD JOE MEEK AND MR. SPAULDING

 XIII.  A WARNING

  XIV.  THE POTLATCH

   XV.  THE TRAUMEREI AGAIN

  XVI.  A SILENT TRIBE

 XVII.  A DESOLATE HOME AND A DESOLATE PEOPLE

XVIII.  THE LIFTED CLOUD--THE INDIANS COME TO THE SCHOOLMASTER


HISTORICAL NOTES.

  I.  Vancouver

 II.  The Oregon Trail

III.  Governor Stevens

 IV.  Seattle the Chief

  V.  Whitman's Ride for Oregon

 VI.  Mount Saint Helens




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


Gretchen at the Potlatch Feast      E. J. Austen (Frontispiece)

Indians spearing fish at Salmon Falls

"Here were mountains grander than Olympus."
  The North Puyallup Glacier, Mount Tacoma

In the midst of this interview Mrs. Woods appeared at the door of
  the cabin      A. E. Pope

The eagle soared away in the blue heavens, and the flag streamed
  after him in his talons      E.J. Austen

The mountain lion      D. Carter Beard

An Indian village on the Columbia

Afar loomed Mount Hood

A castellated crag arose solitary and solemn

At the Cascades of the Columbia

Multnomah Falls in earlier years.
            Redrawn by Walter C. Greenough

The old chief stood stoical and silent. E. J. Austen

Middle block-house at the Cascades




CHAPTER I.

GRETCHEN'S VIOLIN.


An elderly woman and a German girl were walking along the old Indian trail
that led from the northern mountains to the Columbia River. The river was
at this time commonly called the Oregon, as in Bryant's poem:

            "Where rolls the Oregon,
    And no sound is heard save its own dashings."

The girl had a light figure, a fair, open face, and a high forehead with
width in the region of ideality, and she carried under her arm a long
black case in which was a violin. The woman had lived in one of the
valleys of the Oregon for several years, but the German girl had recently
arrived in one of the colonies that had lately come to the territory
under the missionary agency of the Rev. Jason Lee.

There came a break in the tall, cool pines that lined the trail and that
covered the path with glimmering shadows. Through the opening the high
summits of Mount St. Helens glittered like a city of pearl, far, far away
in the clear, bright air. The girl's blue eyes opened wide, and her feet
stumbled.

"There, there you go again down in the hollow! Haven't you any eyes? I
would think you had by the looks of them. Well, Gretchen, they were placed
right in the front of your head so as to look forward; they would have
been put in the top of your head if it had been meant that you should look
up to the sky in that way. What is it you see?"

"Oh, mother, I wish I was--an author."

"An author! What put that into your simple head? You meant to say you
would like to be a poet, but you didn't dare to, because you know I don't
approve of such things. People who get such flighty ideas into their loose
minds always find the world full of hollows. No, Gretchen, I am willing
you should play on the violin, though some of the Methody do not approve
of that; and that you should finger the musical glasses in the
evening--they have a religious sound and soothe me, like; but the reading
of poetry and novels I never did countenance, except Methody hymns and the
'Fool of Quality,' and as for the writing of poetry, it is a Boston notion
and an ornary habit. Nature is all full of poetry out here, and what this
country needs is pioneers, not poets."

There came into view another opening among the pines as the two went on.
The sun was ascending a cloudless sky, and far away in the cerulean arch
of glimmering splendors the crystal peaks and domes of St. Helens appeared
again.

The girl stopped.

"What now?" said the woman, testily.

"Look--yonder!"

"Look yonder--what for? That's nothing but a mountain, a great waste of
land all piled up to the sky, and covered with a lot of ice and snow. I
don't see what they were made for, any way--just to make people go round,
I suppose, so that the world will not be too easy for them."

"Oh, mother, I do not see how you can feel so out here! I never dreamed of
anything so beautiful!"

"Feel so out here! What do you mean? Haven't I always been good to you?
Didn't I give you a good home in Lynn after your father and mother died?
Wasn't I a mother to you? Didn't I nurse you through the fever? Didn't I
send for you to come way out here with the immigrants, and did you ever
find a better friend in the world than I have been to you?"

"Yes, mother, but--"

"And don't I let you play the violin, which the Methody elder didn't much
approve of?"

"Yes, mother, you have always been good to me, and I love you more than
anybody else on earth."

There swept into view a wild valley of giant trees, and rose clear above
it, a scene of overwhelming magnificence.

"Oh, mother, I can hardly look at it--isn't it splendid? It makes me feel
like crying."

The practical, resolute woman was about to say, "Well, look the other way
then," but she checked the rude words. The girl had told her that she
loved her more than any one else in the world, and the confession had
touched her heart.

"Well, Gretchen, that mountain used to make me feel so sometimes when I
first came out here. I always thought that the mountains would look
_peakeder_ than they do. I didn't think that they would take up so much
of the land. I suppose that they are all well enough in their way, but a
pioneer woman has no time for sentiments, except hymns. I don't feel like
you now, and I don't think that I ever did. I couldn't learn to play the
violin and the musical glasses if I were to try, and I am sure that I
should never go out into the woodshed to try to rhyme _sun_ with _fun_;
no, Gretchen, all such follies as these I should _shun_. What difference
does it make whether a word rhymes with one word or another?"

To the eye of the poetic and musical German girl the dead volcano, with
its green base and frozen rivers and dark, glimmering lines of carbon,
seemed like a fairy tale, a celestial vision, an ascent to some city of
crystal and pearl in the sky. To her foster mother the stupendous scene
was merely a worthless waste, as to Wordsworth's unspiritual wanderer:

    "A primrose by the river's brim,
     A yellow primrose was to him,
     And it was nothing more."

She was secretly pleased at Gretchen's wonder and surprise at the new
country, but somehow she felt it her duty to talk querulously, and to
check the flow of the girl's emotions, which she did much to excite. Her
own life had been so circumscribed and hard that the day seemed to be too
bright to be speaking the truth. She peered into the sky for a cloud, but
there was none, on this dazzling Oregon morning. The trail now opened for
a long way before the eyes of the travelers. Far ahead gleamed the
pellucid waters of the Columbia, or Oregon. Half-way between them and the
broad, rolling river a dark, tall figure appeared.

"Gretchen?"

"What, mother?"

"Gretchen, look! There goes the Yankee schoolmaster. Came way out here
over the mountains to teach the people of the wilderness, and all for
nothing, too. That shows that people have souls--some people have. Walk
right along beside me, proper-like. You needn't ever tell any one that I
ain't your true mother. If I ain't ashamed of you, you needn't be ashamed
of me. I wish that you were my own girl, now that you have said that you
love me more than anybody else in the world. That remark kind o' touched
me. I know that I sometimes talk hard, but I mean well, and I have to tell
you the plain truth so as to do my duty by you, and then I won't have
anything to reflect upon.

"Just look at him! Straight as an arrow! They say that his folks are
rich. Come out here way over the mountains, and is just going to teach
school in a log school-house--all made of logs and sods and mud-plaster,
adobe they call it--a graduate of Harvard College, too."

A long, dark object appeared in the trees covered with bark and moss.
Behind these trees was a waterfall, over which hung the crowns of pines.
The sunlight sifted through the odorous canopy, and fell upon the strange,
dark object that lay across the branching limbs of two ancient trees.

Gretchen stopped again.

"Mother, what is that?"

"A grave--an Indian grave."

The Indians bury their dead in the trees out here, or used to do so. A
brown hawk arose from the mossy coffin and winged its way wildly into the
sunny heights of the air. It had made its nest on the covering of the
body. These new scenes were all very strange to the young German girl.

The trail was bordered with young ferns; wild violets lay in beds of
purple along the running streams, and the mountain phlox with its kindling
buds carpeted the shelving ways under the murmuring pines. The woman and
girl came at last to a wild, open space; before them rolled the Oregon,
beyond it stretched a great treeless plain, and over it towered a gigantic
mountain, in whose crown, like a jewel, shone a resplendent glacier.

Just before them, on the bluffs of the river, under three gigantic
evergreens, each of which was more than two hundred feet high, stood an
odd structure of logs and sods, which the builders called the Sod
School-house. It was not a sod school-house in the sense in which the term
has been applied to more recent structures in the treeless prairie
districts of certain mid-ocean States; it was rudely framed of pine, and
was furnished with a pine desk and benches.

Along the river lay a plateau full of flowers, birds, and butterflies, and
over the great river and flowering plain the clear air glimmered. Like
some sun-god's abode in the shadow of ages, St. Helens still lifted her
silver tents in the far sky. Eagles and mountain birds wheeled, shrieking
joyously, here and there. Below the bluffs the silent salmon-fishers
awaited their prey, and down the river with paddles apeak drifted the bark
canoes of Cayuses and Umatillas.

[Illustration: _Indians spearing fish at Salmon Falls._]

A group of children were gathered about the open door of the new
school-house, and among them rose the tall form of Marlowe Mann, the
Yankee schoolmaster.

He had come over the mountains some years before in the early expeditions
organized and directed by Dr. Marcus Whitman, of the American Board of
Missions. Whether the mission to the Cayuses and Walla Wallas, which Dr.
Whitman established on the bend of the Columbia, was then regarded as a
home or foreign field of work, we can not say. The doctor's solitary ride
of four thousand miles, in order to save the great Northwest territory to
the United States, is one of the most poetic and dramatic episodes of
American history. It has proved to be worth to our country more than all
the money that has been given to missionary enterprises. Should the Puget
Sound cities become the great ports of Asia, and the ships of commerce
drift from Seattle and Tacoma over the Japan current to the Flowery Isles
and China; should the lumber, coal, minerals, and wheat-fields of
Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho at last compel these cities to
rival New York and Boston, the populous empire will owe to the patriotic
missionary zeal of Dr. Whitman a debt which it can only pay in honor and
love. Dr. Whitman was murdered by the Indians soon after the settlement of
the Walla Walla country by the pioneers from the Eastern States.

Mr. Mann's inspiration to become a missionary pioneer on the Oregon had
been derived from a Boston schoolmaster whose name also the Northwest
should honor. An inspired soul with a prophet's vision usually goes before
the great movements of life; solitary men summon the march of progress,
then decrease while others increase. Hall J. Kelley was a teacher of the
olden time, well known in Boston almost a century ago. He became possessed
with the idea that Oregon was destined to become a great empire. He
collected all possible information about the territory, and organized
emigration schemes, the first of which started from St. Louis in 1828, and
failed. He talked of Oregon continually. The subject haunted him day and
night. It was he who inspired Rev. Jason Lee, the pioneer of the
Willamette Valley. Lee interested Senator Linn, of Missouri, in Oregon,
and this senator, on December 11, 1838, introduced the bill into Congress
which organized the Territory.

Some of the richly endowed new schools of Oregon would honor history by a
monumental recognition of the name of Hall J. Kelley, the old
schoolmaster, whose dreams were of the Columbia, and who inspired some of
his pupils to become resolute pioneers. Boston was always a friend to
Washington and Oregon. Where the old schoolmaster now rests we do not
know. Probably in a neglected grave amid the briers and mosses of some old
cemetery on the Atlantic coast.

When Marlowe Mann came to the Northwest he found the Indian tribes unquiet
and suspicious of the new settlements. One of the pioneers had caused a
sickness among some thievish Indians by putting emetic poison in
watermelons. The Indians believed these melons to have been conjured by
the white doctor, and when other sickness came among them, they attributed
it to the same cause. The massacre at Waülaptu and the murder of Whitman
grew in part out of these events.

Mr. Mann settled near the old Chief of the Cascades. He sought the Indian
friendship of this chief, and asked him for his protection.

"People fulfill the expectation of the trust put in them--Indians as well
as children," he used to say. "A boy fulfills the ideals of his
mother--what the mother believes the boy will be, that he will become.
Treat a thief as though he were honest, and he will be honest with you. We
help people to be better by believing in what is good in them. I am going
to trust the friendship of the old Chief of the Cascades, and he will
never betray it."

It was summer, and there was to be a great Indian Potlatch feast under the
autumn moon. The Potlatch is a feast of gifts. It is usually a peaceful
gathering of friendly tribes, with rude music and gay dances; but it bodes
war and massacre and danger if it end with the dance of the evil spirits,
or the devil dance, as it has been known--a dance which the English
Government has recently forbidden among the Northwestern tribes.

The Indians were demanding that the great fall Potlatch should end with
this ominous dance of fire and besmearings of blood. The white people
everywhere were disturbed by these reports, for they feared what might be
the secret intent of this wild revel. The settlers all regarded with
apprehension the October moon.

The tall schoolmaster watched the approach of Mrs. Woods and Gretchen with
a curious interest. The coming of a pupil with no books and a violin was
something unexpected. He stepped forward with a courtly grace and greeted
them most politely, for wherever Marlowe Mann might be, he never forgot
that he was a gentleman.

"This is my gal what I have brought to be educated," said Mrs. Woods,
proudly. "They think a great deal of education up around Boston where I
came from. Where did you come from?"

"From Boston."

"So I have been told--from Harvard College. Can I speak with you a minute
in private?"

"Yes, madam. Step aside."

"I suppose you are kinder surprised that I let my gal there, Gretchen,
bring her violin with her; but I have a secret to tell ye. Gretchen is a
kind of a poet, makes rhymes, she does; makes _fool_ rhyme with _school_,
and such things as that. Now, I don't take any interest in such things.
But she does play the violin beautiful. Learned of a German teacher. Now,
do you want to know why I let her bring her violin? Well, I thought it
might _help_ you. You've got a hard lot of scholars to deal with out here,
and there are Injuns around, too, and one never knows what they may do.

"Well, schoolmaster, you never heard nothin' like that violin. It isn't no
evil spirit that is in Gretchen's violin; it's an angel. I first noticed
it one day when husband and I had been havin' some words. We have words
sometimes. I have a lively mind, and know how to use words when I am
opposed. Well, one day when husband and I had been havin' words, which we
shouldn't, seein' we are Methody, Gretchen began to cry, and went and got
her violin, and began to play just like a bird. And my high temper all
melted away, and my mind went back to the old farm in New England, and I
declare, schoolmaster, I just threw my apron over my head and began to
cry, and I told Gretchen never to play that tune again when I was talking
to husband for his good.

"Well, one day there came a lot of Injuns to the house and demanded
fire-water. I am Methody, and don't keep any such things in the house.
Husband is a sober, honest man. Now, I've always noticed that an Injun is
a coward, and I think the best way to get along with Injuns is to appear
not to fear them. So I ordered the stragglers away, when one of them swung
his tommyhawk about my head, and the others threatened to kill me. How my
heart did beat! Gretchen began to cry; then she ran all at once for her
violin and played the very same tune, and the Injuns just stood like so
many dumb statues and listened, and, when the tune was over, one of them
said 'Spirits,' and they all went away like so many children.

"Now, I thought you would like to hear my gal play between schools, and,
if ever you should get into any trouble with your scholars or Injuns or
anybody, just call upon Gretchen, and she will play that tune on the
violin."

"What wonderful tune is it, madam?"

"I don't know. I don't know one tune from another, though I do sing the
old Methody hymns that I learned in Lynn when I am about my work. I don't
know whether she knows or not. She learned it of a German."

"I am glad that you let her bring the instrument. I once played the violin
myself in the orchestra of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society."

"Did you? Then you like it. I have a word or two more to say about
Gretchen. She's a good gal, and shows her bringing up. Teach her reading,
writing, and figures. You needn't teach her no grammar. I could always
talk without any grammar, in the natural way. I was a bound-girl, and
never had much education. I have had my ups and downs in life, like all
the rest of the world. You will do the best you can for Gretchen, won't
you?"

"Yes, my dear madam, and for every one. I try to make every one true to
the best that is in them. I am glad to have Gretchen for a scholar. I will
speak to her by and by."

How strange was the scene to Gretchen! She remembered the winding Rhine,
with its green hills and terraced vineyards and broken-walled castles;
Basel and the singing of the student clubs in the gardens on summer
evenings; the mountain-like church at Strasburg; and the old streets of
Mayence. She recalled the legends and music of the river of song--a river
that she had once thought to be the most beautiful on earth. But what were
the hills of the Rhine to the scenery that pierced the blue sky around
her, and how light seemed the river itself to the majestic flow of the
Columbia! Yet the home-land haunted her. Would she go back again? How
would her real parents have felt had they known that she would have found
a home here in the wilderness? Why had Providence led her steps here? Her
mother had been a pious Lutheran. Had she been led here to help in some
future mission to the Indian race?

"Dreaming?" said Mrs. Woods. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. If a
body has the misfortune to be kiting off to the clouds, going up like an
eagle and coming down like a goose, it can't be helped. There are a great
many things that can't be helped in this world, and all we can do is to
make the best of them. Some people were born to live in the skies, and it
makes it hard for those who have to try to live with them. Job suffered
some things, but--I won't scold out here--I have my trials; but it may be
they are all for the best, as the Scripture says."

These forbearing remarks were not wholly meant for Gretchen's reproval.
Mrs. Woods liked to have the world know that she had her trials, and she
was pleased to find so many ears on this bright morning open to her
experiences.

She liked to say to Gretchen things that were meant for other ears; there
was novelty in the indirection. She also was accustomed to quote freely
from the Scriptures and from the Methodist hymnbook, which was almost her
only accomplishment. She had led a simple, hard-working life in her
girlhood; had become a follower of Jason Lee during one of the old-time
revivals of religion; had heard of the Methodist emigration to Oregon, and
wished to follow it. She hardly knew why. Though rough in speech and
somewhat peculiar, she was a kind-hearted and an honest woman, and very
industrious and resolute. Mr. Lee saw in her the spirit of a pioneer, and
advised her to join his colony. She married Mr. Woods, went to the Dalles
of the Columbia, and afterward to her present home upon a donation claim.




CHAPTER II.

THE CHIEF OF THE CASCADES.


Marlowe Mann was a graduate of Harvard in the classic period of the
college. He had many scholarly gifts, and as many noble qualities of soul
as mental endowments. He was used to the oratory of Henry Ware and young
Edward Everett, and had known Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips at
college, when the Greek mind and models led the young student in his fine
development, and made him a Pericles in his dreams.

But the young student of this heroic training, no matter how well
conditioned his family, usually turned from his graduation to some
especial mission in life. "I must put myself into a cause," said young
Wendell Phillips. Charles Sumner espoused the struggle of the negro for
freedom, and said: "To this cause do I offer all I have." Marlowe Mann was
a member of the historic Old South Church, like Phillips in his early
years. There was an enthusiasm for missions in the churches of Boston
then, and he began to dream of Oregon and the mysterious empire of the
great Northwest, as pictured by the old schoolmaster, Kelley; just at this
time came Dr. Whitman to the East, half frozen from his long ride, and
asked to lead an emigration to Walla Walla, to save the Northern empire to
the territory of the States. He heard the doctor's thrilling story of how
he had unfurled the flag over the open Bible on the crags that looked down
on the valleys of the Oregon, and his resolution was made. He did not
follow Dr. Whitman on the first expedition of colonists, but joined him a
year or two afterward. He built him a log-cabin on the Columbia, and gave
his whole soul to teaching, missionary work among the Indians, and to
bringing emigrants from the East.

The country thrilled him--its magnificent scenery, the grandeur of the
Columbia, the vastness of the territory, and the fertility of the soil.
Here were mountains grander than Olympus, and harbors and water-courses as
wonderful as the Ægean. He was almost afraid to map the truth in his
extensive correspondence with the East, lest it should seem so incredible
as to defeat his purpose.

[Illustration: _The North Puyallup Glacier, Mount Tacoma._]

When the log school-house was building, Mr. Mann had gone to the old
Chief of the Cascades and had invited him to send his Indian boy to the
school. He had shown him what an advantage it would be to the young chief
to understand more thoroughly Chinook and English. He was wise and politic
in the matter as well as large-hearted, for he felt that the school might
need the friendliness of the old chief, and in no way could it be better
secured.

"The world treats you as you treat the world," he said; "and what you are
to the world, the world is to you. Tell me only what kind of a
neighborhood you come from, and I will tell you what kind of a
neighborhood you are going to; we all see the world in ourselves. I will
educate the boy, and his father will protect the school. The Indian heart
is hot and revengeful, but it is honest and true. I intend to be honest
with the Indians in all things, and if there should occur a dance of the
evil spirits at the Potlatch, no harm will ever come to the log
school-house; and I do not believe that such a dance with evil intent to
the settlers will ever take place. Human nature is all one book
everywhere."

As he stood there that morning, with uncovered head, an unexpected event
happened. The children suddenly said:

"Look!" and "Umatilla!"

Out of the forest came an aged Indian, of gigantic stature--Umatilla, one
of the chiefs of the Cascades; and beside him walked his only son, the
Light of the Eagle's Plume, or, as he had been named by the English,
Benjamin.

Umatilla, like Massasoit, of the early colonial history of Plymouth, was a
remarkable person. Surrounded by warlike tribes, he had been a man of
peace. He was a lover of Nature, and every shining cloud to his eye was a
chariot. He personified everything, like the ancient Greeks. He talked in
poetic figures; to him the sky was alive, every event had a soul, and his
mind had dwelt upon the great truths of Nature until he had become more of
a philosopher than a ruler.

He had been the father of a large family, but six of his sons had died of
the plague, or rather of the treatment which the medicine-men had used in
the disease, which was to sweat the victims in hot earthen ovens, and then
plunge them into the Columbia.

His whole heart in his old age was fixed upon his only son, Benjamin. The
two were seldom separated. To make the boy happy was the end of the old
chief's life.

The two approached the courtly schoolmaster.

"White master," said the old chief, "I have brought to you the Light of
the Eagle's Plume. He is my heart, and will be the heart of my people when
my suns are all passed over and my stars gone out. Will you teach him to
be a good chief? I want him to know English, and how to worship the Master
of Life. Will you take him to your school lodge?"

The tall master bowed low, and took the Indian boy by the hand.

The boy was a princely youth. His figure would have held the eye of a
sculptor in long admiration. The chisel of a Phidias could hardly have
exceeded such a form. His features were like the Roman, his eye quick and
lustrous, and his lips noble and kindly. He wore a blanket over his
shoulders, gathered in a long sash, ornamented with shells, about his
loins, and a crest of eagle plumes and shells on his head indicated his
rank and dignity. He could speak some words of Chinook, and English
imperfectly. He had mingled much with the officers of the Hudson Bay
Company, and so had learned many of the customs of civilization.

"I am honored," said the courtly, tall schoolmaster, "in having such a
youth for my pupil. Chief of the Umatillas, I thank thee. All that is good
in me will I give to your noble boy. I live with my eye upon the future;
the work of my life is to lead people to follow their better natures and
to be true to their best selves. There is a good angel in all men
here"--he put his hand on his heart--"it leads men away from evil; it
seeks the way of life; its end is yonder with the Infinite. Chief of the
Umatillas, I will try to teach the young man to follow it. Do you
understand?"

The aged chief bowed. He caught the meaning of the thought, if not of the
rather formal words. He comprehended the idea that the tall schoolmaster
believed goodness to be immortal. The regions of the Cascades were indeed
beautiful with their ancient forests and gleaming mountain walls, but he
had been taught to believe that the great Master of Life had provided
eternal scenes that transcended these for those who were worthy to receive
them.

An unexpected turn came to this stately and pacific interview. Mrs. Woods
was piqued at the deference that the tall schoolmaster had shown to the
chief and his son. She walked about restlessly, cut a rod from one of the
trees with a large knife which she always carried with her, and at last
called the master aside again.

"Say, mister, here. You ain't going to take that young Injun into your
school, are you? There'll be trouble, now, if you do. Know Injuns--you
don't. You are young, but 'tain't best for you to eat all your apples
green. I've always been very particular about the company I keep, if I was
born poor and have had to work hard, and never studied no foreign
languages. I warn you!"

She raised her voice, and Benjamin heard what she had said. He suspected
her ill-will toward him from her manner, but he comprehended the meaning
of her last words.

He at first looked puzzled and grieved, then suddenly his thin lips were
pressed together; the passion of anger was possessing him, soon to be
followed by the purpose of revenge.

Mrs. Woods saw that she had gone too far in the matter, and that her
spirit and meaning had been discovered by the son of the chief. The danger
to which she had exposed herself made her nervous. But she began to act on
her old principle never to show fear in the presence of an Indian.

"Here, mister, I must go now," she said, in a loud voice. "Take this rod,
and govern your school like a man. If I were a teacher, I'd make my
scholars smart in more ways than one." She held out the rod to the master.

There was a movement in the air like a flash. Benjamin, with noiseless
feet, had slipped up behind her. He had conceived the idea that the offer
of the rod somehow meant enmity to him. He seized the rod from behind the
woman, and, sweeping it through the air, with kindled eye and glowing
cheeks, wheeled before the master.

"Boston tilicum, don't you dare!"

"Boston tilicum" was the Chinook for an American, and the Chinook or trade
language had become common to all the tribes on the Columbia. The early
American traders on the Northern Pacific coast were from Boston.

He raised the rod aloft defiantly like a young champion, and presented a
heroic figure, which excited the tremulous admiration and wonder of the
little group. He then pointed it toward Mrs. Woods, and said
contemptuously in Chinook:

"Cloochman!" (woman).

The scene changed to the comical. Mrs. Woods snatched off her broad
sun-bonnet, revealing her gray hair, and assumed an appearance of
defiance, though her heart was really trembling with fear.

"I ain't afraid of no Injuns," she said, "and I don't take any impudence
from anybody. I've had to fight the whole world all my life, and I've
always conquered. There--now--there!"

She whipped the rod out of the young Indian's hand.

Benjamin's eyes blazed.

"Closche nanitch" (look out), he said. "I am an Umatilla. Siwash (Indian)
will remember. There are hawks in the sky."

"Kamooks" (dog), returned Mrs. Woods, defiantly. "Kamooks."

She would have said "cultus" had she dared. "Cultus" is the most insulting
word that can be applied to an Indian, and, when it is used, it invites
the most deadly revenge. The word had come to her lips, but she had not
the courage to invoke the consequences of such a taunt.

But the young Indian further excited her. He shook the rod at her, and her
passion mastered her prudence. She struggled with herself, and was silent
for a few moments. But, suddenly catching the young Indian's eye, which
had in it a savage triumph, she exclaimed:

"Cultus Umatilla--"

The old chief stepped forward and lifted his hands.

"Pil-pil" (blood), said Benjamin. "There are hawks in the air--"

"Be still!" said the chief.

"--they whet their beaks," continued Benjamin. "Potlatch!"

The whole company were filled with excitement or terror. Gretchen
trembled, and began to cry. Three Indians were seen coming down the trail,
and the sight seemed to fill Benjamin with a mysterious delight. Mrs.
Woods saw them with secret fear, and the master with apprehension. Several
of the children began to cry, and there was a look of pain, terror, or
distress on all the faces.

Suddenly Gretchen stepped apart from the group and lifted to her shoulder
her violin.

A hunting strain rose on the bright morning air. It seemed like the flight
of a singing bird.

The chief's arms dropped. The music arose like a sweet memory of all that
is good and beautiful.

The three Indians stopped to listen. The music became more sweet and
entrancing. The anger went out of Benjamin's face, and there came better
feelings into his soul.

The music breathed of the Rhine, of vineyards and festivals, but he
understood it not; to him it recalled the mysterious legends of the
Umatillas, the mysteries of life, and the glory of the heroes who slept
on the island of the dead or amid the sweetly sighing branches of the
trees. The air was the _Traumerei_.

When the music ceased there was a long silence. In it Mrs. Woods turned
away slowly, with a word of advice to Gretchen that under other
circumstances would have appeared amusing:

"Behave yourself like a lady," she said, "and remember your bringing up.
Good-morning to ye all."

The little group watched her as she moved safely away. A little black bear
crossed her path as she was entering the wood, and stopped on the way. But
her steps were growing rapid, and, as she did not seem to regard him as a
matter of any consequence, he turned and ran. The company smiled, and so
the peril of the morning seemed to pass away.

The scene would have been comical but for the painful look in the kindly
face of the old Chief of the Cascades. He had come toward the school-house
with high hopes, and what had happened caused him pain. The word
"Potlatch," spoken by the Indian boy, had caused his brow to cloud and his
face to turn dark.

"We will all go into the house," said the master. "Umatilla, will you not
honor us with a visit this morning?"

"No--me come this afternoon for the boy; me wait for him outside. Boston
tilicum, let me speak to you a little. I am a father."

"Yes, and a good father."

"I am a father--you no understand--Boston tilicum--father. I want you to
teach him like a father--not you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Father--teacher--you, Boston tilicum."

"Yes, I understand, and I will be a father teacher to your Benjamin."

"I die some day. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"You understand, Boston tilicum, you understand. What I want my boy to
become that I am for my boy. That you be."

"Yes, Umatilla, I believe an Indian's word--you may trust mine. I will be
to your boy what you may have him become. The Indian is true to his
friends. I believe in _you_. I will be true."

The old chief drew his blanket round him proudly.

"Boston tilicum," said he, "if ever the day of trouble comes, I will
protect you and the log school-house. You may trust my word. Indian speak
true."

The tall schoolmaster bowed.

"Nika atte cepa" (I like you much), said the chief. "Potlatch shall no
harm you. Klahyam klahhye--am!" (Good-by).

Mrs. Woods hurried homeward and tried to calm her excited mind by singing
a very heroic old hymn:

    "Come on, my partners in distress,
     My comrades in the wilderness,
     Who still your bodies feel."

The blue skies gleamed before her, and overhead wheeled a golden eagle. To
her it was an emblem, a good omen, and her spirit became quiet and happy
amid all the contradictions of her rough life. She sat down at last on the
log before her door, with the somewhat strange remark:

"I do hate Injuns; _nevertheless_--"

Mrs. Woods was accustomed to correct the wrong tendencies of her heart and
tongue by this word "nevertheless," which she used as an incomplete
sentence. This "nevertheless" seemed to express her better self; to
correct the rude tendencies of her nature. Had she been educated in her
early days, this tendency to self-correction would have made her an ideal
woman, but she owed nearly all her intellectual training to the sermons of
the Rev. Jason Lee, which she had heard in some obscure corner of a room,
or in Methodist chapel, or under the trees.

Her early experience with the Indians had not made her a friend to the
native races, notwithstanding the missionary labors of the Rev. Jason Lee.
The first Indian that made her a visit on the donation claim did not leave
a favorable impression on her mind.

This Indian had come to her door while she was engaged in the very hard
work of sawing wood. He had never seen a saw before, and, as it seemed to
him to be a part of the woman herself, he approached her with awe and
wonder. That the saw should eat through the wood appeared to him a
veritable miracle.

Mrs. Woods, unaware of her visitor, paused to take breath, looked up,
beheld the tall form with staring eyes, and started back.

"Medicine-woman--conjure!" said the Indian, in Chinook.

Mrs. Woods was filled with terror, but a moment's thought recalled her
resolution. She lifted her hand, and, pointing to the saw in the wood, she
said, with a commanding tone:

"Saw!"

The Indian obeyed awkwardly, and wondering at the progress of the teeth of
the saw through the wood. It was a hot day; the poor Indian soon became
tired, and stopped work with a beating heart and bursting veins.

"Saw--saw!" said Mrs. Woods, with a sweep of her hands, as though some
mysterious fate depended upon the order.

The saw went very hard now, for he did not know how to use it, and the
wood was hard, and the Indian's only thought seemed to be how to escape.
Mrs. Woods held him in her power by a kind of mental magnetism, like that
which Queen Margaret exercised over the robber.

"Water!" at last gasped the Indian.

"Saw--saw!" said Mrs. Woods; then turned away to bring him water.

When she looked around again, an unexpected sight met her eyes. The Indian
was flying away, taking the saw with him. She never beheld either again,
and it was a long time before any Indian appeared at the clearing after
this odd event, though Mrs. Woods ultimately had many adventures among
the wandering Siwashes.

A saw was no common loss in these times of but few mechanical implements
in Oregon, and Mrs. Woods did not soon forgive the Indian for taking away
what he probably regarded as an instrument of torture.

"I do hate Injuns!" she would often say; but quite likely would soon after
be heard singing one of the hymns of the missionaries at the Dalles:

    "O'er Columbia's wide-spread forests
      Haste, ye heralds of the Lamb;
     Teach the red man, wildly roaming,
      Faith in Immanuel's name,"

which, if poor poetry, was very inspiring.




CHAPTER III.

BOSTON TILICUM.


Marlowe Mann--"Boston tilicum," as the Siwashes called all the
missionaries, teachers, and traders from the East--sat down upon a bench
of split log and leaned upon his desk, which consisted of two split logs
in a rough frame. A curious school confronted him. His pupils numbered
fifteen, representing Germany, England, Sweden, New England, and the
Indian race.

"The world will some day come to the Yankee schoolmaster," he used to say
to the bowery halls of old Cambridge; and this prophecy, which had come to
him on the banks of the Charles, seemed indeed to be beginning to be
fulfilled on the Columbia.

He opened the school in the same serene and scholarly manner as he would
have done in a school in Cambridge.

"He is not a true gentleman who is not one under all conditions and
circumstances," was one of his views of a well-clothed character; and this
morning he addressed the school with the courtesy of an old college
professor.

"I have come here," he said, "with but one purpose, and that is to try to
teach you things which will do you the most good in life. That is always
the best which will do the most good; all else is inferior. I shall first
teach you to obey your sense of right in all things. This is the first
principle of a true education. You will always know the way of life if you
have this principle for your guide.

"Conscience is the first education. A man's spiritual nature is his
highest nature, and his spiritual concerns transcend all others. If a man
is spiritually right, he is the master of all things. I would impress
these truths on your minds, and teach them at the beginning. I have become
willing to be poor, and to walk life's ways alone. The pilot of the Argo
never returned from Colchis, but the Argo itself returned with the Golden
Fleece. It may be so with my work; if so, I will be content. I have
selected for our Scripture lesson the 'incorruptible seed.'"

He rose and spoke like one before an august assembly; and so it was to
him, with his views of the future of the great empire of the Northwest. A
part of the pupils could not comprehend all that he said any more than
they had understood the allusion to the pilot of the Argo; but his manner
was so gracious, so earnest, so inspired, that they all felt the spirit of
it, and some had come to regard themselves as the students of some great
destiny.

"Older domes than the pyramids are looking down upon you," he said, "and
you are born to a higher destiny than were ever the children of the
Pharaohs."

"With the exception of Gretchen, not one of the pupils fully understood
the picturesque allusion. Like the reference to the pilot of the Argo, it
was poetic mystery to them; and yet it filled them with a noble curiosity
to know much and a desire to study hard, and to live hopefully and
worthily. Like the outline of some unknown mountain range, it allured them
to higher outlooks and wider distances.

"He talked to us so grandly," said Gretchen to Mrs. Woods one evening,
"that I did not know half that he was saying; but it made me feel that I
might be somebody, and I do intend to be. It is a good thing to have a
teacher with great expectations."

"Yes," said Mrs. Woods, "when there is so little to expect. People don't
take a lot of nothing and make a heap of something in this world. It is
all like a lot of feathers thrown against the wind. _Nevertheless_ it
makes one happier to have prospects, if they are far away. I used to; but
they never came to nothing, unless it was to bring me way out here."

The log school-house was a curious place. The children's benches consisted
of split logs on pegs, without backs. The sides of the building were logs
and sods, and the roof was constructed of logs and pine boughs. All of the
children were barefooted, and several had but poor and scanty clothing.
Yet the very simplicity of the place had a charm.

Benjamin sat alone, apart from the rest. It was plain to be seen that he
was brooding over the painful event of the morning. Gretchen had grown
cheerful again, but the bitter expression on the young Indian's face
seemed to deepen in intensity. Mr. Mann saw it. To quiet his agitation, he
began his teaching by going to him and sitting down beside him on the rude
bench and opening to him the primer.

"You understand English?" said Mr. Mann.

"A little. I can talk Chinook."

In the Chinook vocabulary, which was originally the trade language of all
the tribes employed by the Hudson Bay Company in collecting furs, most of
the words resemble in sound the objects they represent. For example, a
wagon in Chinook is chick-chick, a clock is ding-ding, a crow is kaw-kaw,
a duck, quack-quack, a laugh, tee-hee; the heart is tum-tum, and a talk or
speech or sermon, wah-wah. The language was of English invention; it took
its name from the Chinook tribes, and became common in the Northwest.
Nearly all of the old English and American traders in the Northwest
learned to talk Chinook, and to teach Chinook was one of the purposes of
the school.

"Can you tell me what that is?" asked Mr. Mann, pointing to the letter A
in the primer.

"Fox-trap."

"No; that is the letter A."

"How do you know?"

Our digger of Greek roots from Cambridge was puzzled. He could not repeat
the story of Cadmus to this druid of the forest or make a learned talk on
arbitrary signs. He answered happily, however, "Wise men said so."

"Me understand."

"That is the letter B."

"Yes, aha! Boston tilicum, you let her be. Old woman no good; me punish
her. Knock-sheet--stick her" (club her).

Mr. Mann saw at once the strange turn that the young Indian's mind had
taken. He was puzzled again.

"No, Benjamin; I will teach you what to do."

"Teach me how to club her? You are good! Boston tilicum, we will be
brothers--you and I. She wah-wah, but she is no good."

"That is C."

"Aha! _She_ heap wah-wah, but _she_ no good."

"Now, that is A, B, and that is C. Try to remember them, and I will come
soon and talk with you again."

"You wah-wah?"

"Yes," said Mr. Mann, doubtful of the Indian's thought.

"She wah-wah?"

"Yes."

"You heap wah-wah. You good. She heap wah-wah. She no good. Potlatch come;
dance. She wah-wah no more. I wah-wah."

Mr. Mann was pained to see the revengeful trend of the Indian's thought.
The hints of the evil intention of the Potlatch troubled him, but his
faith in the old chief and the influence of his own integrity did not
falter.

Gretchen was the most advanced scholar in the school. Her real mother had
been an accomplished woman, and had taken great pains with her education.
She was well instructed in the English branches, and had read five books
of Virgil in Latin. Her reading had not been extensive, but it had
embraced some of the best books in the English language. Her musical
education had been received from a German uncle, who had been instructed
by Herr Wieck, the father of Clara Schumann. He had been a great lover of
Schumann's dreamy and spiritual music, and had taught her the young
composer's pieces for children, and among them Romance and the Traumerei.
He had taught her to play the two tone poems together in changing keys,
beginning with the Traumerei and returning again to its beautiful and
haunting strains. Gretchen interpreted these poems with all the color of
true feeling, and under her bow they became enchantment to a musical ear
and a delight to even as unmusical a soul as Mrs. Woods.

Gretchen's chief literary pleasure had been the study of the German
poets. She had a poetic mind, and had learned to produce good rhymes. The
songs of Uhland, Heine, and Schiller delighted her. She had loved to read
the strange stories of Hoffman, and the imaginative works of Baron Fouqué.
She used to aspire to be an author or poet, but these aspirations had
received no countenance from Mrs. Woods, and yet the latter seemed rather
proud to regard her ward as possessing a superior order of mind.

"If there is anything that I do despise," Mrs. Woods used to say, "it is
books spun out of the air, all about nothin'! Dreams were made for sleep,
and the day was made for work. I haven't much to be proud of in this
world. I've always been a terror to lazy people and to Injuns, and if any
one were to write my life they'd have some pretty stirring stories to
tell. I have no doubt that I was made for something."

Although Mrs. Woods boasted that she was a terror to Indians, she had been
very apprehensive of danger since the Whitman colony massacre. She talked
bravely and acted bravely according to her view of moral courage, but with
a fearful heart. She dreaded the approaching Potlatch, and the frenzy that
calls for dark deeds if the dance of the evil spirits should conclude the
approaching feast.

There was a sullen look in Benjamin's face as he silently took his seat in
the log school-house the next morning. Mr. Mann saw it, and instinctively
felt the dark and mysterious atmosphere of it. He went to him immediately
after the opening exercises, and said:

"You haven't spoken to me this morning; what troubles you?"

The boy's face met the sympathetic eye of the master, and he said:

"I was happy on the morning when I came--sun; _she_ hate Indian, talk
against him to you; make me unhappy--shade; think I will have my
revenge--_pil-pil_; then music make me happy; you make me happy; night
come, and I think of her--she hate Indian--shade. Me will have my
revenge--_pil-pil_. She say I have no right here; she have no right here;
the land all belong to Umatilla; then to me; I no have her here. Look out
for the October moon--Potlatch--dance--_pil-pil_."

"I will be a friend to you, Benjamin."

"Yes, Boston tilicum, we will be friends."

"And I will teach you how to be noble--like a king. You felt good when I
was kind to you?"

"Yes, Boston tilicum."

"And when the music played?"

"Yes, Boston tilicum."

"Then you must be good to her; that will make her feel good toward you. Do
you see?"

There came a painful look into the young Indian's face.

"I good to her, make her good? She good to me make me good? She no good to
me. She say I no right here. The land belong to Umatilla. She must go. You
stay. Look out for the October moon. She wah-wah no more."

"It is noble to be good; it makes others good."

"Then why isn't _she_ good? She make me ugly; you make me good. I think I
will punish her--_pil-pil_; then you speak kind, and the music play, then
I think I will punish her not. Then dark thoughts come back again; clouds
come again; hawks fly. What me do? Me am two selves; one self when I think
of you, one when I think of her. She say I have no right. She have no
right. All right after Potlatch. I wah-wah; she wah-wah no more."

"Be good yourself, Benjamin. Be kind to her; make her kind. You do right."

The young Indian hesitated, then answered:

"I do as you say. You are friend. I'll do as I feel when the music play. I
try. So you say."

The cloud passed. The teacher paid the Indian boy special attention that
morning. At noon Gretchen played Von Weber's Wild Hunt of Lutzow, which
drove Napoleon over the Rhine. The rhythm of the music picturing the
heroic cavalry enchanted Benjamin, and he said: "Play it over again."
After the music came a foot-race among the boys, which Benjamin easily
won. The afternoon passed quietly, until in the cool, lengthening shadows
of the trail the resolute form of Mrs. Woods appeared.

Benjamin saw her, and his calm mood fled. He looked up at the master.

"I is come back again--my old self again. She say I no business here; she
no business here. She wah-wah."

The master laid his hand on the boy's shoulder kindly and bent his face on
his.

"I do as you say," the boy continued. "I will not speak till my good self
come again. I be still. No wah-wah."

He dropped his eyes upon a page in the book, and sat immovable. He was a
noble picture of a struggle for self-control in a savage and untutored
heart.

Mrs. Woods asked for Gretchen at the door, and the master excused the
girl, thanking her for the music that had delighted the school at the
noon-hour. As she was turning to go, Mrs. Woods cast a glance toward
Benjamin, and said to the master in an undertone: "He's tame now--quiet as
a purring cat. The cat don't lick cream when the folks are around. But
he'll make trouble yet. An Injun is a Injun. I hate Injuns, though Parson
Lee says I am all wrong. When you have seen as many of 'em as I have,
you'll know more than you do now."

Benjamin did not comprehend the words, but he felt that the woman had said
something injurious to him. The suspicion cut him to the quick. His black
eye sparkled and his cheek burned. The scholars all seemed to be sorry at
the impression that Mrs. Woods's muttered words had left in his mind. He
had struggled for two days to do his best--to follow his best self.

School closed. Benjamin rose like a statue. He stood silent for a time and
looked at the slanting sun and the dreamy afternoon glories of the
glaciers, then moved silently out of the door. The old chief met him in
the opening, and saw the hurt and troubled look in his face.

"What have you been doing to my boy?" he said to the master. "Has he not
been good?"

"Very good; I like him," said Mr. Mann. "He is trying to be good here,"
pointing to his heart. "The good in him will grow. I will help him."

The old chief and the boy walked away slowly out of the shadows of the
great trees and up the cool trail. The tall master followed them with his
eye. In the departing forms he saw a picture of the disappearing race. He
knew history well, and how it would repeat itself on the great plateau and
amid the giant forests of the Oregon. He felt that the old man was
probably one of the last great chiefs of the Umatillas.

On one of the peninsulas of the Oregon, the so-called Islands of the Dead,
the old warriors of the tribes were being gathered by the plagues that had
come to the territories and tribal regions ever since the Hudson Bay
Company established its posts on the west of the mountains, and Astoria
had been planted on the great river, and settlers had gathered in the
mountain-domed valley of the Willamette. Wherever the white sail went in
the glorious rivers, pestilence came to the native tribes. The Indian
race was perceptibly vanishing. Only one son of seven was left to
Umatilla. What would be the fate of this boy?

The master went home troubled over the event of the afternoon. He was
asking the Indian to be better than his opponent, and she was a
well-meaning woman and nominally a Christian.

His first thought was to go to Mrs. Woods and ask her to wholly change her
spirit and manners, and, in fact, preach to her the same simple doctrine
of following only one's better self that he had taught to the young
prince. But he well knew that she had not a teachable mind. He resolved to
try to reach the same result through Gretchen, whom she upbraided with her
tongue but loved in her heart.

Mrs. Woods had come to regard it as her appointed mission to abuse people
for their good. She thought it tended toward their spiritual progress and
development. She often said that she felt "called to set things right, and
not let two or three people have their own way in everything"--a view of
life not uncommon among people of larger opportunities and better
education.

Benjamin came to school the next morning silent and sullen, and the
master went to him again in the same spirit as before.

"She say I no right here," he said. "She suffer for it. She wah-wah. Look
out for the October moon."

"No, you are a better Indian now."

"Yes; sometimes."

"The better Indian harms no one--one's good self never does evil. You are
to be your good self, and please me."

The young Indian was silent for a time. He at last said, slowly:

"But me know who will."

"Do what, Benjamin?"

"Make her suffer--punish."

"Who?"

"I know a bad Indian who will. He say so."

"You must not let him. You are son of a chief."

"I will try. I no wah-wah now."

At noon Benjamin was light-hearted, and led the sports and games. He was
very strong, and one of his lively feats was to let three or four children
climb upon his back and run away with them until they tumbled off. He
seemed perfectly happy when he was making the others happy, and nothing
so delighted him as to be commended. He longed to be popular, not from
any selfish reason, but because to be liked by others was his atmosphere
of contentment. He was kindly above most Indians, a trait for which his
father was famous. He was even kindly above many of the white people.

The next morning he came to school in good humor, and a curious incident
occurred soon after the school began. A little black bear ventured down
the trail toward the open door, stopping at times and lifting up its head
curiously and cautiously. It at last ventured up to the door, put its fore
feet on the door-sill, and looked into the room.

"Kill it!" cried one of the boys, a recent emigrant, in the alarm. "Kill
it!"

"What harm it do?" said the Indian boy. "Me drive it away."

The young Indian started toward the door as at play, and shook his head at
the young bear, which was of the harmless kind so well known in the
Northwest, and the bear turned and ran, while the Indian followed it
toward the wood. The odd event was quite excusable on any ground of rule
and propriety in the primitive school.

"It no harm; let it go," said the boy on his return; and the spirit of the
incident was good and educational in the hearts of the school.

The charm of his life was Gretchen's violin. It transfigured him; it
changed the world to him. His father was a forest philosopher; the boy
caught a like spirit, and often said things that were a revelation to Mr.
Mann.

"Why do you like the violin so much?" said the latter to him one day.

"It brings to me the thing longed for--the thing I long to know."

"Why, what is that?"

"I can't tell it--I feel it here--I sense it--I shall know--something
better--yonder--the thing we long for, but do not know. Don't you long for
it? Don't you feel it?"

The tall schoolmaster said "Yes," and was thoughtful. The poor Indian had
tried to express that something beyond his self of which he could only now
have a dim conception, and about which even science is dumb. Mr. Mann
understood it, but he could hardly have expressed it better.

The boy learned the alphabet quickly, and began to demand constant
attention in his eagerness to learn. Mr. Mann found that he was giving
more than the allotted time to him. To meet the case, he appointed from
time to time members of the school "monitors," as he called them, to sit
beside him and help him.

One day he asked Gretchen to do this work. The boy was delighted to be
instructed by the mistress of the violin, and she was as pleased with the
honor of such monitorial duties to the son of a chief. But an unexpected
episode grew out of all this mutual good-will and helpful kindness.

Benjamin was so grateful to Gretchen for the pains that she took with his
studies that he wished to repay her. He had a pretty little Cayuse pony
which he used to ride; one day after school he caused it to be brought to
the school-house, and, setting Gretchen upon it, he led it by the mane up
the trail toward her home, a number of the pupils following them. On the
way the merry-making party met Mrs. Woods. She was as astonished as though
she had encountered an elephant, and there came into her face a look of
displeasure and anger.

"What kind of doings are these, I would like to know?" she exclaimed, in a
sharp tone, standing in the middle of the way and scanning every face.
"Riding out with an Injun, Gretchen, are you? That's what you are doing.
Girl, get off that horse and come with me! That is the kind of propriety
that they teach out in these parts, is it? and the master came from
Harvard College, too! One would think that this world was just made to
enjoy one's self in, just like a sheep pasture, where the lambs go hopping
and skipping, not knowing that they were born to be fleeced."

She hurried Gretchen away excitedly, and the school turned back. Benjamin
was disappointed, and looked more hurt than ever before. On the way he met
his old father, who had come out to look for him, and the rest of the
scholars dispersed to their homes.

That evening, after a long, vivid twilight, such as throws its splendor
over the mountain ranges in these northern latitudes, Mrs. Woods and
Gretchen were sitting in their log-house just within the open door. Mr.
Woods was at the block-house at Walla Walla, and the cabin was
unprotected. The light was fading in the tall pines of the valleys, and
there was a deep silence everywhere, undisturbed by so much as a whisper
of the Chinook winds. Mrs. Woods's thoughts seemed far away--doubtless
among the old meadows, orchards, and farm-fields of New England. Gretchen
was playing the musical glasses.

Suddenly Mrs. Woods's thoughts came back from their far-away journeys. She
had seen something that disturbed her. She sat peering into a tract of
trees which were some three hundred feet high--one of the great tree
cathedrals of the Northwestern forests. Suddenly she said:

"Gretchen, there are Injuns in the pines. Watch!"

Gretchen looked out, but saw nothing.

The shadows deepened.

"I have twice seen Injuns passing from tree to tree and hiding. Why are
they there? There--look!"

A sinewy form in the shadows of the pines appeared and disappeared.
Gretchen saw it.

"They mean evil, or they would not hide. Gretchen, what shall we do?"

Mrs. Woods closed the door and barred it, took down the rifle from the
side of the room, and looked out through a crevice in the split shutter.

There was a silence for a time; then Mrs. Woods moved and said: "They are
coming toward the house, passing from one tree to another. They mean
revenge--I feel it--revenge on me, and Benjamin--he is the leader of it."

The flitting of shadowy forms among the pines grew alarming. Nearer and
nearer they came, and more and more excited became Mrs. Woods's
apprehensions. Gretchen began to cry, through nervous excitement, and with
the first rush of tears came to her, as usual, the thought of her violin.

She took up the instrument, tuned it with nervous fingers, and drew the
bow across the strings, making them shriek as with pain, and then drifted
into the air the music of the Traumerei.

"Fiddling, Gretchen--fiddling in the shadow of death? I don't know but
what you are right--that tune, too!"

The music trembled; the haunting strain quivered, rose and descended, and
was repeated over and over again.

"There is no movement in the pines," said Mrs. Woods. "It is growing
darker. Play on. It does seem as though that strain was stolen from heaven
to overcome evil with."

Gretchen played. An hour passed, and the moon rose. Then she laid down the
violin and listened.

"Oh, Gretchen, he is coming! I know that form. It is Benjamin. He is
coming alone. What shall we do? He is--right before the door!"

Gretchen's eye fell upon the musical glasses, which were among the few
things that she had brought from the East and which had belonged to her
old German home. She had tuned them early in the evening by pouring water
into them, as she had been taught to do in her old German village, and she
wet her fingers and touched them to the tender forest hymn:

    "Now the woods are all sleeping."

"He has stopped," said Mrs. Woods. "He is listening--play."

The music filled the cabin. No tones can equal in sweetness the musical
glasses, and the trembling nerves of Gretchen's fingers gave a spirit of
pathetic pleading to the old German forest hymn. Over and over again she
played the air, waiting for the word of Mrs. Woods to cease.

"He is going," said Mrs. Woods, slowly. "He is moving back toward the
pines. He has changed his mind, or has gone for his band. You may stop
now."

Mrs. Woods watched by the split shutter until past midnight. Then she
laid down on the bed, and Gretchen watched, and one listened while the
other slept, by turns, during the night. But no footstep was heard. The
midsummer sun blazed over the pines in the early morning; birds sang gayly
in the dewy air, and Gretchen prepared the morning meal as usual, then
made her way to the log school-house.

She found Benjamin there. He met her with a happy face.

"Bad Indian come to your cabin last night," said he. "He mean evil; he
hate old woman. She wah-wah too much, and he hate. Bad Indian hear
music--violin; he be pleased--evil hawks fly out of him. Good Indian come
back. One is tied to the other. One no let the other go. What was that low
music I hear? Baby music! Chinook wind in the bushes! Quail--mother-bird
singing to her nest! I love that music.

"Say, you play at Potlatch, frighten away the hawks; mother-birds sing. No
devil dance. Say, I have been good; no harm old wah-wah. Will you--will
you play--play that tin-tin at Potlatch under the big moon?"

A great thought had taken possession of the young Indian's mind, and a
great plan--one worthy of a leader of a peace congress. Gretchen saw the
plan in part, but did not fully comprehend it. She could only see that his
life had become a struggle between good and evil, and that he was now
following some good impulse of his better nature.




CHAPTER IV.

MRS. WOODS'S TAME BEAR.


Mrs. Woods was much alone during this summer. Her husband was away from
home during the working days of the week, at the saw and shingle mill on
the Columbia, and during the same days Gretchen was much at school.

The summer in the mountain valleys of Washington is a long serenity. The
deep-blue sky is an ocean of intense light, and the sunbeams glint amid
the cool forest shadows, and seem to sprinkle the plains with gold-dust
like golden snow. Notwithstanding her hard practical speech, which was a
habit, Mrs. Woods loved Nature, and, when her work was done, she often
made little journeys alone into the mountain woods.

In one of these solitary excursions she met with a little black cub and
captured it, and, gathering it up in her apron like a kitten, she ran with
it toward her cabin, after looking behind to see if the mother bear was
following her. Had she seen the mother of the cunning little black
creature in her apron pursuing her, she would have dropped the cub, which
would have insured her escape from danger. But the mother bear did not
make an early discovery of the loss in her family. She was probably out
berrying, and such experiences of stolen children were wholly unknown to
the bear family in Washington before this time. The Indians would not have
troubled the little cub.

The black bear of the Cascades is quite harmless, and its cubs, like
kittens, seem to have a sense of humor unusual among animals. For a white
child to see a cub is to desire it to tame for a pet, and Mrs. Woods felt
the same childish instincts when she caught up the little creature, which
seemed to have no fear of anything, and ran away with it toward her home.

It was Saturday evening when she returned, and she found both Mr. Woods
and Gretchen waiting to meet her at the door. They were surprised to see
her haste and the pivotal turning of her head at times, as though she
feared pursuit from some dangerous foe.

Out of breath, she sank down on the log that served for a step, and,
opening her apron cautiously, said:

"See here."

"Where did you get that?" said Mr. Woods.

"I stole it."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Raise it."

"What for?"

"For company. I haven't any neighbors."

"But what do you want it for?"

"It is so cunning. It just rolled over in the trail at my feet, and I
grabbed it and ran."

"But what if the mother-bear should come after it?" asked Gretchen.

"I would shoot her."

"That would be a strange way to treat your new neighbors," said Mr. Woods.

Mr. Woods put a leather strap around the neck of the little bear, and tied
the strap to a log in the yard. The little thing began to be alarmed at
these strange proceedings, and to show a disposition to use its paws in
resistance, but it soon learned not to fear its captors; its adoption into
the shingle-maker's family was quite easily enforced, and the pet seemed
to feel quite at home.

There was some difficulty at first in teaching the cub to eat, but hunger
made it a tractable pupil of the berry dish, and Mrs. "Woods was soon able
to say:

"There it is, just as good as a kitten, and I would rather have it than to
have a kitten. It belongs to these parts."

Poor Mrs. Woods! She soon found that her pet did "belong to these parts,"
and that its native instincts were strong, despite her moral training. She
lost her bear in a most disappointing way, and after she supposed that it
had become wholly devoted to her.

She had taught it to "roll over" for its dinner, and it had grown to think
that all the good things of this world came to bears by their willingness
to roll over. Whenever any member of the family appeared at the door, the
cub would roll over like a ball, and expect to be fed, petted, and
rewarded for the feat.

"I taught it that," Mrs. Woods used to say. "I could teach it anything. It
is just as knowing as it is cunning, and lots of company for me out here
in the mountains. It thinks more of me than of its old mother. You can
educate anything."

As the cub grew, Mrs. Woods's attachment to it increased. She could not
bear to see its freedom restrained by the strap and string, and so she
untied the string from the log and let it drag it about during the day,
only fastening it at night.

"There is no danger of its running away," said she; "it thinks too much of
me and the berry dish. I've tamed it completely; it's as faithful to its
home as a house-cat, and a great deal more company than a cat or dog or
any other dumb animal. The nicest bird to tame is a blue-jay, and the best
animal for company is a cub. I do believe that I could tame the whole race
of bears if I only had 'em."

Mrs. Woods had a pet blue-jay that she had taken when young from its nest,
and it would do many comical things. It seemed to have a sense of humor,
like a magpie, and to enjoy a theft like that bird. She finally gave it
the freedom of the air, but it would return at her call for food and eat
from her hand. The blue-jay is naturally a very wild bird, but when it is
tamed it becomes very inquisitive and social, and seems to have a brain
full of invention and becomes a very comical pet. Mrs. Woods called her
pet bear Little Roll Over.

One day a visitor appeared at the emigrant's cabin. A black she-bear came
out of the woods, and, seeing the cub, stood up on her haunches in
surprise and seemed to say, "How came you here?" It was evidently the
mother of the cub.

The cub saw its mother and rolled over several times, and then stood up on
its haunches and looked at her, as much as to say, "Where did you come
from, and what brought you here?" In the midst of this interesting
interview Mrs. Woods appeared at the door of the cabin.

She saw the mother-bear. True to her New England instincts, she shook her
homespun apron and said: "Shoo!"

She also saw that the little bear was greatly excited, and under the
stress of temptation.

"Here," said she, "roll over."

The cub did so, but in the direction of its mother.

Mrs. Woods hurried out toward it to prevent this ungrateful gravitation.

The mother-bear seemed much to wonder that the cub should be found in such
forbidden associations, and began to make signs by dipping her fore paws.
The cub evidently understood these signs, and desired to renew its
old-time family relations.

"Here," said Mrs. Woods, "you--you--you mind now; roll over--roll over."

[Illustration: _In the midst of this interview Mrs. Woods appeared
at the door of the cabin._]

The cub did so, true to its education in one respect, but it did not roll
in the direction of its foster-mother, but rolled toward its own mother.
It turned over some five or more times, then bounded up and ran toward the
she-bear. The latter dropped her fore feet on the earth again, and the two
bears, evidently greatly delighted to find each other, quickly disappeared
in the woods. As the cub was about to enter the bushes it turned and gave
a final glance at Mrs. Woods and rolled over.

This was too much for Mrs. Woods's heart. She said:

"After all I have done for ye, too! Oh, Little Roll Over, Little Roll
Over, I wouldn't have thought it of you!"

She surveyed the empty yard, threw her apron over her head, as stricken
people used to do in Lynn in the hour of misfortune, and sat down on the
log at the door and cried.

"I never have had any confidence in Injuns," she said, "since my saw
walked off. But I did have some respect for bears. I wonder if I shall
ever meet that little cre'tur' again, and, if I do, if it will roll over.
This world is all full of disappointments, and I have had my share. Maybe
I'll get it back to me yet. Nevertheless--"

Mrs. Woods often talked of Little Roll Over and its cunning ways; she
hoped she would some time meet it again, and wondered how it would act if
she should find it.




CHAPTER V.

THE NEST OF THE FISHING EAGLE.


Benjamin continued to attend the school, but it was evident that he did so
with an injured heart, and chiefly out of love for the old chief, his
father. He had a high regard for his teacher, whose kindness was
unfailing, and he showed a certain partiality for Gretchen; but he was as
a rule silent, and there were dark lines on his forehead that showed that
he was unhappy. He would not be treated as an inferior, and he seemed to
feel that he was so regarded by the scholars.

He began to show a peculiar kind of contempt for all of the pupils except
Gretchen. He pretended not to see them, hear them, or to be aware of their
presence or existence. He would pass through a group of boys as though the
place was vacant, not so much as moving his eye from the direct path. He
came and went, solitary and self-contained, proud, cold, and revengeful.

But this indifference was caused by sensitiveness and the feeling that he
had been slighted. The dark lines relaxed, and his face wore a kindly glow
whenever his teacher went to his desk--if the split-log bench for a
book-rest might be so called. "I would give my life for Gretchen and you,"
he said one day to Mr. Mann; and added: "I would save them all for you."

There was a cluster of gigantic trees close by the school-house, nearly
two hundred feet high. The trees, which were fir, had only dry stumps of
limbs for a distance of nearly one hundred feet from the ground. At the
top, or near the top, the green leaves or needles and dead boughs had
matted together and formed a kind of shelf or eyrie, and on this a pair of
fishing eagles had made their nest.

The nest had been there many years, and the eagles had come back to it
during the breeding season and reared their young.

For a time after the opening of the school none of the pupils seemed to
give any special attention to this high nest. It was a cheerful sight at
noon to see the eagles wheel in the air, or the male eagle come from the
glimmering hills and alight beside his mate.

One afternoon a sudden shadow like a falling cloud passed by the half-open
shutter of the log school-house and caused the pupils to start. There was
a sharp cry of distress in the air, and the master looked out and said:

"Attend to your books, children; it is only the eagle."

But again and again the same swift shadow, like the fragment of a
storm-cloud, passed across the light, and the wild scream of the bird
caused the scholars to watch and to listen. The cry was that of agony and
affright, and it was so recognized by Benjamin, whose ear and eye were
open to Nature, and who understood the voices and cries of the wild and
winged inhabitants of the trees and air.

He raised his hand.

"May I go see?"

The master bowed silently. The boy glided out of the door, and was heard
to exclaim:

"Look! look! the nest--the nest!"

The master granted the school a recess, and all in a few moments were
standing without the door peering into the tall trees.

The long dry weather and withering sun had caused the dead boughs to
shrink and to break beneath the great weight of the nest that rested upon
them. The eagle's nest was in ruins. It had fallen upon the lower boughs,
and two young half-fledged eaglets were to be seen hanging helplessly on a
few sticks in mid-air and in danger of falling to the ground.

It was a bright afternoon. The distress of the two birds was pathetic, and
their cries called about them other birds, as if in sympathy.

The eagles seldom descended to any point near the plain in their flight,
but mounted, as it were, to the sun, or floated high in the air; but in
their distress this afternoon they darted downward almost to the ground,
as though appealing for help for their young.

While the school was watching this curious scene the old chief of the
Umatillas came up the cool highway or trail, to go home with Benjamin
after school.

The eagles seemed to know him. As he joined the pitying group, the female
eagle descended as in a spasm of grief, and her wing swept his plume. She
uttered a long, tremulous cry as she passed and ascended to her young.

"She call," said the old chief. "She call me."

"I go," said Benjamin, with a look at his father.

"Yes, go--she call. She call--the God overhead he call. Go!"

A slender young pine ran up beside one of the giant trees, tall and green.
In a moment Benjamin was seen ascending this pine to a point where he
could throw himself upon the smallest of the great trees and grasp the
ladder of the lower dead branches. Up and up he went in the view of all,
until he had reached a height of some hundred and fifty feet.

The eagles wheeled around him, describing higher circles as he ascended.
He reached the young eagles at last, but passed by them. What was he going
to do?

There was a shelf of green boughs above him, which would bear the weight
of a nest. He went up to them at a distance of nearly two hundred feet. He
then began to gather up the fallen sticks of the old nest, and to break
off new sticks and to construct a new nest. The old chief watched him with
pride, and, turning to the master, said:

"Ah-a--that is my boy. He be me. I was he once--it is gone now--what I
was."

When Benjamin had made a nest he descended, and at the peril of his own
life, on the decayed limbs, he rescued the two young eagles that were
hanging with heads downward and open beaks. He carried them up to the new
nest and placed them in it, and began to descend.

But a withered bough that he grasped was too slender for his weight, and
broke. He grasped another, but that too gave way. He tried to drop into
the top of the tall young pine below him, but, in his effort to get into
position to do so, limb after limb of dead wood broke, and he came falling
to the earth, amid the startled looks of the chief and the cries of the
children.

The ground was soft, and his body lay for a time half imbedded in it.

He was senseless, and blood streamed from his nose and reddened his eyes.
The old chief seized his arm and tried to raise him, but the effort
brought no sign of life, and his body was lowered slowly back again by the
agonized father, who sat down and dropped his head on his son's breast.

Mr. Mann brought water and wet the boy's lips and bathed his brow. He then
placed his hand over the boy's heart and held it there. There was a long
silence. The old chief watched the teacher's hand. He seemed waiting for a
word of hope; but Mr. Mann did not speak.

The old chief lifted his head at last, and said; appealingly:

"Boston tilicum, you do not know how I feel! You do not know--the birds
know--_you_ do not know!"

The teacher rubbed the boy's breast and arms, and said:

"He will revive."

"What, Boston tilicum?"

"He will _live_."

"My boy?"

"Yes."

The dark face brightened. The old man clasped the boy's hand and drew it
to his breast. The children attempted to brush the earth out of the young
hero's dark, matted hair, but the old chief said, mysteriously:

"No touch him! he is mine."

At last a convulsive movement passed over the boy's body. The teacher
again pressed his hand on the heart of his pupil, and he quickly
exclaimed: "It beats."

The fiery sun gleamed from the snowy mountains. There were cool murmurs of
winds in the trees, and they sent forth a resinous odor into the air. The
balm dropped down like a messenger of healing.

Presently the boy's eyes opened and gazed steadily into the blue air.

The eagles were wheeling about the trees. The boy watched them, as though
nothing had passed. They were making narrowing circles, and at last each
alighted on the new nest beside their young.

He turned his face slowly toward his father.

"Saved!" he said. "They are happy. I fell. Let's go."

He rose up. As he did so the male eagle rose from his nest and, uttering a
glad scream, wheeled in the sky and made his way through the crimson haze
toward the fishing grounds of the lower Columbia.

The chief's eye followed him for a time; then the old man turned a happy
face on the schoolmaster and children and said:

"I know how he feels--the Manitou overhead--he made the hearts of all;
yours--the birds--mine. He is glad!"

There was something beautiful and pathetic in the old chief's sense of the
common heart and feeling of all conscious beings. The very eagles seemed
to understand it; and Master Mann, as he turned away from the school-house
that day, said to Gretchen:

"I myself am being taught. I am glad to learn all this large life. I hope
that you will one day become a teacher."

Gretchen went home that afternoon with a glad heart. Benjamin did not
return to the school again for several days, and when he came back it
seemed to be with a sense of humiliation. He seemed to feel somehow that
he ought not to have fallen from the tree.

The fourth of July came, and Master Mann had invited the school to come
together on the holiday for patriotic exercises. He had one of the pupils
read the Declaration of Independence on the occasion, and Gretchen played
the President's March on the violin. He himself made an historical
address, and then joined in some games out of doors under the trees.

He brought to the school-house that day an American flag, which he hung
over the desk during the exercises. When the school went out to play he
said:

"I wish I could hang the flag from a pole, or from the top of one of the
trees."

Benjamin's face brightened.

"I will go," he said; "I will go _up_."

"Hang it on the eagle's nest," said one of the pupils. "The eagle is the
national bird."

Mr. Mann saw that to suspend the national emblem from the eagle's nest
would be a patriotic episode of the day, and he gave the flag to Benjamin,
saying:

"Beware of the rotten limbs."

"I no woman," said Benjamin; and, waving the flag, he moved like a
squirrel up the trees. He placed the flag on the nest, while the eagles
wheeled around him, screaming wildly. He descended safely, and made the
incident an object lesson, as Mr. Mann repeated the ode to the American
eagle, found at that time in many reading-books.

While Mr. Mann was doing so, and had reached the line--

    "Bird of Columbia, well art thou," etc.,

one of the eagles swept down to the nest and seized the banner in his
talons. He rose again into the air and circled high, then with a swift,
strong curve of the wings, came down to the nest again, and, seizing the
flag, tore it from the nest and bore it aloft to the sky.

[Illustration: _The eagle soared away in the blue heavens, and the flag
streamed after him in his talons._]

It was a beautiful sight. The air was clear, the far peaks were serene,
and the glaciers of Mount Hood gleamed like a glory of crystallized light.
The children cheered. The bird soared away in the blue heavens, and the
flag streamed after him in his talons. He dropped the flag at last over
a dark, green forest. The children cheered again.

It was miles away.

"I go find it," said Benjamin; and he darted away from the place and was
not seen until the next day, when he returned, bringing the flag with him.

Marlowe Mann never forgot that fourth of July on the Columbia.




CHAPTER VI.

THE MOUNTAIN LION.


One morning, as Mrs. Woods sat in her door picking over some red
whortleberries which she had gathered in the timber the day before, a
young cow came running into the yard, as if for protection. Mrs. Woods
started up, and looked in the direction from which the animal had come
running, but saw nothing to cause the alarm.

The cow looked backward, and lowed. Mrs. Woods set down her dish of red
berries, took her gun, and went out toward the timber where the cow had
been alarmed.

There was on the edge of the timber a large fir that the shingle-maker had
felled when he first built his house or shack, but had not used, owing to
the hardness of the grain. It lay on the earth, but still connected with
its high stump, forming a kind of natural fence. Around it were beds of
red phlox, red whortleberry bushes, and wild sunflowers.

The horny stump and fallen tree had been made very interesting to Mrs.
Woods in her uneventful life by a white squirrel that often had appeared
upon it, and made a pretty picture as it sat eating in the sun, its head
half covered with its bushy tail. White squirrels were not common in the
timber, and this was the only one that Mrs. Woods had ever seen.

"I wish that I could contrive to catch that there white squirrel," she
said to Gretchen one day; "it would be a sight of company for me when you
are gone. The bear used me mean, but I kind o' like all these little
children of Natur'. But I don't want no Injuns, and no more bears unless
_he_ comes back again. The schoolmaster may like Injuns, and you may, but
I don't. Think how I lost my saw; Injun and all went off together. I can
seem to see him now, goin'."

As Mrs. Woods drew near the fallen tree she looked for the white squirrel,
which was not to be seen. Suddenly the bushes near the stump moved, and
she saw the most evil-looking animal that she had ever met drawing back
slowly toward the fallen tree. It was long, and seemed to move more like
an immense serpent than an animal. It had a catlike face, with small ears
and spiteful eyes, and a half-open mouth displaying a red tongue and
sharp teeth. Its face was sly, malicious, cruel, and cowardly. It seemed
to be such an animal as would attack one in the dark. It was much larger
than a dog or common black bear.

Mrs. Woods raised her gun, but she thought that she was too far from the
house to risk an encounter with so powerful an animal. So she drew back
slowly, and the animal did the same defiantly. She at last turned and ran
to the house.

"Gretchen," she said, "what do you think I have seen?"

"The white squirrel."

"No; a tiger!"

"But there are no tigers here; so the chief said."

"But I have just seen one, and it had the meanest-looking face that I ever
saw on any living creature. It was all snarls. That animal is dangerous. I
shall be almost afraid to be alone now."

"I shall be afraid to go to school."

"No, Gretchen, you needn't be afraid. I'll go with you mornin's and carry
the gun. I like to walk mornin's under the trees, the air does smell so
sweet."

That night, just as the last low tints of the long twilight had
disappeared and the cool, dewy airs began to move among the pines, a long,
deep, fearful cry was heard issuing from the timber. Mrs. Woods started up
from her bed and called, "Gretchen!"

The girl had been awakened by the cry, which might have been that of a
child of a giant in pain.

"Did you hear that?" asked Mrs. Woods.

"Let's get up and go out," said Gretchen.

Presently the same long, clear, pitiable cry, as if some giant distress,
was repeated.

"It seems human," said Mrs. Woods. "It makes me want to know what it is.
Yes, let us get up and go out."

The cry was indeed pleading and magnetic. It excited pity and curiosity.
There was a strange, mysterious quality about it that drew one toward it.
It was repeated a third time and then ceased.

There was a family by the name of Bonney who had taken a donated claim
some miles from the Woodses on the Columbia. They had two boys who
attended the school.

Early the next morning one of these boys, named Arthur, came over to the
Woodses in great distress, with a fearful story.

"Something," he said, "has killed all of our cattle. They all lie dead
near the clearing, just as though they were asleep. They are not injured,
as we can see; they are not shot or bruised, nor do they seem to be
poisoned--they are not swelled--they look as though they were alive--but
they are cold--they are just dead. Did you hear anything in the timber
last night?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Woods. "Wasn't it mysterious? Lost your cattle, boy? I am
sorry for your folks. Mabbie (may be) 'tis Injuns."

"No; father says that he can find no injury on them."

"'Tis awful mysterious like," said Mrs. Woods, "cattle dyin' without
anything ailin' 'em! I've always thought this was a good country, but I
don't know. Tell your folks I'm sorry for 'em. Can I do anything for you?
I'll come over and see ye in the course of the day."

That night the same strange, wild, pleading cry was repeated in the
timber.

"There's something very strange about that sound," said Mrs. Woods. "It
makes me feel as though I must run toward it. It draws me. It makes me
feel curi's. It has haunted me all day, and now it comes again."

"Do you suppose that the cry has had anything to do with the death of Mr.
Bonney's cattle?" asked Gretchen.

"I don't know--we don't understand this country fully yet. There's
something very mysterious about the death of those cattle. You ought to
have seen 'em. They all lie there dead, as though they had just lost their
breath, and that was all."

The next night was silent. But, on the following morning, a boy came to
the school with a strange story. He had been driving home his father's
cows on the evening before, when an animal had dropped from a great tree
on the neck of one of the cows, which struggled and lowed for a few
minutes, then fell, and was found dead. The boy and the other cattle had
run away on the sudden appearance of the animal. The dead cow presented
the same appearance as the cows of Mr. Bonney had done.

When the old chief appeared at the school-house with Benjamin that
morning, the school gathered around him and asked him what these things
could mean. He replied, in broken Chinook, that there was a puma among
them, and that this animal sucked the blood of its victims.

The puma or cougar or panther, sometimes spelled _painter_, is the
American lion. It is commonly called the mountain lion in the Northwest.
It belongs to the cat family, and received the name of lion from its tawny
color. When its appetite for blood has been satisfied, and its face is in
repose, it is a very beautiful animal; but when seeking its prey it
presents a mean, cowardly, stealthy appearance, and its face is a picture
of cruelty and evil. It will destroy as many as fifty sheep in a night,
sucking their blood and leaving them as though they had died without any
external injury. This terrible animal is easily tamed if captured young,
and, strange to say, becomes one of the most affectionate and devoted of
pets. It will purr about the feet and lick the hands of its master, and
develop all the attractive characteristics of the domestic cat.

"We must have a puma-hunt," said the chief, "now--right away."

"Not to-day?" said the teacher.

"Yes," said the chief, "now--he eat your children. Find boy dead some day,
just like cow. He drop down from a tree on a papoose. Benjamin and I will
go hunt."

[Illustration: _The mountain lion._]

The two disappeared. For several days they did not return. But, one
morning, a party of Indians in hunting-gear came riding up to the
school-house, full of gay spirits and heroic pride. Behind them came
the old chief on foot, moving slowly, as though tired, and with him was
Benjamin.

The Indian boy had a brown skin of an animal on his shoulder--a raw hide
with very beautiful fur.

The old chief came into the school-room with an air of pride, and stood
for a few minutes silent before the master. His face, though wrinkled, was
really beautiful and noble, in the light of the happy intelligence that
awaited communication. He at last looked each pupil in the face and then
said:

"We have killed the puma. School no fear now."

He took the skin of the animal from Benjamin's shoulder, and held it up
before the eyes of all.

"Boston tilicum, who killed the animal?" he said.

"It was you?" asked the teacher.

"No--not me, not me, no!"

"The braves?"

"No--not the braves. No." The old chief paused, and then said:

"Boston tilicum, it was Benjamin. Treat him well. He is good to me--he
mean well. He likes you--he die for you. Tell the boys it was Benjamin."

He turned away slowly, with a bearing of pride. The Indian boy gave the
puma's skin to the master, and took his seat in silence. There was a
spirit in the strange scene that was touching, and the master's lip
quivered as he took the old chief's hand that bright morning, as a parting
sign of gratitude and good-will. He felt the innate brotherhood of all
human hearts, and returned to his desk happy in his calling and work; and
seeing that the natural rights of all men were secured; and that the human
heart has the same impulses everywhere, as he had never seen these truths
before.

That night Gretchen told the story of the puma to Mrs. Woods, who had
learned the leading incidents of it in the afternoon as she came to meet
the girl in the trail, on the way from school.




CHAPTER VII.

THE SMOKE-TALK.


One day in September Mrs. Woods was at work in her cabin, and Gretchen was
at school. Mrs. Woods was trying to sing. She had a hard, harsh voice
always, and the tune was a battle-cry. The hymn on which she was
exercising her limited gifts was not one of the happy tunes of Methodism,
which early settlers on the Columbia loved to sing. It was a very
censorious rhyme and took a very despondent view of the human heart:

    "The pure testimony poured forth from the Spirit
      Cuts like a two-edgèd sword;
     And hypocrites now are most sorely tormented
      Because they're condemnèd by the Word."

She made the word "hypocrites" ring through the solitary log-cabin--she
seemed to have the view that a large population of the world were of this
class of people. She paused in her singing and looked out of the door.

"There's one honest woman alive," she remarked to herself. "Thank Heaven,
_I_ never yet feared the face of clay!"

A tall, dark form met her eye--a great shadow in the scintillant sunlight.
It was an aged Indian, walking with a staff. He was coming toward the
cabin.

"Umatilla!" she said. "What can he want of me?"

The old chief approached, and bowed and sat down on a log that answered
for a door-step.

"I walk with a staff now," he said. "My bow has drifted away on the tide
of years--it will never come back again. I am old."

"You have been a good man," said Mrs. Woods, yielding to an impulse of her
better nature. She presently added, as though she had been too generous,
"And there aren't many good Injuns--nor white folks either for that
matter."

"I have come to have a smoke-talk with you," said the old chief, taking
out his pipe and asking Mrs. Woods to light it. "Listen! I want to go
home. When a child is weary, I take him by the hand and point him to the
smoke of his wigwam. He goes home and sleeps. I am weary. The Great Spirit
has taken me by the hand; he points to the smoke of the wigwam. There
comes a time when all want to go home. I want to go home. Umatilla is
going home. I have _not_ spoken."

The smoke from his pipe curled over his white head in the pure, clear
September air. He was eighty or more years of age. He had heard the
traditions of Juan de Fuca, the Greek pilot, who left his name on the
straits of the Puget Sea. He had heard of the coming of Vancouver in his
boyhood, the English explorer who named the seas and mountains for his
lieutenants and friends, Puget, Baker, Ranier, and Townsend. He had known
the forest lords of the Hudson Bay Company, and of Astoria; had seen the
sail of Gray as it entered the Columbia, and had heard the preaching of
Jason Lee. The murder of Whitman had caused him real sorrow. Umatilla was
a man of peace. He had loved to travel up and down the Columbia, and visit
the great bluffs of the Puget Sea. He lived for a generation at peace with
all the tribes, and now that he was old he was venerated by them all.

"You are a good old Injun," said Mrs. Woods, yielding to her better self
again. "I don't say it about many people. I do think you have done your
best--considering."

"I am not what I want to be," said Umatilla. "It is what we want to be
that we shall be one day; don't you think so? The Great Spirit is going to
make me what I want to be--he will make us all what we want to be. My
desires are better than I--I will be my desires by and by. My staff is in
my hand, and I am going home. The old warriors have gone home. They were
thick as the flowers of the field, thick as the stars of the night. My
boys are gone home--they were swift as the hawks in the air. Benjamin is
left to the Umatillas. He is no butcher-bird; no forked tongue--he will
remember the shade of his father. My heart is in his heart. I am going
home. I have _not_ spoken."

He puffed his pipe again, and watched an eagle skimming along on the great
over-sea of September gold. The Indian language is always picturesque, and
deals in symbols and figures of speech. It is picture-speaking. The
Indians are all poets in their imaginations, like children. This habit of
personification grows in the Indian mind with advancing years. Every old
Indian speaks in poetic figures. Umatilla had not yet "spoken," as he
said; he had been talking in figures, and merely approaching his subject.

There was a long pause. He then laid down his pipe. He was about to speak:

"Woman, open your ears. The Great Spirit lives in women, and old people,
and little children. He loves the smoke of the wigwam, and the green
fields of the flowers, and the blue gardens of stars. And he loves
music--it is his voice, the whisper of the soul.

"He spoke in the pine-tops, on the lips of the seas, in the shell, in the
reed and the war-drum. Then _she_ came. He speaks through _her_. I want
_her_ to speak for me. My people are angry. There are butcher-birds among
them. They hate you--they hate the cabin of the white man. The white men
take away their room, overthrow their forests, kill their deer. There is
danger in the air.

"The October moon will come. It will grow. It will turn into a sun on the
border of the night. Then come Potlatch. My people ask for the Dance of
the Evil One. I no consent--it means graves.

"Let me have _her_ a moon--she play on the air. She play at the Potlatch
for me. She stand by my side. The Great Spirit speak through her. Indians
listen. They will think of little ones, they will think of departed ones,
they will think of the hunt--they will see graves. Then the night will
pass. Then the smoke will rise again from white man's cabin. Then I die
in peace, and go home to the Great Spirit and rest. Will you let me have
her? I _have_ spoken."

Mrs. Woods comprehended the figurative speech. The old chief wished to
take Gretchen to his wigwam for a month, and have her play the violin on
the great night of the Potlatch. He hoped that the influence of the music
would aid him in preventing the Dance of the Evil Spirits, and a massacre
of the white settlers. What should she say?

"I will talk with Gretchen," she said. "You mean well. I can trust you. We
will see."

He rose slowly, leaning on his staff, and emptied his pipe. It required a
resolute will now to cause his withered limbs to move. But his steps
became free after a little walking, and he moved slowly away. Poor old
chief of the Cascades! It was something like another Sermon on the Mount
that he had spoken, but he knew not how closely his heart had caught the
spirit of the Divine Teacher.

When Gretchen came home from school, Mrs. Woods told her what had
happened, and what the old chief had asked.

Mr. Woods had returned from the block-houses. He said: "Gretchen, go!
Your _Traumerei_ will save the colony. Go!"

Gretchen sat in silence for a moment. She then said: "I can trust
Umatilla. I will go. I want to go. Something unseen is leading me--I feel
it. I do not know the way, but I can trust my guide. I have only one
desire, if I am young, and that is to do right. But is it right to leave
you, mother?"

"Mother!" how sweet that word sounded to poor Mrs. Woods! She had never
been a mother. Tears filled her eyes--she forced them back.

"Yes, Gretchen--go. I've always had to fight my way through the world, and
I can continue to do so. I've had some things to harden my heart; but, no
matter what you may do, Gretchen, I'll always be a mother to _you_. You'll
always find the latch-string on the outside. You ain't the wust girl that
ever was, if I did have a hand in bringing you up. Yes--go."

"Your heart is right now," said Gretchen; "and I want to speak to you
about Benjamin. He told me a few days ago that he hated you, but that no
one should ever harm you, because he loved the Master."

"He did, did he?" said Mrs. Woods, starting up. "Well, I hate him, and
I'll never forgive him for tellin' you such a thing as that."

"But, mother, don't you love _the_ Master, and won't you be friendly and
forgiving to Benjamin, for _his_ sake? I wish you would. It would give you
power; I want you to do so."

"I'll think about it, Gretchen. I don't feel quite right about these
things, and I'm goin' to have a good talk with Father Lee. The boy has
some good in him."

"I wish you would tell him that."

"Why?"

"Sympathy makes one grow so."

"That's so, Gretchen. Only praise a dog for his one good quality, and it
will make a good dog of him. I 'spect 'tis the same with folks. But my
nature don't break up easy. I shall come out right some time. I tell you
I'm goin' to have a talk with Father Lee. It is his preachin' that has
made me what I am, and may be I'll be better by and by."

Mrs. Woods, with all her affected courage, had good reason to fear an
Indian outbreak, and to use every influence to prevent it. The very
mention of the Potlatch filled her with recent terror. She well knew the
story of the destruction of Whitman and a part of his missionary colony.

_That_ was a terrible event, and it was a scene like that that the new
settlers feared, at the approaching Potlatch; and the thought of that
dreadful day almost weakened the faith of Mr. Mann in the Indians.

We must tell you the old-time history of the tragedy which was now revived
in the new settlement.


_THE CONJURED MELONS._

Most people who like history are familiar with the national story of
Marcus Whitman's "Ride for Oregon"[A]--that daring horseback trip across
the continent, from the Columbia to the Missouri, which enabled him to
convince the United States Government not only that Oregon could be
reached, but that it was worth possessing. Exact history has robbed this
story of some of its romance, but it is still one of the noblest
wonder-tales of our own or any nation. Monuments and poetry and art must
forever perpetuate it, for it is full of spiritual meaning.

Lovers of missionary lore have read with delight the ideal romance of the
two brides who agreed to cross the Rocky Mountains with their husbands,
Whitman and Spaulding; how one of them sang, in the little country church
on departing, the whole of the hymn--

    "Yes, my native land, I love thee,"

when the voices of others failed from emotion. They have read how the
whole party knelt down on the Great Divide, beside the open Bible and
under the American flag, and took possession of the great empire of the
Northwest in faith and in imagination, and how history fulfilled the
dream.

At the time of the coming of the missionaries the Cayuse Indians and
Nez-Percés occupied the elbow of the Columbia, and the region of the
musical names of the Wallula, the Walla Walla, and Waülaptu. They were a
superstitious, fierce, and revengful race. They fully believed in
witchcraft or conjuring, and in the power to work evil through familiar
spirits. Everything to them and the neighboring tribes had its good or
evil spirit, or both--the mountains, the rivers, the forest, the sighing
cedars, and the whispering firs.

The great plague of the tribes on the middle Columbia was the measles. The
disease was commonly fatal among them, owing largely to the manner of
treatment. When an Indian began to show the fever which is characteristic
of the disease, he was put into and inclosed in a hot clay oven. As soon
as he was covered with a profuse perspiration he was let out, to leap into
the cold waters of the Columbia. Usually the plunge was followed by death.

There was a rule among these Indians, in early times, that if the
"medicine-man" undertook a case and failed to cure, he forfeited his own
life. The killing of the medicine-man was one of the dramatic and fearful
episodes of the Columbia.

Returning from the East after his famous ride, Whitman built up a noble
mission station at Waülaptu. He was a man of strong character, and of fine
tastes and ideals. The mission-house was an imposing structure for the
place and time. It had beautiful trees and gardens, and inspiring
surroundings.

Mrs. Whitman was a remarkable woman, as intelligent and sympathetic as she
was heroic. The colony became a prosperous one, and for a time occupied
the happy valley of the West.

One of the vices of the Cayuse Indians and their neighbors was stealing.
The mission station may have overawed them for a time into seeming
honesty, but they began to rob its gardens at last, and out of this
circumstance comes a story, related to me by an old Territorial officer,
which may be new to most readers. I do not vouch for it, but only say that
the narrator of the principal incidents is an old Territorial judge who
lives near the place of the Whitman tragedy, and who knew many of the
survivors, and has a large knowledge of the Indian races of the Columbia.
To his statements I add some incidents of another pioneer:

"The thieving Cayuses have made 'way with our melons again," said a young
farmer one morning, returning from the gardens of the station. "One theft
will be followed by another. I know the Cayuses. Is there no way to stop
them?"

One of the missionary fraternity was sitting quietly among the trees. It
was an August morning. The air was a living splendor, clear and warm, with
now and then a breeze that rippled the leaves like the waves of the sea.

He looked up from his book, and considered the question half-seriously,
half-humorously.

"I know how we used to prevent boys from stealing melons in the East,"
said he.

"How?"

"Put some tartar emetic in the biggest one. In the morning it would be
gone, but the boys would never come after any more melons."

The young farmer understood the remedy, and laughed.

"And," added he, "the boys didn't have much to say about melons after they
had eaten _that_ one. The subject no longer interested them. I guess the
Indians would not care for more than one melon of that kind."

"I would like to see a wah-wah of Indian thieves over a melon like that!"
said the gardener. "I declare, I and the boys will do it!"

He went to his work, laughing. That day he obtained some of the emetic
from the medical stores of the station, and plugged it into three or four
of the finest melons. Next morning he found that these melons were gone.

The following evening a tall Indian came slowly and solemnly to the
station. His face had a troubled look, and there was an air of mystery
about his gait and attitude. He stopped before one of the assistant
missionaries, drew together his blanket, and said:

"Some one here no goot. You keep a conjurer in the camp. Indian kill
conjurer. Conjurer ought die; him danger, him no goot."

The laborers gathered round the stately Indian. They all knew about the
nauseating melons, and guessed why he had come. All laughed as they heard
his solemn words. The ridicule incensed him.

"You one conjurer," he said, "he conjure melons. One moon, two moons, he
shall die."

The laborers laughed again.

"Half moon, more moons, he shall suffer--half moon, more moons," that is,
sooner or later.

The missionary's face grew serious. The tall Indian saw the change of
expression.

"Braves sick." He spread out his blanket and folded it again like wings.
"Braves double up _so_"--he bent over, opening and folding his blanket.
"Braves conjured; melon conjured--white man conjure. Indian kill him."

There was a puzzled look on all faces.

"Braves get well again," said the missionary, incautiously.

"Then you _know_," said the Indian. "You know--you conjure. Make
sick--make well!"

He drew his blanket again around him and strode away with an injured look
in his face, and vanished into the forests.

"I am sorry for this joke," said the missionary; "it bodes no good."

November came. The nights were long, and there was a perceptible coolness
in the air, even in this climate of April days.

Joe Stanfield, a half-breed Canadian and a member of Whitman's family, was
observed to spend many of the lengthening evenings with the Cayuses in
their lodges. He had been given a home by Whitman, to whom he had seemed
for a time devoted.

Joe Lewis, an Indian who had come to Whitman sick and half-clad, and had
received shelter and work from him, seems to have been on intimate terms
with Stanfield, and the two became bitter enemies to the mission and
sought to turn the Cayuses against it, contrary to all the traditions of
Indian gratitude.

In these bright autumn days of 1847 a great calamity fell upon the Indians
of the Columbia. It was the plague. This disease was the terror of the
Northwestern tribes. The Cayuses caught the infection. Many sickened and
died, and Whitman was appealed to by the leading Indians to stay the
disease. He undertook the treatment of a number of cases, but his patients
died.

The hunter's moon was now burning low in the sky. The gathering of rich
harvests of furs had begun, and British and American fur-traders were
seeking these treasures on every hand. But at the beginning of these
harvests the Cayuses were sickening and dying, and the mission was
powerless to stay the pestilence.

A secret council of Cayuses and half-breeds was held one night under the
hunter's moon near Walla Walla, or else on the Umatilla. Five Crows, the
warrior, was there with Joe Lewis, of Whitman's household, and Joe
Stanfield, alike suspicious and treacherous, and old Mungo, the
interpreter. Sitkas, a leading Indian, may have been present, as the story
I am to give came in part from him.

Joe Lewis was the principal speaker. Addressing the Cayuses, he said:

"The moon brightens; your tents fill with furs. But Death, the robber, is
among you. Who sends Death among you? The White Chief (Whitman). And why
does the White Chief send among you Death, the robber, with his poison?
That he may possess your furs."

"Then why do the white people themselves have the disease?" asked a
Cayuse.

None could answer. The question had turned Joe Lewis's word against him,
when a tall Indian arose and spread his blanket open like a wing. He stood
for a time silent, statuesque, and thoughtful. The men waited seriously
to hear what he would say.

It was the same Indian who had appeared at the mission after the joke of
the plugged melons.

"Brothers, listen. The missionaries are conjurers. They conjured the
melons at Waülaptu. They made the melons sick. I went to missionary chief.
He say, 'I make the melons well.' I leave the braves sick, with their
faces turned white, when I go to the chief. I return, and they are well
again. The missionaries conjure the melons, to save their gardens. They
conjure you now, to get your furs."

The evidence was conclusive to the Cayuse mind. The missionaries were
conjurers. The council resolved that all the medicine-men in the country
should be put to death, and among the first to perish should be Whitman,
the conjurer.

Such in effect was the result of the secret council or councils held
around Waülaptu.

Whitman felt the change that had come over the disposition of the tribes,
but he did not know what was hidden behind the dark curtain. His great
soul was full of patriotic fire, of love to all men, and zeal for the
gospel.

He was nothing to himself--the cause was everything. He rode hither and
thither on the autumn days and bright nights, engaged in his great work.

He went to Oregon City for supplies.

"Mr. McKinley," he said to a friend, "a Cayuse chief has told me that the
Indians are about to kill all the medicine-men, and myself among them. I
think he was jesting."

"Dr. Whitman," said McKinley, "a Cayuse chief never jests."

He was right. The fateful days wore on. The splendid nights glimmered over
Mount Hood, and glistened on the serrated mountain tents of eternal snow.
The Indians continued to sicken and die, and the universal suspicion of
the tribes fell upon Whitman.

Suddenly there was a war-cry! The mission ran with blood. Whitman and his
wife were the first to fall. Then horror succeeded horror, and many of the
heroic pioneers of the Columbia River perished.

"The Jesuits have been accused of causing the murder of Whitman," said one
historian of Washington to me. "They indignantly deny it. I have studied
the whole subject for years with this opinion, that the Indian outbreak
and its tragedies had its origin, and largely gathered its force, from
the terrible joke of the conjured melons.

"That was the evidence that must have served greatly to turn the Indian
mind against one of the bravest men that America has produced, and whose
name will stand immortal among the heroes of Washington and Oregon."

I give this account as a local story, and not as exact history; but this
tradition was believed by the old people in Washington.

When any one in the new settlement spoke of the Potlatch, this scene came
up like a shadow. Would it be repeated?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: See Historical Notes.]




CHAPTER VIII.

THE BLACK EAGLE'S NEST.


In the log school-house, Lewis and Clarke's Expedition was used as a
reading-book. Master Mann had adopted it because it was easy to obtain,
and served as a sort of local geography and history.

In this book is an account of a great black eagle's nest, on the Falls of
the Missouri; and the incident seemed intensely to interest the
picturesque mind of Benjamin.

"Let us go see," said Benjamin, one day after this poetic part of Lewis
and Clarke's narrative had been read.

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Mann.

"I carry canoe, and we go and find him!"

"What?"

"The black eagle's nest."

"Why?"

"I'll get a plume--wear it here. Please father. I love to please father."

There was to be a few weeks' vacation in a part of September and October,
and Benjamin's suggestion led Mr. Mann to plan an excursion to the Falls
of the Missouri at that time. The old chief would be glad to have Benjamin
go with him and help hunt, and carry the canoe. They would follow the
Salmon River out of the Columbia, to a point near the then called
Jefferson River, and so pass the mountains, and launch themselves on the
Missouri, whence the way would be easy to the Falls.

The dream of this expedition seemed to make Benjamin perfectly happy. He
had already been over a part of this territory, with his father, on a
visit to the friendly tribes.

The mid-autumn in the valleys of the Columbia and Missouri Rivers is
serene, and yet kindles, with a sort of fiery splendor. The perfect days
of America are here.

Master Mann and Benjamin started on their expedition with a few Indians,
who were to see them to the Jefferson River and there leave them.

The Yankee schoolmaster had a prophetic soul, and he felt that he was
treading the territory of future empires.

Launched on the Missouri, the thought of what the vast plains might become
overwhelmed him at times, and he would lie silent in his boat, and pray
and dream.

The soul of the Indian boy seemed as bright as the golden air of the
cloudless days, during most of the time on the Salmon River, and while
passing through the mountains. But he would sometimes start up suddenly,
and a shade would settle on his face.

Master Mann noticed these sudden changes of mood, and he once said to him:

"What makes you turn sad, Benjamin?"

"Potlatch."

"But that is a dance."

"Hawks."

"I think not, Benjamin!"

"You do not know. They have a bitter heart. My father does not sleep. It
is you that keeps him awake. He loves you; you love me and treat me well;
he loves you, and want to treat you well--see. _She_ make trouble. Indians
meet at night--talk bitter. They own the land. They have rights. They
threaten. Father no sleep. Sorry."


_THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI._

The Falls of the Missouri are not only wonderful and beautiful, but they
abound with grand traditions. Before we follow our young explorer to the
place, let us give you, good reader, some views of this part of Montana as
it was and as it now appears.

We recently looked out on the island that once lifted the great black
eagle's nest over the plunging torrent of water--the nest famous,
doubtless, among the Indians, long before the days of Lewis and Clarke.

We were shown, in the city of Great Falls, a mounted eagle, which, it was
claimed, came from this nest amid the mists and rainbows. The fall near
this island, in the surges, is now known as the Black Eagle's Fall.

This waterfall has not the beauty or the grandeur of the other
cataracts--the Rainbow Falls and the Great Falls--a few miles distant. But
it gathers the spell of poetic tradition about it, and strongly appeals to
the sense of the artist and the poet. The romancer would choose it for his
work, as the black eagles chose it for their home.

Near it is one of the most lovely fountains in the world, called the Giant
Spring.

    "Close beside the great Missouri,
       Ere it takes its second leap,
     Is a spring of sparkling water
       Like a river broad and deep."

The spring pours out of the earth near the fall in a great natural
fountain, emerald-green, clear as crystal, bordered with water-cresses,
and mingles its waters with the clouded surges of the Missouri. If a
person looks down into this fountain from a point near enough for him to
touch his nose to the water, all the fairy-like scenes of the Silver
Springs and the Waukulla Spring in Florida appear. The royal halls and
chambers of Undine meet the view, with gardens of emeralds and gem-bearing
ferns. It kindles one's fancy to gaze long into these crystal caverns, and
a practical mind could hardly resist here the poetic sense of Fouqué that
created Undine.

The Black Eagle Falls, with its great nest and marvelous fountains, was a
favorite resort of the Blackfeet Indians and other Indian tribes. It is
related in the old traditions that the Piegans, on one of their
expeditions against the Crows, rested here, and became enchanted with the
fountain:

    "Hither came the warrior Piegans
       On their way to fight the Crow;
     Stood upon its verge, and wondered
       What could mean the power below."

The Piegans were filled with awe that the fountain rose and fell and
gurgled, as if in spasms of pain. They sent for a native medicine-man.

"Why is the fountain troubled?" they asked.

"This," said the Indian prophet, "is the pure stream that flows through
the earth to the sun. It asks for offerings. We cast the spoils of war
into it, and it carries them away to the Sun's _tepee_, and the Sun is
glad, and so shines for us all."

The Blackfeet worshiped the Sun. The Sun River, a few miles above this
cataract, was a medicine or sacred river in the tribal days, and it was in
this region of gleaming streams and thundering waterfalls that the once
famous Sun-dances were held.

There was a barbarous splendor about these Sun-dances. The tribes gathered
for the festival in the long, bright days of the year. They wore ornaments
of crystal, quartz, and mica, such as would attract and reflect the rays
of the sun. The dance was a glimmering maze of reflections. As it reached
its height, gleaming arrows were shot into the air. Above them, in their
poetic vision, sat the Sun in his _tepee_. They held that the thunder was
caused by the wings of a great invisible bird. Often, at the close of the
Sun-dance on the sultry days, the clouds would gather, and the
thunder-bird would shake its wings above them and cool the air. Delightful
times were these old festivals on the Missouri. At evening, in the long
Northern twilights, they would recount the traditions of the past. Some of
the old tales of the Blackfeet, Piegans, and Chippewas, are as charming as
those of La Fontaine.

The Rainbow Falls are far more beautiful than those of the Black Eagle.
They are some six miles from the new city of Great Falls. A long stairway
of two hundred or more steps conducts the tourist into their very
mist-land of rocks and surges. Here one is almost deafened by the thunder.
When the sun is shining, the air is glorious with rainbows, that haunt the
mists like a poet's dream.

The Great Fall, some twelve miles from the city, plunges nearly a hundred
feet, and has a roar like that of Niagara. It is one of the greatest
water-powers of the continent.

The city of Great Falls is leaping into life in a legend-haunted region.
Its horizon is a borderland of wonders. Afar off gleam the Highwood
Mountains, with roofs of glistening snow. Buttes (hills with level tops)
rise like giant pyramids here and there, and one may almost imagine that
he is in the land of the Pharaohs. Bench lands diversify the wide plains.
Ranches and great flocks are everywhere; armies of cattle; creeks shaded
with cottonwood and box-elder; birds and flowers; and golden eagles
gleaming in the air. The Rockies wall the northern plains.

The Belt Mountain region near Great Falls is a wonder-land, like the
Garden of the Gods in Colorado, or the Goblin Land near the Yellowstone.
It would seem that it ought to be made a State park. Here one fancies
one's self to be amid the ruins of castles, cathedrals, and fortresses, so
fantastic are the shapes of the broken mountain-walls. It is a land of
birds and flowers; of rock roses, wild sunflowers, golden-rods; of
wax-wings, orioles, sparrows, and eagles. Here roams the stealthy mountain
lion.

This region, too, has its delightful legends.

One of these legends will awaken great curiosity as the State of Montana
grows, and she seems destined to become the monarch of States.

In 1742 Sieur de la Verendrye, the French Governor of Quebec, sent out an
expedition, under his sons and brother, that discovered the Rocky
Mountains, which were named _La Montana Roches_. On the 12th of May, 1744,
this expedition visited the upper Missouri, and planted on an eminence,
probably in the near region of Great Falls, a leaden plate bearing the
arms of France, and raised a monument above it, which the Verendryes named
_Beauharnois_. It is stated that this monument was erected on a
river-bluff, between bowlders, and that it was twenty feet in diameter.

There are people who claim to have discovered this monument, but they fail
to produce the leaden plate with the arms of France that the explorers
buried. The search for this hidden plate will one day begin, and the
subject is likely greatly to interest historical societies in Montana, and
to become a very poetic mystery.

Into this wonder-land of waterfalls, sun-dances, and legends, our young
explorers came, now paddling in their airy canoe, now bearing the canoe on
their backs around the falls.

Mr. Mann's white face was a surprise to the native tribes that they met on
the way, but Benjamin's brightness and friendly ways made the journey of
both easy.

They came to the Black Eagle Falls. The great nest still was there. It was
as is described in the book of the early explorers.

It hung over the mists of the rapids, and, strangely enough, there were
revealed three black plumes in the nest.

Benjamin beheld these plumes with a kind of religious awe. His eyes
dilated as he pointed to them.

"They are for me," he said. "One for me, one for father, and one for you.
I'll get them all."

He glided along a shelf of rocks toward the little island, and mounted the
tree. The black eagles were yet there, though their nest was empty. He
passed up the tree under the wings of the eagles, and came down with a
handful of feathers.

"The book was true," said he.

They went to Medicine River, now called the Sun River, and there witnessed
a Sun-dance.

It was a scene to tempt a brilliant painter or poet. The chiefs and
warriors were arrayed in crystals, quartz, and every bright product of the
earth and river that would reflect the glory of the sun.

They returned from where the city of Great Falls is now, back to the
mountains and to the tributaries of the Columbia. Benjamin appeared
before his father, on his return, with a crest of black eagle's plumes,
and this crest the young Indian knight wore until the day of his death.

"I shall wear mine always," he said to his father. "You wear yours."

"Yes," said his father, with a face that showed a full heart.

"Both together," said Benjamin.

"Both together," replied Umatilla.

"Always?" said Benjamin.

"Always," answered the chief.

The Indians remembered these words. Somehow there seemed to be something
prophetic in them. Wherever, from that day, Umatilla or Young Eagle's
Plume was seen, each wore the black feather from the great eagle's nest,
amid the mists and rainbows or mist-bows of the Falls of the Missouri.

It was a touch of poetic sentiment, but these Indian races of the Columbia
lived in a region that was itself a school of poetry. The Potlatch was
sentiment, and the Sun-dance was an actual poem. Many of the tents of skin
abounded with picture-writing, and the stories told by the night fires
were full of picturesque figures.

Gretchen's poetic eye found subjects for verse in all these things, and
she often wrote down her impressions, and read them to practical Mrs.
Woods, who affected to ignore such things, but yet seemed secretly
delighted with them.

"You have _talons_" she used to say, "but they don't amount to anything,
anyway. Nevertheless--"

The expedition to the Falls of the Missouri, and the new and strange
sights which Benjamin saw there, led him to desire to make other trips
with the schoolmaster, to whom he became daily more and more attached. In
fact, the Indian boy came to follow his teacher about with a kind of
jealous watchfulness. He seemed to be perfectly happy when the latter was
with him, and, when absent from him, he talked of him more than of any
other person.

In the middle of autumn the sky was often clouded with wild geese, which
in V-shaped flocks passed in long processions overhead, _honking_ in a
trumpet-like manner. Sometimes a flock of snowy geese would be seen, and
the laughing goose would be heard.

"Where do they go?" said Mr. Mann one day to Benjamin.

The boy told him of a wonderful island, now known as Whidby, where there
were great gatherings of flocks of geese in the fall.

"Let's go see," said he. "The geese are thicker than the bushes there--the
ponds are all alive with them there--honk--honk--honk! Let's go see."

"When the school is over for the fall we will go," said Mr. Mann.

The Indian boy's face beamed with delight. He dreamed of another
expedition like that to the wonderful Falls. He would there show the
master the great water cities of the wild geese, the emigrants of the air.
The thought of it made him dance with delight.

Often at nightfall great flocks of the Canada geese would follow the
Columbia towards the sea. Benjamin would watch them with a heart full of
anticipation. It made him supremely happy to show the master the wonderful
things of the beautiful country, and the one ambition of his heart now was
to go to the lakes of the _honks_.




CHAPTER IX.

GRETCHEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF OF THE CASCADES.


"Go to the chief's lodge, Gretchen, and stay until the Potlatch, and I
will come to visit you." Such were the words of Mrs. Woods, as her final
decision, after long considering the chief's request.

The forest lodge of the old chief of the Cascades was picturesque without
and within. Outwardly, it was a mere tent of skins and curious
pictography, under the shadows of gigantic trees, looking down on the
glistening waters of the Columbia; inwardly, it was a museum of relics of
the supposed era of the giant-killers, and of the deep regions of the
tooth and claw; of Potlatches, masques and charms of _medas_ and
_wabenoes_; of curious pipes; of odd, curious feathers, and beautiful
shells and feather-work and pearls. But, though all things here were rude
and primitive, the old chief had a strong poetic sense, and the place and
the arrangement of everything in it were very picturesque in its effect,
and would have delighted an artist. On a hill near were grave-posts, and a
sacred grove, in which were bark coffins in trees. Near by was an open
field where the Indian hunters were accustomed to gather their peltries,
and where visiting bands of Indians came to be hospitably entertained, and
feasts were given _à la mode de sauvage_. From the plateau of the royal
lodge ran long forest trails and pathways of blazed trees; and near the
opening to the tent rose two poles, to indicate the royal rank of the
occupant. These were ornamented with ideographic devices of a historical
and religious character.

The family of Umatilla consisted of his squaw, an old woman partly
demented, and Benjamin, who was now much of the time away with the
schoolmaster.

The old chief was very kind to his unfortunate wife, and treated her like
a child or a doll. Benjamin was about to take as his bride an Indian girl
whom the English called Fair Cloud, and she was a frequent visitor at the
tent.

To this patriarchal family Gretchen came one day, bringing her violin.
Fair Cloud was there to receive her, and the crazy old squaw seemed to be
made happy by the sight of her white face, and she did all that she could
in her simple way to make her welcome. She gave her ornaments of shells,
and pointed out to her a wabeno-tree, in whose tops spirits were supposed
to whisper, and around which Indian visitors sometimes danced in the
summer evenings.

The Indian maid was eager to hear the violin, but the old chief said: "It
is the voice of the Merciful; let it be still--the god should not speak
much."

He seemed to wish to reserve the influence of the instrument for the
Potlatch, to make it an object of wonder and veneration for a time, that
its voice might be more magical when it should be heard.

There was a kind of tambourine, ornamented with fan-like feathers, in the
lodge. Fair Cloud used to play upon it, or rather shake it in a rhythmic
way. There was also a war-drum in the lodge, and an Indian called
Blackhoof used to beat it, and say:

    "I walk upon the sky,
      My war-drum 'tis you hear;
    When the sun goes out at noon,
      My war-drum 'tis you hear!

    "When forkèd lightnings flash,
      My war-drum 'tis you hear.
     I walk upon the sky,
     And call the clouds; be still,
      My war-drum 'tis you hear!"

The tribes of the Oregon at this time were numerous but small. They
consisted chiefly of the Chinooks, Vancouvers, the Walla Wallas, the
Yacomars, the Spokans, the Cayuses, the Nez-Percés, the Skagits, the
Cascades, and many tribes that were scarcely more than families. They were
for the most part friendly with each other, and they found in the Oregon
or Columbia a common fishing-ground, and a water-way to all their
territories. They lived easily. The woods were full of game, and the river
of salmon, and berries loaded the plateaus. Red whortleberries filled the
woodland pastures and blackberries the margins of the woods.

The climate was an almost continuous April; there was a cloudy season in
winter with rainy nights, but the Japanese winds ate up the snows, and the
ponies grazed out of doors in mid-winter, and spring came in February. It
was almost an ideal existence that these old tribes or families of Indians
lived.

[Illustration: _An Indian village on the Columbia._]

Among the early friends of these people was Dick Trevette, whose tomb
startles the tourist on the Columbia as he passes Mamaloose, or the Island
of the Dead. He died in California, and his last request was that he might
be buried in the Indian graveyard on the Columbia River, among a race
whose hearts had always been true to him.

The old chief taught Gretchen to fish in the Columbia, and the withered
crone cooked the fish that she caught.

Strange visitors came to the lodge, among them an Indian girl who brought
her old, withered father strapped upon her back. The aged Indian wished to
pay his last respects to Umatilla.

Indians of other tribes came, and they were usually entertained at a
feast, and in the evening were invited to dance about the whispering tree.

The song for the reception of strangers, which was sung at the dance, was
curious, and it was accompanied by striking the hand upon the breast over
the heart at the words "Here, here, here":

    "You resemble a friend of mine,
     A friend I would have in my heart--
          Here, here, _here_.

    "My heart is linked to thine;
     You are like a friend of mine--
          Here, here, _here_.

    "Are we not brothers, then;
     Shall we not meet again--
          Here, here, _here_?

    "Mi, yes, we brothers be,
     So my fond heart sings to thee--
          Here, here, _here_.

    "Ah! yes, we brothers be;
     Will you not answer me--
          Here, here, _here_?"

Gretchen was happy in the new kind of life. She did not fear the Indians;
in fact, the thing that she feared most was the promised visit of Mrs.
Woods. She was sure that her foster-mother's spirit would change toward
the Indians, but the change had not yet come.

One evening the schoolmaster came to call. He was bent upon a mission, as
always. The family gave him a seat outside of the tent, and gathered
around him, and they talked until the stars came out and were mirrored in
the Columbia.

One of the first questions asked by the old chief was, "Is Eagle's Plume
(Benjamin) brave?" (a good scholar).

"Yes, brave at times; he must learn to be brave always. He must always
keep his better self. The world would be good if people would learn to
keep their better selves. Do you see?"

"Yes."

"A chief should conquer himself first; obey the will of the Great
Manitou--do you see?"

"Yes, but how can we know his will?"

"It is his will that we be our best minds. Forgive, and so make bad people
good, and return good for bad. Do you see?"

"Yes, boy, do you see?" (to Benjamin).

"Yes, yes, I see what white man means. But white man do not so. He
cheat--he kill."

"_Boston tilicum_, what do you say?" asked the chief.

"White man does not follow his best heart when he cheats and kills. It is
wrong. All men should be brothers--see?"

"Yes, I have tried to be a brother. I have no shed blood--I live in
peace--like yonder river. The stars love to shine on the peaceful river.
Benjamin will learn. I go away when the swallows go, and no more come when
the swallows bring the spring on their wings again. Teach Benjamin to be
his good self all the time; make him good _here_."

All the Indian visitors who came to the place examined the violin
cautiously, and the Indian hunters seemed to regard Gretchen with
suspicion. When any asked her to play for them, the old chief would
answer: "Not now, but at the Potlatch--then it speak and you will hear;
you will hear what it says."

But, of all the people that came to the lodge, no one could have been more
curious than Mrs. Woods. She had been living in terror of the threatened
events of the October feast, and yet she wished to make the Indians
believe that she was indifferent to their ill-will, and that she possessed
some hidden power that gave her security.

She approached the lodge slowly on the occasion of her visit, picking red
whortleberries by the way. Benjamin watched her nervous motions, and felt
that they implied a want of respect, and he grew silent and looked
stoical. Gretchen went out to meet her, and brought her to the old chief.

[Illustration: _Afar loomed Mount Hood._]

It was a beautiful day, one of those long dreams of golden splendor that
glorify the banks of the Oregon. Eccentric Victor Trevette and his Indian
wife were at the lodge, and the company were joined by the Rev. Jason Lee,
who had come up the Columbia in the interests of the mission in the
Willamette Valley. Seattle[B] was there, from the Willamette, then
young, and not yet the titular chief of Governor Stevens.[C] It was a
company of diverse spirits--Trevette, the reputed gambler, but the true
friend of the Indian races; Lee, who had beheld Oregon in his early
visions, and now saw the future of the mountain-domed country in dreams;
sharp-tongued but industrious and warm-hearted Mrs. Woods; the musical
German girl, with memories of the Rhine; and the Indian chief and his
family. The Columbia rolled below the tall palisades, the opposite bank
was full of cool shadows of overhanging rocks, sunless retreats, and
dripping cascades of glacier-water. Afar loomed Mount Hood in grandeur
unsurpassed, if we except Tacoma, inswathed in forests and covered with
crystal crowns. The Chinook winds were blowing coolly, coming from the
Kuro Siwo, or placid ocean-river from Japan; odoriferous, as though
spice-laden from the flowery isles of the Yellow Sea. Warm in winter, cool
in summer, like the Gulf winds of Floridian shores, the good angel of the
Puget Sea territories is the Chinook wind from far Asia, a mysterious
country, of which the old chief and his family knew no more than of the
blessed isles.

"It is a day of the Great Manitou," said the old chief. "He lights the
sun, and lifts his wings for a shadow, and breathes on the earth. He fills
our hearts with peace. I am glad."

"I only wish my people in the East knew how wonderful this country is,"
said Jason Lee. "I am blamed and distrusted because I leave my mission
work to see what great resources here await mankind. I do it only for the
good of others--something within me impels me to do it, yet they say I
neglect my work to become a political pioneer. As well might they censure
Joshua."

"As a missionary," said the old hunter, "you would teach the Indians
truth; as a pioneer, you would bring colonies here to rob them of their
lands and rights. I can respect the missionary, but not the pioneer. See
the happiness of all these tribal families. Benjamin is right--Mrs. Woods
has no business here."

"Adventurer," said Mrs. Woods, rising upon her feet, "I am a
working-woman--I came out here to work and improve the country, and you
came here to live on your Injun wife. The world belongs to those who work,
and not to the idle. It is running water that freshens the earth. Husband
and I built our house with our own hands, and I made my garden with my own
hands, and I have defended my property with my own hands against bears
and Injuns, and have kept husband to work at the block-house to earn money
for the day of trouble and helplessness that is sure some day to come to
us all. I raise my own garden-sass and all other sass. I'm an honest
woman, that's what I am, and have asked nothing in the world but what I
have earned, and don't you dare to question my rights to anything I
possess! I never had a dollar that I did not earn, and that honestly, and
what is mine is mine."

"Be careful, woman," said the hunter. "It will not be yours very long
unless you have a different temper and tongue. There are black wings in
the sky, and you would not be so cool if you had heard the things that
have come to my ears."

Mrs. Woods was secretly alarmed. She felt that her assumed boldness was
insincere, and that any insincerity is weakness. She glanced up a long
ladder of rods or poles which were hung with Potlatch masks--fearful and
merciless visages, fit to cover the faces of crime. She had heard that
Umatilla would never put on a mask himself, although he allowed the custom
at the tribal dances. Mrs. Woods dropped her black eyes from the ominous
masks to the honest face of the chief.

"There," said she, lifting her arm, "there sits an honest man. He never
covered his heart with a mask--he never covered his face with a mask. He
has promised me protection. He has promised to protect the school. I can
trust a man who never wears a mask. Most people wear masks--Death takes
the masks away; when Death comes to Umatilla, he will find great Umatilla
only, fearless and noble--honest and true, but no mask. He never wore a
mask."

"But, woman," said Umatilla, "you are wearing a mask; you are afraid."

"Yes, but I can trust your word."

"You seek to please me for your own good."

"Yes--but, Umatilla, I can trust your word."

"The word of Umatilla was never broken. Death will come to Umatilla for
his mask, and will go away with an empty hand. I have tried to make my
people better.--Brother Lee, you have come here to instruct me--I honor
you. Listen to an old Indian's story. Sit down all. I have something that
I would say to you."

The company sat down and listened to the old chief. They expected that he
would speak in a parable, and he did. He told them in Chinook the story of


_THE WOLF BROTHER._

An old Indian hunter was dying in his lodge. The barks were lifted to
admit the air. The winds of the seas came and revived him, and he called
his three children to him and made his last bequests.

"My son," he said, "I am going out into the unknown life whence I came.
Give yourself to those who need you most, and always be true to your
younger brother."

"My daughter," he said, "be a mother to your younger brother. Give him
your love, or for want of it he may become lonely and as savage as the
animals are."

The two older children promised, and the father died at sunset, and went
into the unknown life whence he came.

The old Indian had lived apart from the villages of men for the sake of
peace; but now, after his death, the oldest son sought the villages and he
desired to live in them. "My sister," he said, "can look out for my little
brother. I must look out for myself."

But the sister tired of solitude, and longed to go to the villages. So one
day she said to her little brother: "I am going away to find our brother
who has taken up his abode in the villages. I will come back in a few
moons. Stay you here."

But she married in the villages, and did not return.

The little brother was left all alone, and lived on roots and berries. He
one day found a den of young wolves and fed them, and the mother-wolf
seemed so friendly that he visited her daily. So he made the acquaintance
of the great wolf family, and came to like them, and roam about with them,
and he no longer was lonesome or wished for the company of men.

One day the pack of wolves came near the villages, and the little boy saw
his brother fishing and his sister weaving under a tree. He drew near
them, and they recognized him.

"Come to us, little brother," said they, sorry that they had left him to
the animals.

"No--no!" said he. "I would rather be a wolf. The wolves have been kinder
to me than you.

    "My brother,
     My brother,
     I am turning--
     am turning
     Into a wolf.
      You made me so!

    "My sister,
     My sister,
     I am turning--
     I am turning
     Into a wolf.
      You made me so!"

"O little brother, forgive me," said the sister; "forgive me!"

"It is too late now. See, I _am_ a wolf!"

He howled, and ran away with the pack of wolves, and they never saw him
again.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Jason Lee, be good to my people when I am gone, lest they become like the
little brother.

"Victor Trevette, be good to my people when I am gone, lest they become
like the little brother."

The tall form of Marlowe Mann now appeared before the open entrance of the
lodge. The Yankee schoolmaster had been listening to the story. The old
chief bent his eye upon him, and said, "And, Boston tilicum, do you be
good to Benjamin when I am gone, so that he shall not become like the
little brother."

"You may play, Gretchen, now--it is a solemn hour; the voices of the gods
should speak."

Gretchen took her violin. Standing near the door of the tent, she raised
it to her arm, and the strains of some old German music rose in the
glimmering air, and drifted over the Columbia.

"I think that there are worlds around this," said the old chief. "The
Great Spirit is good."

The sun was going down. High in the air the wild fowls were flying, with
the bright light yet on their wings. The glaciers of Mount Hood were
flushed with crimson--a sea of glass mingled with fire. It was a pastoral
scene; in it the old history of Oregon was coming to an end, after the
mysteries of a thousand years, and the new history of civilization was
beginning.

Evening came, and the company dispersed, but the old chief and Gretchen
sat down outside of the tent, and listened to the murmuring music of the
Dalles of the Columbia, and breathed the vital air. The Columbia is a mile
wide in some places, but it narrows at the Dalles, or shelves and pours
over the stone steps the gathered force of its many tides and streams.
Across the river a waterfall filled the air with misty beauty, and a
castellated crag arose solitary and solemn--the remnant of some great
upheaval in the volcanic ages.

[Illustration: _A castellated crag arose solitary and solemn._]

The red ashes of the sunset lingered after the fires of the long day had
gone down, and the stars came out slowly. The old chief was sad and
thoughtful.

"Sit down by my feet, my child," he said to Gretchen, or in words of this
meaning. "I have been thinking what it is that makes the music in the
violin. Let us talk together, for something whispers in the leaves that my
days are almost done."

"Let me get the violin and play to you, father; we are alone."

"Yes, yes; get the music, child, and you shall play, and we will talk. You
shall sit down at my feet and play, and we will talk. Go, my little
spirit."

Gretchen brought her violin, and sat down at his feet and tuned it. She
then drew her bow, and threw on the air a haunting strain.

"Stop there, little spirit. It is beautiful. But what made it beautiful?"

"My bow--don't you see?"

Gretchen drew her bow, and again lifted the same haunting air.

"No--no--my girl--not the bow--something behind the bow."

"The strings?"

"No--no--something behind the strings."

"My fingers--so?"

"No--no--something behind the fingers."

"My head--_here_?"

"No--something behind that."

"My heart?"

"No--no--something behind that."

"I?"

"Yes--you, but something behind that. I have not seen it, my girl--your
spirit. It is that that makes the music; but there is something behind
that. I can feel what I can not see. I am going away, girl--going away to
the source of the stream. Then I will know everything good is
beautiful--it is good that makes you beautiful, and the music beautiful.
It is good that makes the river beautiful, and the stars. I am going away
where all is beautiful. When I am gone, teach my poor people."

Gretchen drew his red hand to her lips and kissed it. The chief bent low
his plumed head and said:

"That was so beautiful, my little spirit, that I am in a haste to go. One
moon, and I will go. Play."

Gretchen obeyed. When the strain died, the two sat and listened to the
murmuring of the waters, as the river glided down the shelves, and both of
them felt that the Spirit of Eternal Goodness with a Father's love
watched over everything.

The old chief rose, and said again:

"When I am gone to my fathers, teach my poor people." He added: "The voice
of the good spirits ask it--the All-Good asks it--I shall go away--to the
land whence the light comes. You stay--teach. You will?"

"Yes," said Gretchen--a consciousness of her true calling in life coming
upon her, as in an open vision--"I will be their teacher."

The old chief seemed satisfied, and said: "It is well; I am going away."

Much of the chief's talk was acted. If he wished to speak of a star, he
would point to it; and he would imitate a bird's call to designate a bird,
and the gurgle of water when speaking of a running stream. He spoke
Chinook freely, and to see him when he was speaking was to learn from his
motions his meaning.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote B: See Historical Notes.]

[Footnote C: See Historical Notes.]




CHAPTER X.

MRS. WOODS MEETS LITTLE ROLL OVER AGAIN.


One day Rev. Jason Lee came up from the Cascades, in a boat, to visit Mr.
and Mrs. Woods on their donation claim. Mr. Lee at this tine was inspired
with missionary zeal for the Indians, and he remembered Mrs. Woods kindly
as an ignorant but earnest and teachable woman, whom the influence of his
preaching had brought to his spiritual flock. He knew her needs of counsel
and help, he pitied her hard and lonely life, and he came to visit her
from time to time.

He had once given her a copy of Wesley's Hymns, and these hymns she had
unconsciously learned, and delighted to quote on all occasions. Her
favorite hymn in the collection was written by Thomas Olivers, one of
Wesley's coadjutors, beginning--

    "The God of Abrah'm praise."

She used to sing it often about her work; and one approaching the cabin,
might often have heard her trying to sing to the old Hebrew melody of
_Leoniel_--a tune perhaps as old as the Jewish Temple itself--such sublime
thoughts as these--

    "The God of Abrah'm praise,
       At whose supreme command
     From earth I rise, and seek the joys
       At his right hand;
     I all on earth forsake,
       Its wisdom, fame, and power;
     And him my only portion make,
       My shield and tower.

    "He by himself hath sworn,
       I on his oath depend;
     I shall, on eagles' wings upborne,
       To heaven ascend:
     I shall behold his face,
       I shall his power adore,
     And sing the wonders of his grace
       Forever more."

Another favorite hymn, in an easy metre, was John Wesley's triumphant
review of life in his middle age. The tune, although marked in the
music-books C.P.M., and thus indicating some difficulty, was really as
simple as it was lively, and carried the voice along like the music of a
meadow stream:

    "How happy is the pilgrim's lot,
     How free from every anxious thought,
       From worldly hope and fear!
     Confined to neither court nor cell,
     His soul disdains on earth to dwell--
       He only sojourns here."

Mrs. Woods was singing as usual about her work, when Jason Lee rapped at
her door.

"Father Lee," said Mrs. Woods, "can I trust my eyes!--come again to see
me, away out here in the timber? Well, you are welcome. I have got
something on my mind, and I have long been wanting to have a talk with
you. How is the mission at the Dalles?"

"It is prospering, but I regard it as my duty to leave it and go back to
the East; and this may be my farewell visit, though I expect to come back
again."

"Why, Father Lee, what has changed your mind? You surely can not think it
your duty to leave this great country in the Oregon! You are needed here
if anywhere in this world."

"Yes, but it is on account of this country on the Oregon being great, as
you call it, that I must go away. It was once my calling in life to become
a missionary to the Indians of Oregon, and to see this wonderful land. The
same Voice that called me to that work calls me again to go back to tell
the people of the East of their great opportunity here. I owe it to my
country's future to do this. I have eaten the grapes of a promised land,
and I must return to my own people with the good report. I believe that
the best life of America will yet be here--it seems to be so revealed to
me. My mission was to the Indians; it is now to induce colonies to come to
the Oregon."

"Well, each heart knows its own calling and duty, and none of us are led
alike. Father Lee, Gretchen has been reprovin' me, though she shouldn't,
perhaps, being a girl. She was sassy to me, but she meant well. She is a
well-meanin' girl, though I have to be hard on her sometimes--it is my
duty to be, you know.

"Well, some months ago, more than a year, an Injun ran away with my best
saw, and that gave me a prejudice against the Injuns, I suppose.
Afterward, Young Eagle's Plume--Benjamin, the chief's boy--insulted me
before the school by takin' a stick out of my hand, and I came to dislike
him, and he hates me. There are many Injuns in the timber now, and they
all cast evil looks at me whenever I meet them, and these things hint that
they are goin' to capture me at the Potlatch and carry me away. I hate
Injuns.

"But Gretchen has told me a thing that touches my feelin's. She says that
Benjamin he says that he will protect me on account of his love for the
master; and that, on account of my love for the good Master of us all and
his cause, I ought to show a different spirit toward the Injuns. What do
you think?"

"Gretchen is right, although a girl should be modest with her elders.
Hatred only multiplies itself; when one overcomes his evil passions he
gains others, and loses nothing. Do you see?"

"But I am always good to those I like and those who treat me well. Think
how I used to take care of the sick folk on our way out here, and what I
have tried to do for Gretchen!"

"'If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye?' All people love
those who love them--the savages do. To give up one's evil desires, and to
help others by returning love for hate, is the true life. The best friends
in the world that we can have are those that we have drawn to our hearts
by forgiveness. Do something good to every Indian that hates you, and you
will never be carried away captive."

"But Whitman, remember Whitman: he showed the right spirit, and the Injuns
killed _him_!"

"His death was caused by a misapprehension, and it made him a martyr. His
work lives. Men live in their work."

"Well, Father Lee, if Benjamin can overcome his evil feelin's for his
master, I ought to do so for mine, as Gretchen says. My bad spirit in this
matter has long troubled me; it has caused a cloud to come over me when
singin' hymns. I will give it all up now--I will give up everything, and
just follow the better spirit. I want to do right, so that I can sing
hymns."

When Father Lee left the cabin, Mrs. Woods accompanied him to his boat on
the river.

As they were passing along under the tall spruces whose tops glimmered in
the sun, and whose cool shadows made the trail delightful and refreshing,
a black she-bear suddenly rose up before them, and a cub started up by her
side. The great bear and the little bear both stood on their haunches,
with their fore-feet outstretched like arms, as in great surprise. Mrs.
Woods stopped and threw up her arms, and Parson Lee drew back.

Mrs. Woods looked at the little bear, and the little bear at her.

"Roll over, roll over!" she suddenly exclaimed. A strange event followed,
very strange indeed in the eyes of the startled missionary. The little
bear rolled itself into a ball, and began to turn over and over, and to
come toward them in its somersaults.

The mother bear made a peculiar noise, dropped upon her four feet and ran
off into the timber; and the little one, hearing the noise and movement,
leaped up and followed her.

"What _does_ that mean?" asked the missionary, in astonishment.

"That is Little Roll Over. I taught him that trick myself. He was once a
pet of mine, and he ran away."

"Extraordinary!" said the missionary; "and it seems to me, if you have
such a good influence over bears, you might do a great deal of good among
the Indians."

"And I will," said Mrs. Woods. "I mean to live so I can sing hymns, and
feel right about it."

On the return home, Mrs. Woods looked everywhere for her pet bear. She did
not fear the old bear, for these animals are generally harmless if
unmolested. She called, "Roll Over! Roll Over!" when she came to the place
where she had had the adventure. But there was no answer except from the
blue jays that piped out their shrill call in the tall trees.

Mrs. Woods came home to have a long battle with herself. Her idea of
happiness seemed to be the freedom to sing hymns with a clear conscience,
and the poor pioneer woman's philosophy was not very far from right.




CHAPTER XI.

MARLOWE MANN'S NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE.


Besides the Narrative of Lewis and Clarke, which was used in the school as
a reader, Mr. Mann made use of another book in his teaching which greatly
delighted his pupils and often awakened their sympathies. It was called
"John E. Jewett and Thompson." It presented a picture of life on the coast
early in the century. The strange story was much as follows:


_THE ROBINSON CRUSOE OF VANCOUVER._

About the year 1802 the ship Boston, from Boston, Mass., went to Hull,
England, to secure a cargo of goods to carry to the Indians on the
Northwest coast of America to trade for furs. She was a general
trading-vessel, such as roamed the seas of the world adventurously at that
time, and often made fortunes for the merchants of New York, Boston, and
other Atlantic port cities.

She was commanded by Captain John Salter, a clever man and a natural
story-teller, whose engaging pictures of travel were sure to fascinate the
young.

While in England this man met a lad by the name of John Rogers Jewett, who
listened eagerly to his romantic adventures, and who desired to embark
with him for America, and was allowed by his parents to make the voyage.
The ship sailed around Cape Horn to Nootka Island, one of the islands on
the west coast of Vancouver Island between the forty-ninth and fiftieth
parallel. Here the whole crew, with the exception of young Jewett and a
man by the name of Thompson, were massacred by the Indians, and the
strange and tragic narrative of the survivors was an American and English
wonder-tale seventy years ago. Mr. Jewett published the account of his
capture and sufferings, under the title of "John R. Jewett and Thompson,"
or, to copy the title of the quaint old book before me, "A Narrative of
the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewett, only Survivor of the Crew
of the Ship Boston, during a Captivity of nearly Three Years among the
Savages of Nootka Sound." The book was issued from London, England, and
from Middletown, Conn. After Robinson Crusoe, perhaps no book was more
eagerly read by our grandfathers in their boyhood than this.

The Indian king of Nootka was Maquina. He used to visit the ship,
sometimes wearing a wooden mask over his face representing some wild
beast. Such masks are still to be found among the Indians of Vancouver.

Maquina was at first very friendly to Captain Salter, but one day the
latter offended him, and he resolved to have his revenge by killing him
and the crew, and destroying the ship. Accordingly, one morning, after he
had been capering on deck and blowing a rude whistle, he said to the
captain:

"When do you intend to sail?"

"To-morrow," replied the captain.

"You love salmon--much in Friendly Cove; go, then, and catch some," said
the chief.

The captain thought it very desirable to have a large supply of fish on
board, so he assented to the chief's proposal, and, after dinner with the
latter, he sent away a jolly-boat or yawl with nine men to fish in
Friendly Cove.

A series of tragedies followed. "I went down to my vise-bench in the
steerage," says Mr. Jewett, in his Narrative, "where I was employed in
cleaning muskets. I had not been there more than an hour, when I heard a
great bustle and confusion on deck. I ran up the steerage stairs, but
scarcely was my head above deck when I was caught by the hair by one of
the savages. My hair was short, and I fell from his hold into the
steerage. As I was falling, he struck me with an axe and cut a deep gash
in my forehead. I remained in a state of suspense for some time, when
Maquina himself appeared at the hatch and ordered me to come up. What a
terrific spectacle met my eyes! Six naked savages stood in a circle around
me, covered with the blood of my murdered comrades! I thought that my last
moment had come, and commended my soul to my Maker.

"'John,' said the chief, 'I speak--you no say no; you say no--daggers
come. Will you become my slave and fight for me?' I answered, 'Yes.' Then
he told me that he would spare my life.

"Taking me by the hand, he led me to the quarter-deck, where the most
horrid sight presented itself; the heads of our unfortunate captain and
his crew, to the number of twenty-five, were arranged in a line.

"Maquina then ordered me to get the ship under way for Friendly Cove. We
were there received by the inhabitants of the village with loud shouts of
joy and a horrible drumming of sticks upon the roofs and sides of their
houses. Maquina took me on shore to his house."

Young Jewett became a favorite of the chief's son, and was made a member
of the tribe. He was compelled to marry an Indian princess, and his search
for his wife is a wonderful romance, and really very poetic, as the
marriage customs of the tribes are associated with a rustic festival
worthy of a painter and poet. The young princess chosen was beautiful, and
served him with the most affectionate devotion, but he could not love her,
because he had been compelled to marry her.

The most remarkable incidents of this strange narrative are associated
with the fate of those who were engaged in the massacre of the officers
and crew of the Boston, and which show that the experience of retribution
is a law common to all peoples and lands.

The principal chief or sub-chief among the warriors was Tootooch. He had
married Maquina's sister. He ranked next to Maquina in all things
pertaining to war, and he had been the foremost leader and the most
merciless of conquerors in the destruction of the Boston. He killed two
men on shore, presumably with his own hand.

Insanity is not common among the Indians. But a terrible mania took
possession of this ambitious warrior. "While in the enjoyment of the
highest health," says Mr. Jewett, "he was suddenly seized with delirium,
in which he fancied that he saw the ghosts of the two men that he had
murdered." The avenging vision followed him wherever he went. He was
filled with terror at all times, and at last refused to eat to sustain his
life. The Indians forced food into his mouth.

Maquina was informed of the terrible state of the warrior's mind by his
sister, Tootooch's wife. He went to the haunted man's house, taking Mr.
Thompson and Mr. Jewett with him. "We found him raving about the two
murdered men, Hall and Wood," says Jewett. "Maquina placed provisions
before him, but he would not eat."

At last the distressed _tyee_, induced by hunger, put forth his hand to
touch the food. But he suddenly drew it back, saying that Hall and Wood
were there.

"They will not let me eat," said he, with a look of despair and terror.

Maquina pointed to Thompson and Jewett.

"Is it they who have bewitched you?" he asked.

"_Wik_ (no); John _klashish_ (is good), Thompson _klashish_ (is good)."

He arose and piteously put his hand on Jewett's shoulder, and, pointing to
the food offered him, he said, "Eat."

"Eat it yourself," replied Mr. Jewett. "Hall and Wood are not there."

"You can not see them," he answered; "I can. I know that you can not see
them."

"What do you do in your own country in such cases as this?" asked Maquina.

"We confine the person and whip him," said Jewett.

The chief ordered that the haunted warrior should be confined and whipped;
but the pain did not relieve the warrior's mind of the terrible vision of
the two men that he had killed. He grew more wild. He would torture his
slaves for diversion. His wife fled from him. The vision continued until
he became completely exhausted, and Death came with a merciful face.

"Early in June," says Mr. Jewett, "Tootooch, the crazy chief, died. The
whole village set up a loud cry. The body was laid on a plank, and the
head bound with a red fillet. It was then wrapped in an otter-skin robe
and placed in a large coffin, which was ornamented with rows of white
shells. It was buried by night in a cavern."

The _tyees_ or chiefs had discussed often the policy of putting Mr. Jewett
and Mr. Thompson to death, and so end all evidence of the destruction of
the Boston in the event of new ships appearing on the coast. But the
spectacle of Tootooch staring at the ghosts of the men that he had killed,
and wasting away amid days and nights of horror, made them fear that the
other warriors engaged in the massacre would become affected in the like
way, and deterred them from any further violence. Jewett was at last
rescued by a trading-ship, and was taken to the Columbia River, where he
arrived shortly after the visit of Lewis and Clarke, of the famous
expedition that bears these names. He finally came to New England and
settled in Middletown, Conn. His history gives a very picturesque view of
the habits and customs of the Indians on the Northwest coast nearly a
century ago. The book can be found in antiquarian libraries, and should be
republished in the interest of American folk-lore. The truth of the
incidents gives the whole narrative a vivid and intense interest; it reads
like De Foe.




CHAPTER XII.

OLD JOE MEEK AND MR. SPAULDING.


One day a man in a buckskin habit came to the door of the school-house and
looked in upon the school. His face was that of a leader of men, hard and
powerful; one could see that it feared nothing, and that it looked with
contempt on whatever was artificial, affected, or insincere. His form had
the strength and mettle of a pioneer. He rapped a loud, hard rap, and
said, in a sturdy tone:

"May I come in?"

The master welcomed him cordially and courteously, and said:

"This is Mr. Meek, I believe?"

"Yes, old Joe Meek, the pioneer--you have heard of me."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Mann. "You have caught the spirit of Oregon--you are
Oregon. You have made the interest of this great country your life; I
honor you for it. I feel the same spirit coming over me. What we do here
is done for a thousand years, for here the great life of the Anglo-Saxon
race is destined to come. I can see it; I feel it. The morning twilight of
time is about me. I can hear the Oregon calling--calling; to teach here is
a glorious life; the whole of humanity is in it. I have no wish to return
to the East again."

"Stranger, give me your hand."

The New England schoolmaster took the hard hand of the old pioneer, and
the two stood there in silence.

The children could not understand the great, soul-expanding sympathy that
made these two men friends. They gazed on Mr. Meek's buckskin jacket and
trousers with curiosity, for they were picturesque with their furs, belts,
and weapons, and he looked like a warrior or a forest knight clad in
armor.

He wore the same buckskin suit when he appeared in Washington as the
delegate to Congress from Oregon. It was at the time of Polk and Dallas,
and not a person in Washington probably knew him when he made his
appearance at the Congressional Hotel.

The people at the hotel stared at him as the children did now. He went
into the great dining-room with the other Congressmen, but alone and
unknown. The colored waiters laughed at him as he took his seat at the
table.

The other people at the table were served, but no one came near him. At
last he turned and faced a hurrying colored man, and, in a voice that
silenced the room, said:

"Waiter, come here!"

The waiter rolled up his eyes and said, "Sir?"

"Have you any big meat to-day?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any bear?"

"Any bear? bear? No, sir."

"Any buffalo?"

"Any buffalo--buffalo? Where did you come from? No, sir."

"Well, waiter you may bring me what you have."

The waiter went away with white teeth, and a smile and titter passed
around the table. The waiter returned with the usual first course of the
meal, and was about to hurry away, when the old pioneer took out his
pistol and laid it down on the table, saying:

"Waiter, you stand there, I may want you; and if anybody wants to know who
I am, tell him I am Hon. Joseph Meek, the delegate of the people of
Oregon."

When it was known who Mr. Meek was, he was met by Mr. Dallas, the courtly
Vice-President.

"I will attend you to the reception this afternoon, where you will meet
the wives of the Congressmen," said he. "I will call for you at three."

The Vice-President called, and was surprised to find Mr. Meek still in his
buckskins.

"You do not intend to go in that habit to the reception?" said he.

"Yes," said Mr. Meek, "or else not go at all. In the first place, I have
nothing else to wear, and what is good enough for me to wear among the
people of Oregon is good enough for their representative here."

We have given, in these two anecdotes, very nearly Mr. Meek's own words.

A few days after the visit of this most extraordinary man, another visitor
came. She was an earnest-looking woman, on an Indian pony, and there was a
benevolence in her face and manner that drew the whole school into
immediate sympathy with her. The lady was Mrs. Spaulding, one of the
so-called "Brides of Oregon." Her husband had come to the Territory with
Dr. Whitman and his bride. The long missionary journey was the bridal tour
of Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spaulding. They were the first white women who
crossed the Rocky Mountains. It was related of Mrs. Spaulding, who had a
beautiful voice, and was a member of a church quartet or choir in a
country town in New York, as a leading singer, that, just before leaving
the place for her long horseback journey of more than two thousand miles,
she sang in the church the hymn beginning--

    "Yes, my native land, I love thee,"

in such an affecting manner as to silence the rest of the choir, and melt
the congregation to tears:

    "Home, thy joys are passing lovely,
      Joys no stranger's heart can tell;
     Happy scenes and happy country,
      Can I bid you all farewell?
        Can I leave thee,
      Far in heathen lands to dwell?"

This lady addressed the school, and spoke feelingly of the condition of
the Indian race, and of the field for the teacher in the valleys of the
Columbia.

Gretchen listened to the address with open heart. There are moments of
revelation when a knowledge of one's true calling in life comes to the
soul. Faith as a blind but true guide vanishes, and the eye sees. Such was
the hour to Gretchen. She had often felt, when playing on the violin, that
the inspiration that gave such influence to her music should be used in
teaching the tribes that were so susceptible to its influence. This
feeling had grown in the playing and singing of a school-song, the words
of which were written by Mrs. Hunter, an English lady, and the wife of the
famous Dr. Hunter, which showed the heroism and fortitude of the Indian
character:

    "The sun sets at night and the stars shun the day,
     But glory remains when the light fades away;
     Begin, ye tormentors, your threats are in vain,
     For the son of Alknoomook will never complain."

The tune or melody was admirably adapted to the violin. Benjamin loved to
hear it sung, and Gretchen was pleased to sing and to play it.

Mr. Mann asked Gretchen to play for Mrs. Spaulding, and she chose this
simple but expressive melody. He then asked the school to sing, and he
selected the words of

    "Yes, my native land, I love thee,"

to the music of Rousseau's Dream. Mrs. Spaulding could hardly keep from
joining in the tune and hymn, then well known to all the missionary
pioneers. At the words--

    "In the desert let me labor,
     On the mountain let me tell,"

her beautiful voice rose above the school, and Gretchen's fingers trembled
as she played the air.

As the lady rode away, Gretchen felt tears coming into her eyes. The
school was dismissed, and the pupils went away, but Gretchen lingered
behind. She told Benjamin to go to the lodge, and that she would follow
him after she had had a talk with the master.

"That song is beautiful," said Gretchen. "'In the desert let me labor.'
That is what I would like to do all my life. Do you suppose that I could
become a teacher among the Indians like Mrs. Spaulding? It would make me
perfectly happy if I could. If I were to study hard, would you help me to
find such a place in life?"

Gretchen's large eyes, filled with tears, were bent earnestly on the face
of Mr. Mann.

"Yes," he said, "and if I can inspire you only to follow me in such work,
it will repay me for an unknown grave in the forests of the Columbia."

Gretchen started; she trembled she knew not why, then buried her face in
her arms on the rude log desk and sobbed.

She raised her head at last, and went out, singing--

    "In the desert let me labor."

It was a glorious sundown in autumn. The burning disk of the sun hung in
clouds of pearl like an oriel-window in a magnificent temple. Black
shadows fell on the placid waters of the Columbia, and in the limpid air
under the bluffs Indians fished for salmon, and ducks and grebes sported
in river weeds.

Marlowe Mann went away from the log school-house that night a happy man.
He had seen that his plans in life were already budding. He cared little
for himself, but only for the cause to which he devoted his life--to begin
Christian education in the great empire of Oregon.

But how unexpected this episode was, and how far from his early dreams!
His spirit had inspired first of all this orphan girl from the Rhine, who
had been led here by a series of strange events. This girl had learned
faith from her father's prayers. On the Rhine she had never so much as
heard of the Columbia--the new Rhine of the sundown seas.




CHAPTER XIII.

A WARNING.


One evening, as Gretchen was sitting outside of the lodge, she saw the
figure of a woman moving cautiously about in the dim openings of the
fir-trees. It was not the form of an Indian woman--its movement was
mysterious. Gretchen started up and stood looking into the darkening
shadows of the firs. Suddenly the form came out of the clearing--it was
Mrs. Woods. She waved her hand and beckoned to Gretchen, and then drew
back into the forest and disappeared.

Gretchen went toward the openings where Mrs. Woods had so suddenly and
strangely appeared. But no one was there. She wondered what the secret of
the mysterious episode could be. She returned to the lodge, but said
nothing about what she had seen. She passed a sleepless night, and
resolved to go to see her foster-mother on the following day.

So, after school the next afternoon, she returned to her old home for a
brief visit, and to gain an explanation of the strange event of the
evening before.

She found Mrs. Woods very sad, and evidently troubled by some ominous
experience.

"So you saw me?" was her first salutation. "I didn't dare to come any
further. They did not see me--did they?"

"But, mother, why did you go away--why did you come to the lodge?"

"O Gretchen, husband has been at home from the shingle-mill, and he has
told me something dreadful!"

"What, mother?"

"There's a conspiracy!"

"Where?"

"Among the Injuns. A friendly Injun told husband in secret that there
would be no more seen of the log school-house after the Potlatch."

"Don't fear, mother; the chief and Benjamin will protect that."

"But that isn't all, Gretchen. Oh, I am so glad that you have come home!
There are dark shadows around us everywhere. I can feel 'em--can't you?
The atmosphere is all full of dark faces and evil thoughts. I can't bear
to sleep alone here now. Gretchen, there's a plot to capture the
schoolmaster."

"Don't fear, mother. I know Umatilla--he will never permit it."

"But, Gretchen, the Injun told husband something awful."

"What?"

"That the schoolmaster would one day perish as Dr. Whitman did. Dr.
Whitman was stricken down by the Injun whom he regarded as his best
friend, and he never knew who dealt the blow. He went out of life like one
smitten by lightning. O Gretchen!"

"But, mother, I do not fear. The Indians thought that Dr. Whitman was a
conjurer. We make people true, the master says, by putting confidence in
them. I believe in the old chief and in Benjamin, and there will no evil
ever come to the schoolmaster or the log school-house."

"Gretchen, are you sure? Then I did not bring you away out here for
nothing, did I? You may be the angel of deliverance of us all. Who knows?
But, Gretchen, I haven't told you all yet."

Mrs. Woods's face clouded again.

"The Injun told husband that some of the warriors had formed a plot
against _me_, and that, if they were to capture me, they would torture me.
Gretchen, I am afraid. Don't you pity me?"

"Mother, I know my power over the chief and Benjamin, and I know the power
of a chief's sense of honor. I do pity you, you are so distressed. But,
mother, no evil will ever come to you where I am, nor the school where I
am. I am going to be a teacher among these Indians, if I live; I feel this
calling, and my work will somehow begin here."

"A teacher among the Injuns! You? You a teacher? Are anvils going to fly?
Here I am, a poor lone woman, away out here three thousand miles from
home, and tremblin' all over, at every sound that I hear at night, for
fear I shall be attacked by Injuns, and you are dreamin', with your head
all full of poetry, of goin' away and leavin' me, the best friend that you
ever had on the earth, as good as a mother to you; of goin' away--of
leavin' me, to teach a lot of savages! Gretchen, I knew that the world was
full of empty heads, but I never realized how empty the human heart is
until now! Been a mother to you, too!"

"O mother, I never thought of leavin' you unless you wished it."

"What did you think was goin' to become of me? I never kissed any child
but you, and sometimes, when you are real good, I feel just as though I
was your mother."

"I thought that you would help me."

"Help you, what doin'?"

"To teach the Indians."

"To teach the Injuns--Indians you call 'em! I'd like to teach one Injun to
bring back my saw! I never tried to teach but one Injun--and he was _him_.
You can't make an eagle run around a door-yard like a goose, and you can't
teach an Injun to saw wood--the first thing you know, the saw will be
missin'.--But how I am runnin' on! I do have a good deal of prejudice
against the savages; nevertheless--"

"I knew, mother, that you would say 'nevertheless.' It seems to me that
word is your good spirit. I wish you would tell me what thought came to
your mind when you said that word."

"'Nevertheless?'"

"Yes."

"Well, the Master--"

"He said--"

"Yes--preach the gospel to every creature! I suppose that meant Injuns and
all."

"Yes--he said '_teach_'--so the schoolmaster explained it."

"Did he? Well, I ought to obey it in spirit--hadn't I?--or at least not
hinder others. I might help you teach it if I could get into the right
spirit. But what put that thought into your head?"

"Mrs. Spaulding, the missionary, has been to visit the school. She sang so
beautifully! These were the words:

    "'In the desert let me labor,
      On the mountain let me tell.'

"When she sung that, it all came to me--what I was--what I was sent into
the world to do--what was the cause of your loving me and bringing me out
here--I saw a plan in it all. Then, too, it came to me that you would at
first not see the calling as I do, but that you would say _nevertheless_,
and help me, and that we would work together, and do some good in the
world, you and I. Oh! I saw it all."

"Gretchen, did you see all that? Do you think that the spirit has eyes,
and that they see true? But how could I begin? The Injuns all hate me."

"Make them love you."

"How?"

"Say _nevertheless_ to them."

"Well, Gretchen, you are a good girl, and I am sorry for the hard things
that I have said. I do not feel that I have shown just the right spirit
toward Benjamin. But he has said that he will not do me any harm, for the
sake of his master, and I am willin' to give up my will for my Master. It
is those that give up their desires that have their desires in this world,
and anybody who does an injury to another makes for himself a judgment-day
of some sort. You may tell Benjamin that I am real sorry for bein' hard to
him, and that, if he will come over and see me, I'll give him a carved
pipe that husband made. Now, Gretchen, you may go, and I'll sit down and
think a spell. I'll be dreadful lonely when you're gone."

Gretchen kissed her foster-mother at the door, and said:

"Your new spirit, mother, will make us both so happy in the future! We'll
work together. What the master teaches me, I'll teach you."

"What--books?"

"Yes."

"O Gretchen, your heart is real good! But see here--my hair is gray. Oh, I
am sorry--what a woman I might have been!"

Gretchen lay down in the lodge that night beside the dusky wife of the
old chief. The folds of the tent were open, and the cool winds came in
from the Columbia, under the dim light of the moon and stars.

The _tepee_, or tent, was made of skins, and was adorned with
picture-writing--Indian poetry (if so it might be called). Overhead were
clusters of beautiful feathers and wings of birds. The old chief loved to
tell her stories of these strange and beautiful wings. There were the
wings of the condor, of the bald and the golden eagle, of the duck-hawk,
pigeon-hawk, squirrel-hawk, of the sap-sucker, of the eider duck, and a
Zenaider-like dove. Higher up were long wings of swans and albatrosses,
heads of horned owls, and beaks of the laughing goose. Through the still
air, from some dusky shallow of the river came the metallic calls of the
river birds, like the trumpeting swan. The girl lay waking, happy in
recalling the spirit with which her foster-mother had accepted her plan of
life.

Suddenly her sensitive spirit became aware of something unusual and
strange at the opening of the tent. There was a soft, light step without,
a guarded footfall. Then a tall, dark shadow distinctly appeared, with a
glitter of mother-of-pearl ornaments and a waving of plumes. It stood
there like a ghost of a vivid fancy, for a time. Gretchen's heart beat. It
was not an unusual thing for an Indian to come to the _tepee_ late in the
evening; but there was something mysterious and ominous in the bearing and
atmosphere of this shadowy visitor. The form stepped within the opening of
the tent, and a voice whispered, "Umatilla, awake!"

The old chief raised himself on his elbow with an "Ugh!"

"Come out under the moon."

The old chief arose and went out, and the two shadowy forms disappeared
among a column of spruces on the musical banks of the Columbia.

Gretchen could not sleep. The two Indians returned late, and, as they
parted, Gretchen heard Umatilla's deep voice say, "No!"

Her fears or instincts told her that the interview had reference to plots
which were associated with the great Potlatch, now near at hand. She had
heard the strange visitor say, "The moon is growing," and there was
something shadowy in the very tone in which the words were spoken.

Mrs. Woods sat down in her home of bark and splints all alone after
Gretchen's departure.

"She offers to teach me," she said to herself. "I am so sorry that I was
not able to teach her. I never read much, any way, until I came under the
influence of the Methody. I might have taught her spiritual things--any
one can have spiritual knowledge, and that is the highest of all. But I
have loved my own will, and to give vent to my temper and tongue. I will
change it all. There are times when I am my better self. I will only talk
and decide upon what is best in life at such times as these. That would
make my better nature grow. When I am out of sorts I will be silent-like.
Heaven help me! it is hard to begin all these things when one's hair is
turnin' gray, and I never knew any one's gray hair to turn young again."

She sat in the twilight crying over herself, and at last sang the mournful
minor measures of a very quaint old hymn with a peculiar old history:

    "From whence doth this union arise
      That hatred is conquered by love?
     It fastens our souls in such ties
      As distance and time can't remove."

The October moon came up larger and larger night by night. It stood on the
verge of the horizon now in the late afternoon, as if to see the
resplendent setting of the sun. One wandered along the cool roads at the
parting of day between the red sun in the west and the golden moon in the
east, and felt in the light of the two worlds the melancholy change in the
atmospheres of the year. The old volcanoes glistened, for a wintry crust
was widening over their long-dead ovens. Mount Saint Helens, as the far
range which led up to the relic of the ancient lava-floods that is now
known by that name was called by the settlers, was wonderfully beautiful
in the twilights of the sun and moon. Mount Hood was a celestial glory,
and the shadows of the year softened the glimmering glories of the
Columbia. The boatman's call echoed long and far, and the crack of the
flint-lock gun leaped in its reverberations from hill to hill as though
the air was a succession of hollow chambers. Water-fowl filled the streams
and drifted through the air, and the forests seemed filled with young and
beautiful animals full of happy life.




CHAPTER XIV

THE POTLATCH.


A potlatch among the tribes of the Northwest means a feast at which some
wealthy Indian gives away to his own people or to a friendly tribe all
that he has. For this generosity he becomes a councilor or wise man, or
judge, an attendant on the chief in public affairs, and is held in
especial honor during the rest of his life.

To attain this honor of chief man or councilor, many an ambitious young
Indian labors for years to amass wampum, blankets, and canoes. The feast
at which he exchanges these for political honors is very dramatic and
picturesque. It is usually held at the time of the full moon, and lasts
for several days and nights. One of the principal features is the
_Tamanous_, or Spirit-dance, which takes place at night amid blazing
torches and deafening drums.

A chief rarely gives a Potlatch; he has no need of honors. But Umatilla
desired to close his long and beneficent chieftainship with a gift-feast.
He loved his people, and there seemed to him something noble in giving
away all his private possessions to them, and trusting the care of his old
age to their hearts. His chief men had done this, and had gained by it an
influence which neither power nor riches can attain. This supreme
influence over the hearts of his people he desired to possess. The
gift-feast was held to be the noblest service that an Indian could render
his race.

At the great Potlatch he would not only give away his private goods, but
would take leave of the chieftainship which he had held for half a
century. It was his cherished desire to see Benjamin made chief. His heart
had gone into the young heart of the boy, and he longed to see The Light
of the Eagle's Plume, sitting in his place amid the councilors of the
nation and so beginning a new history of the ancient people.

[Illustration: _At the Cascades of the Columbia_.]

The full moon of October is a night sun in the empires of the Columbia and
the Puget Sea. No nights in the world can be more clear, lustrous, and
splendid than those of the mellowing autumn in the valleys of Mount Saint
Helens, Mount Hood, and the Columbia. The moon rises over the crystal
peaks and domes like a living glory, and mounts the deep sky amid the pale
stars like a royal torch-bearer of the sun. The Columbia is a rolling
flood of silver, and the gigantic trees of the centuries become a ghostly
and shadowy splendor. There is a deep and reverent silence everywhere,
save the cry of the water-fowl in the high air and the plash of the
Cascades. Even the Chinook winds cease to blow, and the pine-tops to
murmur.

It was such a night that the Potlatch began. On an open plateau
overlooking the Columbia the old chief had caused a large platform to be
built, and on this were piled all his canoes, his stores of blankets, his
wampum, and his regal ornaments and implements of war. Around the plateau
were high heaps of pine-boughs to be lighted during the Spirit-dance so as
to roll a dark cloud of smoke under the bright light of the high moon, and
cause a weird and dusky atmosphere.

The sun set; the shadows of night began to fall, but the plateau was
silent. Not a human form was to be seen anywhere, not even on the river.
Stars came out like lamps set in celestial windows, and sprinkled their
rays on the crimson curtains of the evening.

The glaciers on Mount Hood began to kindle as with silver fires. The east
seemed like a lifting gate of light. The great moon was rising.

Hark! At the first ray of the moon there are heard low, mysterious sounds
everywhere. The forests are full of them--calls, like the coyote's bark,
or bird-calls, or secret signals. They are human voices. They answer each
other. There are thousands of voices calling and answering.

The full moon now hangs low over the forests, golden as the morning sun in
the mists of the calm sea. There is a piercing cry and a roll of
war-drums, and suddenly the edges of the forest are full of leaping and
dancing forms. The plateau is alive as with an army. Pipes play, shells
rattle, and drums roll, and the fantastic forms with grotesque motions
pass and repass each other.

Up the Columbia comes a fleet of canoes like a cloud passing over the
silvery ripples. The river is all alive with human forms, and airy paddles
and the prows of tilting boats.

The plateau swarms. It is covered with waving blankets and dancing plumes.
All is gayety and mirth.

There is another roll of drums, and then silence.

The circling blankets and plumes become motionless. The chief of the
Cascades is coming, and with him is Benjamin and his young bride, and
Gretchen.

The royal party mount the platform, and in honor of the event the
torch-dance begins. A single torch flashes upon the air; another is
lighted from it, another and another. A hundred are lighted--a thousand.
They begin to dance and to whirl; the plateau is a dazzling scene of
circling fire. Gretchen recalled the old _fêtes_ amid the vineyards of the
Rhine in her childhood.

Hither and thither the circles move--round and round. There is poetry in
this fire-motion; and the great army of fire-dancers become excited under
it, and prepared for the frenzy of the Spirit-dance that is to follow.

The torches go out. The moon turns the smoke into wannish clouds of white
and yellow, which slowly rise, break, and disappear.

There is another roll of drums. Wild cries are heard in the forests. The
"biters" are beginning their hunt.

Who are the biters? They are Indians in hides of bears and wolves, who run
on their hands and feet, uttering terrible cries, and are followed by
women, who, to make the scene more fearful, pretend to hold them back, and
restrain them from violence. The Spirit-dance is held to be a sacred
frenzy, and before it begins the biters are charged to hunt the woods for
any who have not joined the army of dancers, and, if such are found, to
bite them and tear their flesh with their teeth. They also guard the dance
like sentinels, and fly at one who attempts to leave it before it is done.

The frenzied shrieks of these human animals, and of the women who follow
them, produce a wonderful nervous effect upon the listening multitudes.
All feel that they are about to enter into the ecstatic spiritual
condition of departed souls, and are to be joined by the shades of the
dead heroes and warriors of tradition and story.

Each dancer has a masque. It may be an owl's head with mother-of-pearl
eyes, or a wooden pelican's beak, or a wolf's head. It may be a wooden
animal's face, which can be pulled apart by a string, and reveal under it
an effigy of a human face, the first masque changing into great ears. The
museum at Ottawa, Canada, contains a great number of such masques, and
some missionaries in the Northwest make curious collections of them.

The whirling begins. Everywhere are whirling circles--round and round they
go. The sight of it all would make a spectator dizzy. Cries arise, each
more and more fearful; the whole multitude are at last shrieking with
dizzy heads and wildly beating pulses. The cries become deafening; an
almost superhuman frenzy passes over all; they seem to be no longer
mortal--the armies of the dead are believed to be about them; they think
that they are reveling in the joys of the heroes' paradise. One by one
they drop down, until the whole assembly is exhausted.

At midnight the great fires are kindled, and throw their lights and
shadows over the frenzied sleepers. Such was the _Tamanous_-dance, and so
ended the first night of the feast.

On the second night the old chief gave away his private possessions, and
on the third the wedding ceremony was performed.

The wild and inhuman Death-dance, which the tribe demanded, was expected
to end the festival at the going down of the shadowy moon. Could it be
prevented after the traditions of unknown centuries, and at a time when
the historical pride of the warriors was awakened to celebrate the
barbarous deeds of their ancestors?

The wedding was simple. It consisted chiefly in gifts to the bride,
Multoona. The girl was fantastically dressed, with ornaments of shells and
feathers, and she followed the young prince demurely. After the ceremony
of the bridal gifts came the Fire-fly dance, in which light-torches
gleamed out in vanishing spirals here and there, and over all the plain.
Then followed the _Tamanous_ or Spirit dance, in which a peculiar kind of
frenzy is excited, as has been described. The excitement was somewhat less
than usual this night, on account of the great orgies which were expected
to follow.

The third and great night of the Potlatch came. It was the night of the
full October moon. The sun had no sooner gone down in the crimson
cloud-seas among the mountains, than the moon, like another sun, broad and
glorious, lifted its arch in the distant blue of the serene horizon.

The Indians gathered on the glimmering plain in the early shadows of
evening, besmeared with yellow ochre and war-paint. Every head was plumed.
There was a savagery in their looks that had not been seen before.

The wild dancers began their motions. The Spirit or _Tamanous_ dance
awakened a frenzy, and all were now impatient for the dance of the Evil
Spirits to begin.

The moon hung low over the plateau and the river. The fires were kindled,
and the smoke presently gave a clouded gold color to the air.

The biters were out, running hither and thither after their manner, and
filling the air with hideous cries.

All was expectation, when the old chief of the Cascades stepped upon the
platform, and said:

"Listen, my children--listen, O sons of the warriors of old. Twice four
times sixty seasons, according to the notch-sticks, have the wings of wild
geese cleaved the sky, and all these years I have lived in peace. My last
moon has arisen--I have seen the smile of the Great Spirit, and I know
that the last moon hangs over my head.

"Warriors, listen! You have always obeyed me. Obey me once more. Dance not
the dance of the Evil Spirits to-night. Let me die in peace. Let not blood
stain my last days. I want you to remember the days of Umatilla as the
days of corn and maize and the pipes of peace. I have given you all I
have--my days are done. You will respect me."

There were mutterings everywhere, suppressed cries of rage, and sharp
words of chagrin and disappointment. The old chief saw the general
dissatisfaction, and felt it like a crushing weight upon his soul.

"I am going to light the pipe of peace," said he, "and smoke it now before
you. As many of you as love Umatilla, light the pipes of peace."

Not a light glimmered in the smoky air. There were words of hate and
suppressed cries everywhere. A circle was forming, it widened, and it
seemed as though the dreaded dance was about to begin in spite of the
command of the old chief.

Suddenly a form in white stood beside Umatilla. It was Gretchen. A white
arm was raised, and the martial strain of the "Wild Hunt of Lutzow"
marched out like invisible horsemen, and caused every Indian to listen.
Then there were a few sharp, discordant strains, and then the _Traumerei_
lifted its spirit-wings of music on the air.

[Music: Tranmerei.

BY ROBERT SCHUMANN, SIMPLIFIED BY F. BRANDEIS.]

[Music]

[Music]

The murmurs ceased. The plain grew still. "Romance" followed, and then the
haunting strain of the _Traumerei_ rose again. It ceased. Lights began to
glimmer here and there. Peace-pipes were being lighted.

"You have saved your people," said Umatilla. "Play it again."

Again and again the dream-music drifted out on the air. The plain was now
filled with peace-pipes. When the last blended tones died away, the whole
tribe were seated on the long plateau, and every old warrior was smoking a
pipe of peace.

Gretchen saw that her spirit, through the violin, had calmed the sea. She
was sure now that she had rightly read her mission in life. Amid the scene
of glimmering peace-pipes, a heavenly presence seemed near her. She had
broken the traditions of centuries by the sympathetic thrill of four
simple strings. She felt that Von Weber was there in spirit, and Schumann.
She felt that her father's soul was near her; but, more than all, she felt
that she was doing the work of the Great Commission. She bowed her head on
the instrument, thought of poor, terrorized Mrs. Woods in her lonely home,
and wept.

A seen and unseen world had come to her--real life. She saw her power;
the gates of that mysterious kingdom, in which the reborn soul is a new
creation, had been opened to her. Her spirit seemed to rise as on
new-created wings, and the world to sink beneath her. She had spiritual
sight, ears, and senses--a new consciousness of Divine happiness. Her
purpose became strong to live for the soul alone, and she sung, over and
over again, amid the silence of the peace-pipes and the rising of those
puffs of smoke in the silver illumination of the high moon--

    "In the deserts let me labor,
      On the mountains let me tell."




CHAPTER XV.

THE TRAUMEREI AGAIN.


An hour passed in this mysterious and strange tranquillity--the noon hour
of night. The warriors seemed contented and satisfied. Many of them were
old; some of them remembered the coming of the first ships to the
Columbia, and a few of them the long visit of Vancouver. They knew the
wisdom of Umatilla, and seemed proud that his will had been so readily
obeyed.

But not so with the biters. They were young, and they had plotted on this
night to begin hostilities against the settlers. Their plan had been to
burn the log school-house and the house of the Woodses, and to make a
captive of Mrs. Woods, whose hostile spirit they wished to break and
punish. Soon after the quiet scene at midnight they began to be restless.
Their cries arose here and there about the margin of the plateau and along
the river.

The old chief knew their feelings, and saw the stormy ripples here and
there. He arose slowly, and called:

"My people, draw near."

The tribe gathered about the platform. The young braves knew what the old
chief was about to say, and their cries of discontent grew loud and
multiplied.

"The log school-house!" shrieked one, in a voice of rage.

"_Pil-pil!_" cried another. "_Pil-pil!_" echoed many voices. A tumult
followed, and Gretchen started up from her reverie, and heard among the
restless murmurs the name of Mrs. Woods.

She felt a nervous terror for a moment, but her spiritual sense and faith,
which had come to her like a new-born life, returned to her.

She arose on the platform and took her violin, and looked down upon the
sea of dusky faces in the smoky moonlight. She drew her bow. The music
quivered. There was a lull in the excited voices. She played low, and
there followed a silence.

The old chief came heavily up on the platform with a troubled face and
stood beside her.

"Play the beautiful air." She played the _Traumerei_ again.

The chief arose, as the last strain died away, and said:

"My people, listen."

The plateau was silent. The Columbia could be heard flowing. The trees
seemed listening. Benjamin came upon the platform, reeling, and seemed
about to speak to his father, but the old chief did not heed.

"My people, listen," repeated the chief.

A wild shriek of pain rent the air, and Benjamin dropped at the feet of
his father. It was his voice that uttered the cry of agony and despair as
he fell.

What had happened?

The boy lay on the platform as one dead. The old chief bent over him and
laid his hand on his face. He started back as he did so, for the face was
cold. But the boy's eyes pitifully followed every movement of his father.
Gretchen sunk down beside the body, and drew her hand across his forehead
and asked for water. Benjamin knew her.

Soon his voice came again. He looked wistfully toward Gretchen and said:

"I shall never go to find the Black Eagle's nest again. It is the plague.
My poor father!--my poor father!"

"Send for the medicine-man," said the chief. "Quick!"

Hopping-Bear, the old medicine-man, came, a dreadful figure in eagle's
plumes and bear-skins. To affect the imagination of the people when he was
going to visit the sick, he had been accustomed to walk upon his two hands
and one foot, with the other foot moving up and down in the air. He
believed that sickness was caused by obsession, or the influence of some
evil spirit, and he endeavored, by howlings, jumpings, and rattling of
snake-skins, to drive this imaginary spirit away. But he did not begin his
incantations here; he looked upon Benjamin with staring eyes, and cried
out:

"It is the plague!"

The old chief of the Cascades lifted his helpless face to the sky.

"The stars are gone out!" he said. "I care for nothing more."

The boy at times was convulsed, then lay for a time unconscious after the
convulsions, then consciousness would return. In one of these moments of
consciousness he asked of Gretchen:

"Where is Boston tilicum?"

"He is not here--he does not know that you are sick."

"Run for him; tell him I can't go to the Missouri with him. I can't find
the Black Eagle's nest. Run!"

His mind was dreaming and wandering.

Gretchen sent a runner to bring the schoolmaster to the dreadful scene.

A convulsion passed over the boy, but he revived again.

"Have faith in Heaven," said Gretchen. "There is One above that will save
you."

"One above that will save me! Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Gretchen.

She added:

"Mother is sorry for what she said to you."

"I am sorry," said the boy, pathetically.

He was lost again in spasms of pain. When he revived, Marlowe Mann had
come. The boy lifted his eyes to his beloved teacher vacantly; then the
light of intelligence came back to them, and he knew him.

"I can't go," he said. "We shall never go to the lakes of the honks
together. Boston tilicum, I am going to die; I am going away like my
brothers--where?"

It was near the gray light of the morning, and a flock of wild geese were
heard trumpeting in the air. The boy heard the sound, and started.

"Boston tilicum!"

"What can I do for you?"

"Boston tilicum, listen. Do you hear? What taught the honks where to go?"

"The Great Father of all."

"He leads them?"

"Yes."

"He will lead me?"

"Yes."

"And teach me when I am gone away. I can trust him. But my father--my
father! Boston tilicum, he loves me, and he is old."

Flock after flock of wild geese flew overhead in the dim light. The boy
lay and listened. He seemed to have learned a lesson of faith from the
instincts of these migratory birds. He once turned to the master and said,
almost in Gretchen's words:

"There is One above that will save me."

As the morning drew nearer, the air seemed filled with a long procession
of Canadian geese going toward the sea. The air rang with their calls. The
poor boy seemed to think that somehow they were calling to him.

There was silence at last in the air, and he turned toward Gretchen his
strangely quiet face, and said, "Play."

Gretchen raised her bow. As she did so a sharp spasm came over him. He
lifted his hand and tried to feel of one of the feathers from the Black
Eagle's nest. He was evidently wandering to the Falls of the Missouri. His
hand fell. He passed into a stertorous sleep, and lay there, watched by
the old chief and the silent tribe.

Just as the light of early morn was flaming through the tall, cool, dewy
trees, the breathing became labored, and ceased.

There he lay in the rising sun, silent and dead, with the helpless chief
standing statue-like above him, and the tribe, motionless as a picture,
circled around him, and with Gretchen at his feet.

"Make way!" said the old chief, in a deep voice.

He stepped down from the platform, and walked in a kingly manner, yet with
tottering steps, toward the forest. Gretchen followed him. He heard her
step, but did not look around.

"White girl, go back," he said; "I want to be alone."

He entered the forest slowly and disappeared.

Just at night he was seen coming out of the forest again. He spoke to but
a single warrior, and only said:

"Bury him as the white men bury; open the blanket of the earth; and
command the tribe to be there--to-morrow at sundown. Take them all away--I
will watch. Where is the white girl?"

"She has gone home," said the Indian.

"Then I will watch alone. Take them all away--I want to be alone. It is
the last night of the chief of the Umatillas. It is the last watch of the
stars. My blood is cold, my heart beats slow--it will not be long!"

The chief sat all night by the body. In the morning he went to his lodge,
and the tribe made the preparations for the funeral, and opened a grave in
the earth.




CHAPTER XVI.

A SILENT TRIBE.


It was sunset on the bluffs and valleys of the Columbia. Through the tall,
dark pines and firs the red west glowed like the lights in an oriel or
mullioned window. The air was voiceless. The Columbia rolled silently in
the shadows with a shimmering of crimson on its deep middle tides. The
long, brown boats of the salmon-fishers sat motionless on the tide. Among
the craft of the fishermen glided a long, airy canoe, with swift paddles.
It contained an old Umatilla Indian, his daughter, and a young warrior.
The party were going to the young chief's funeral.

[Illustration: _Multnomah Falls._]

As the canoe glided on amid the still fishermen of other tribes, the
Indian maiden began to sing. It was a strange song, of immortality, and of
spiritual horizons beyond the visible life. The Umatillas have poetic
minds. To them white Tacoma with her gushing streams means a mother's
breast, and the streams themselves, like the Falls of the distant
Shoshone, were "falling splendors."

She sang in Chinook, and the burden of her song was that horizons will
lift forever in the unknown future. The Chinook word _tamala_ means
"to-morrow"; and to-morrow, to the Indian mind, was eternal life.

The young warrior joined in the refrain, and the old Indian listened. The
thought of the song was something as follows:

    "Aha! it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow--
       Tamala, tamala, sing as we row;
     Lift thine eye to the mount; to the wave give thy sorrow;
     The river is bright, and the rivulets flow;
           Tamala, tamala,
           Ever and ever;
     The morrows will come and the morrows will go--
               Tamala! tamala!

    "Happy boat, it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow--
       Tamala, whisper the waves as they flow;
     The crags of the sunset the smiles of light borrow,
       And soft from the ocean the Chinook winds blow:
           Tamala, tamala,
           Ever and ever;
     The morrows will come and the morrows will go--
               Tamala! tamala!

    "Aha! the night comes, but the light is to-morrow--
       Tamala, tamala, sing as we go;
     The waves ripple past, like the heart-beats of sorrow,
      And the oar beats the wave to our song as we row:
           Tamala, tamala,
           Ever and ever;
     The morrows will come and the morrows will go--
              Tamala! tamala!

    "For ever and ever horizons are lifting--
      Tamala, tamala, sing as we row;
     And life toward the stars of the ocean is drifting,
      Through death will the morrow all endlessly glow--
           Tamala, tamala,
           Ever and ever;
     The morrows will come and the morrows will go,
                        Tamala! tamala!"

The paddle dipped in the wave at the word _tamala_, and lifted high to
mark the measure of the song, and strew in the warm, soft air the watery
jewels colored by the far fires of the Sound. So the boat swept on, like a
spirit bark, and the beautiful word of immortality was echoed from the
darkening bluffs and the primitive pine cathedrals.

The place where the grave had been made was on the borders of the Oregon
desert, a wild, open region, walled with tremendous forests, and spreading
out in the red sunset like a sea. It had a scanty vegetation, but a slight
rain would sometimes change it into a billowy plain of flowers.

The tribe had begun to assemble about the grave early in the long
afternoon. They came one by one, solitary and silent, wrapped in blankets
and ornamented with gray plumes. The warriors came in the same solitary
way and met in silence, and stood in a long row like an army of shadows.
Squaws came, leading children by the hand, and seated themselves on the
soft earth in the same stoical silence that had marked the bearing of the
braves.

A circle of lofty firs, some three hundred feet high, threw a slanting
shadow over the open grave, the tops gleaming with sunset fire.

Afar, Mount Hood, the dead volcano, lifted its roof of glaciers twelve
thousand feet high. Silver ice and black carbon it was now, although in
the long ages gone it had had a history written in flame and smoke and
thunder. Tradition says that it sometimes, even now, rumbles and flashes
forth in the darkness of night, then sinks into rest again, under its
lonely ice palaces so splendid in the sunset, so weird under the moon.

Just as the red disk of the sun sunk down behind this stupendous scenery,
a low, guttural sound was uttered by Potlatch Hero, an old Indian brave,
and it passed along the line of the shadowy braves. No one moved, but all
eyes were turned toward the lodge of the old Umatilla chief.

He was coming--slowly, with measured step; naked, except the decent
covering of a blanket and a heroic ornament of eagle-plumes, and all
alone.

The whole tribe had now gathered, and a thousand dusky forms awaited him
in the sunset.

There was another guttural sound. Another remarkable life-picture came
into view. It was the school in a silent procession, following the tall
masks, out of the forest trail on to the glimmering plain, the advent of
that new civilization before which the forest lords, once the poetic bands
of the old Umatillas, were to disappear. Over all a solitary eagle beat
the luminous air, and flocks of wild geese made their way, like V-letters,
toward the Puget Sea.

The school soon joined the dusky company, and the pupils stood with
uncovered heads around their Yankee pedagogue. But the old chief came
slowly. After each few steps he would stop, fold his arms, and seem lost
in contemplation. These pauses were longer as he drew near the silent
company.

Except the honks of the pilots of the flocks of wild geese, there was a
dead silence everywhere. Only eyes moved, and then furtively, toward the
advancing chief.

[Illustration: _The old chief stood stoical and silent._]

He reached the grave at last by these slow movements, and stepped upon the
earth that had been thrown out of it, and folded his arms in view of
all. A golden star, like a lamp in the windows of heaven, hung over Mount
Hood in the fading splendors of the twilight, and the great chief bent his
eye upon it.

Suddenly the air was rent by a wail, and a rattle of shells and drums. The
body of Benjamin was being brought out of the lodge. It was borne on a
bier made of poles, and covered with boughs of pine and fir and red
mountain phlox. It was wrapped in a blanket, and strewn with odorous
ferns. Four young braves bore it, besmeared with war-paint. They were
followed by musicians, who beat their drums, and rattled shell instruments
at irregular times, as they advanced. They came to the grave, lifted the
body on its blanket from the bier of evergreens and flowers, and slowly
lowered it. The old chief stood stoical and silent, his eye fixed on the
star in the darkening shadows.

The face of Benjamin was noble and beautiful in its death-sleep. Over it
were two black eagle's plumes. The deep black hair lay loosely about the
high, bronze forehead; there was an expression of benevolence in the
compressed lips, and the helpless hands seemed like a picture as they lay
crossed on each other.

As soon as the body was laid in the earth, the old chief bent his face on
the people. The mysterious dimness of death was in his features. His eyes
gleamed, and his bronze lips were turning pale.

"My nation, listen; 'tis my last voice. I am a Umatilla. In my youth the
birds in the free lakes of the air were not more free. I spoke, and you
obeyed. I have but one more command to give. Will you obey me?

"You bow, and I am glad.

"Listen!

"My fathers were men of war. They rolled the battle-drums. I taught my
warriors to play the pipes of peace, and sixty years have they played them
under the great moons of the maize-fields. We were happy. I was happy.

"I had seven sons. The white man's plague came; the shadow fell on six of
them, and they went away with the storm-birds. They entered the new canoe,
and sailed beyond us on the sea of life. They came back no more at the
sunrisings and sun settings, at the leaf-gatherings of the spring, or the
leaf-fallings of the autumn. They are beyond.

"One son was left me--Benjamin. He was no common youth; the high spirits
were with him, and he came to be like them, and he has gone to them now. I
loved him. He was my eyes; he was my ears; he was my heart. When I saw his
eyes in death, my eyes were dead; when he could hear me call his name no
longer, my ears lost their hearing; when his young heart ceased to beat,
my own heart was dead. All that I am lies in that grave, beside my dead
boy.

"My nation, you have always obeyed me. I have but one more command to
make. Will you obey me?

"You bow again. My life-blood is growing cold. I am about to go down into
that grave.

"One step! The clouds fly and darken, and you will see them return again,
but not I.

"Two steps! Farewell, sun and light of day. I shall see thee again, but
not as now.

"Three steps! Downward to the grave I descend to meet thee, my own dear
boy. Adieu, my people. Adieu, hearts of faith. Farewell, ye birds of the
air, ye mighty forests, ye sun of night, and ye marches of stars. I am
dying.

"Two steps more I will take. There he lies before me in the unfolded
earth, the life of my life, the heart of my heart.

"You have promised to obey me. I repeat it--you have promised to obey me.
You have always done so. You must do so now. My hands are cold, my feet
are cold, and my heart beats very slow. Three steps more, and I shall lay
myself on the body of my boy. Hear, then, my last command; you have
promised to obey it like brave men.

"When I have taken my last three steps of life, and laid down beside the
uncovered bed of earth beside my boy, fill up the grave forever; my breath
will be gone; Umatilla will be no more. You must obey.

"One step--look! There is fire on the mountain under the curtains of the
night. Look, the peak flashes; it is on fire.--O Spirit of All, I come!
One step more! Farewell, earth. Warriors, fill the grave! The black
eagle's plumes will now rest forever."

There was deep silence, broken only by the sobs of the little school. A
warrior moved and passed round the grave, and uttered the word "Dead!" The
braves followed him, and the whole tribe like shadows. "Dead!" "Dead!"
passed from mouth to mouth. Then a warrior threw a handful of earth into
the grave of the father and son. The braves followed his example, then all
the tribe.

As they were so doing, like phantoms in the dim light, Mount Saint
Helens[D] blazed again--one volcanic flash, then another; then all was
darkness, and the moon arose in a broad sea of light like a spectral sun.

The grave was filled at last. Then they brought the Cayuse pony of
Benjamin toward the grave, and a young brave raised the hatchet to kill
it, that it might bear the dead boy into the unknown land.

There was a cry! It came from Gretchen. The girl rushed forward and stood
before the hatchet. The pony seemed to know her, and he put his head over
her shoulder.

"Spare him!" she said. "Benjamin gave him to me--the soul of Benjamin
would wish it so."

"Let the girl have her way," said the old warriors.

The moon now moved free in the dark-blue sky, and sky, forest, and plain
were a silver sea. The Indians began to move away like shadows, one by
one, silent and slow. Gretchen was the last to go. She followed the
school, leading the pony, her soul filled with that consciousness of a new
life that had so wonderfully come to her. Her way in life now seemed
clear: she must teach the Umatillas.

She left the pony in a grassy clearing, on the trail that led to her home,
and hurried toward the cabin to describe all the events of the day to her
foster-mother.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote D: See Notes.]




CHAPTER XVII.

A DESOLATE HOME AND A DESOLATE PEOPLE.


As Gretchen was hurrying home on the evening after these exciting scenes,
she met Mrs. Woods in the trail, and she saw at a glance that her
foster-mother was in great distress.

"O Gretchen," she said, "I am so glad that you have come--you are all that
is left to me now! I am all alone in the world! Have you heard it,
Gretchen?"

"What, mother?"

"Husband is drowned!"

Mrs. Woods seized the arm of the girl, and the two helpless women hurried
toward their rude home, each to relate to the other a scene of distress,
and each to wonder what the wide future had in store for them.

They held each other by the hand, and talked in the open door of the
cabin. Then they went in and ate a simple meal of milk and berries, and
lay down and slept the sleep of sorrow.

At the early light they awoke. Almost the first words that Gretchen spoke
were: "Let us face life and be fearless. I have faith. My father had
faith, and my mother lived by faith. It was faith that led them across the
sea. Their faith seemed to be unfulfilled, but it will be fulfilled in me.
I feel it. Mother, let trouble pass. We belong to the family of God."

"You are a comfort to me, Gretchen. I can not see my way--it is covered."

"But you can trust your Guide, mother, and the end of trust _is_ peace."

"What are we to do, Gretchen?"

"I will go to Walla Walla and seek the advice of Mrs. Spaulding."

"Gretchen, don't you think that the schoolmaster is a good man?"

"Yes, I am sure that he is."

"I am. Let us go to him and follow his advice. We will go together."

They agreed to make the visit on the following day in the morning, before
school.

Gretchen told her foster-mother the story of the Indian pony.

"Where is he now?" asked Mrs. Woods.

"I left him in the clearing. I will go and find him."

"I will go with you," said Mrs. Woods.

The two went out together. They came to the clearing--a place of waving
grass, surrounded with gigantic trees, in whose tops were great nests of
birds. The pony was not there.

"He has gone to the next clearing," said Gretchen.

They passed through a strip of wood to another clearing. But the pony was
not there.

As they were returning, a little black animal crossed their path.

Mrs. Woods said, "Hold!" then called out in a kindly voice, "Roll over."
The little animal rolled head over heels in a very comical way, then ran
quickly into the thick bushes. It was the last time that Mrs. Woods ever
saw little Roll Over, and Gretchen never saw the pony again. The latter
probably found a herd of horses and wandered away with them. It was a time
of such confusion and distress that the matter did not awaken the interest
of the Indians at that time.

That evening they talked of plans for the future.

"Let us seek work in one of the missionary stations," said Gretchen, "or
let us find a home among the Indians themselves. I want to become a
teacher among them, and I know that they would treat you well."

Mrs. Woods's views on these matters were changing, but something of her
old distrust and prejudice remained despite her good resolutions.

"Foxes and geese were never made to hold conference meetings together. You
can't make one man out of another if you try."

"But, mother, your English ancestors once wandered about in sheep-skins,
and worshiped the oaks; the whole English race, and the German race, were
made what they are by teachers--teachers who gave themselves to a cause
almost two thousand years ago."

"Yes, I suppose that is so. But, Gretchen, I want your heart; I never
thought that you would give it to the Injuns. I ought not to be so ruled
by my affections; but, if I do scold you, there is something in you that
draws my heart toward you all the time. I believe in helping others;
something good in the future always comes of it. If men would be good to
each other, Heaven would be good to the world. It is the things done here
in this world that are out of order, and I never was on very good terms
with myself even, not to say much of the world. But you have helped me,
Gretchen, and hymns have helped me. I want you to be charitable toward my
feelins', Gretchen, when I grow old, and I pray that you will always be
true to me."

"I shall always be true to you, whatever I may be called to do. I shall
not leave you until you give your consent. One day you will wish me to do
as I have planned--I feel it within me; something is leading me, and our
hearts will soon be one in my plan of life."

"It may be so, Gretchen. I have had a hard time, goin' out to service when
I was a girl. My only happy days were during the old Methody preaching of
Jason Lee. I thought I owned the heavens then. It was then I married, and
I said to husband: 'Here we must always be slaves, and life will be master
of us; let us go West, and own a free farm, and be masters of life.' There
is a great deal in being master of life. Well, we have had a hard time,
but husband has been good to me, and you have made me happy, if I have
scolded. Gretchen, some people kiss each other by scoldin'; I do--I scold
to make the world better. I suppose everything is for the best, after
all. There is no experience in life that does not teach us something, and
there is a better world beyond that awaits all who desire a better life.
Our desires are better than ourselves--mine are. Good desires are prayers,
and I think that they will all be answered some day."

She sat in silence, thinking of her lonely situation, of her ignorance and
imperfection, of her often baffled struggles to do well in this world and
to overcome her poor, weak self, and she burst into tears.

"Play," she said. "Music is a kind of prayer." And Gretchen touched the
musical glasses.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LIFTED CLOUD--THE INDIANS COME TO THE SCHOOLMASTER.


The next day witnessed a strange scene at the log school-house on the
Columbia. It was a red October morning. Mrs. Woods accompanied Gretchen to
the school, as she wished to have a talk with Mr. Mann.

As the two came in sight of the house, Mrs. Woods caught Gretchen by the
arm and said:

"What's _them_?"

"Where?"

"Sittin' in the school-yard."

"They are Indians."

"Injuns? What are they there for?"

"I don't know, mother."

"Come for advice, like me, may be."

"Perhaps they are come to school. The old chief told them that I would
teach them."

"You?"

"They have no father now."

"No father?"

"No chief."

Mrs. Woods had been so overwhelmed with her own grief that she had given
little thought to the death of Benjamin and the chief of the Cascades. The
unhappy condition of the little tribe now came to her as in a picture;
and, as she saw before her some fifty Indians seated on the ground, her
good heart came back to her, and she said, touched by a sense of her own
widowhood, "Gretchen, I pity 'em."

Mrs. Woods was right. These Indians had come to seek the advice of Mr.
Mann in regard to their tribal affairs. Gretchen also was right. They had
come to ask Mr. Mann to teach their nation.

It was an unexpected assembly that Marlowe Mann faced as he came down the
clearing, but it revealed to him, at a glance, his future work in life.

The first of the distressed people to meet him was Mrs. Woods.

"O Mr. Mann, I am all alone in the world, and what am I goin' to do?
There's nothin' but hard days' work left to me now, and--hymns. Even
Father Lee has gone, and I have no one to advise me. You will be a friend
to me, won't you?"

"Yes," said Mr. Mann. "I need you, and the way is clear."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a letter from Boston."

"What is it, Marlowe Mann?"

"The Indian Educational Society have promised me a thousand dollars for my
work another year. I must have a house. I would want you to take charge of
it. _But_--your tongue?"

"O Master Mann, I'll give up my tongue! I'll just work, and be still. If
an Injun will give up his revenge, an' it's his natur', ought not I to
give up my tongue? When I can't help scoldin' I'll just sing hymns."

Mr. Mann gazed into the faces of the Indians. The warm sunlight fell upon
them. There was a long silence, broken only by the scream of the eagles in
the sky and the passing of flocks of wild geese. Then one of the Indians
rose and said:

"Umatilla has gone to his fathers.

"Benjamin has gone to his fathers. We shall never see Young Eagle's plume
again!

"Boston tilicum, be our chief. We have come to school."

Mr. Mann turned to Gretchen. Her young face was lovely that morning with
sympathy. He said in a low voice:

"You see _our_ work in life. Do you understand? Will you accept it?"

She understood his heart.

"I will do whatever you say."

       *       *       *       *       *

In 1859 a great Indian Reservation was established in what is known in
Oregon as the Inland Empire of the Northwest. It contained about two
hundred and seventy thousand acres, agricultural land and timber-land. The
beautiful Umatilla River flows through it. The agency now is near
Pendleton, Oregon. Thither the Umatillas were removed.

Marlowe Mann went there, and Gretchen as his young wife, and in their home
Mrs. Woods for many years could have been heard singing hymns.

Their home stood for the Indian race, and the schoolmaster and his wife
devoted themselves to the cause of Indian education. Through the silent
influence of Mr. Mann's correspondence with the East, Indian civilization
was promoted, and the way prepared for the peaceful settlement of the
great Northwest.

Gretchen taught the Indians as long as she lived. Often at evening, when
the day's work had been hard, she would take her violin, and a dream of
music would float upon the air. She played but one tune at last as she
grew serenely old. That tune recalled her early German home, the Rhine,
her good father and mother, and the scenes of the great Indian Potlatch on
the Columbia. It was the _Traumerei_.

Her poetic imagination, which had been suppressed by her foster-mother in
her girlhood, came back to her in her new home, and it was her delight to
express in verse the inspirations of her life amid these new scenes, and
to publish these poems in the papers of the East that most sympathized
with the cause of Indian education.

The memory of Benjamin and the old chief of the Cascades never left her.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten lesson of the nobility of all men whose
souls have the birthright of heaven. Often, when the wild geese were
flying overhead in the evening, she would recall Benjamin, and say, "He
who guides led me here from the Rhine, and schooled me for my work in the
log school-house on the Columbia."

Such is not an overdrawn picture of the early pioneers of the Columbia and
the great Northwest.

Jason Lee was censured for leaving his mission for the sake of Oregon--for
turning his face from the stars to the sun. Whitman, when he appeared
ragged at Washington, was blamed for having left his post. The early
pioneers of the great Northwest civilization lie in neglected graves. We
are now beginning to see the hand of Providence, and to realize how great
was the work that these people did for their own country and for the
world.

And Marlowe Mann--whose name stands for the Christian schoolmaster--no one
knows where he sleeps now; perhaps no one, surely but a few. He saw his
college-mates rise to honor and fame. They offered him positions, but he
knew his place in the world.

When his hair was turning gray, there came to him an offer of an
opportunity for wealth, from his remaining relatives. At the same time the
agency offered him the use of a farm. He accepted the latter for his
work's sake, and returned to his old friends a loving letter and an old
poem, and with the latter we will leave this picture of old times on the
Oregon:

    "Happy the man whose wish and care
      A few paternal acres bound;
     Content to breathe his native air
      On his own ground.

    "Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
      Whose flocks supply him with attire;
     Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
      In winter, fire.

    "Sound sleep by night, study and ease,
      Together mixed sweet recreation;
     And innocence, which most doth please,
      With meditation.

    "Blessed who can unconcernedly find
      Hours, days, and years glide soft away,
     In health of body, peace of mind;
      Quiet by day.

    "Thus let me live unseen, unknown;
      Thus unlamented let me die;
     Steal from the world, and not a stone
      Tell where I lie."




HISTORICAL NOTES.





I.

VANCOUVER.


The remarkable progress of the Pacific port cities of Seattle and Tacoma
make Washington an especially bright, new star on the national flag.
Surrounded as these cities are with some of the grandest and most poetic
scenery in the United States, with gigantic forests and rich farm-lands,
with mountains of ores, with coal-mines, iron-mines, copper-mines, and
mines of the more precious treasures; washed as they are by the water of
noble harbors, and smiled upon by skies of almost continuous April
weather--there must be a great future before the cities of Puget Sound.

The State of Washington is one of the youngest in the Union, and yet she
is not too young to celebrate soon the one-hundredth anniversary of
several interesting events.

It was on the 15th of December, 1790, that Captain George Vancouver
received his commission as commander of his Majesty's sloop of war the
Discovery. Three of his officers were Peter Puget, Joseph Baker, and
Joseph Whidby, whose names now live in Puget Sound--Mount Baker, and
Whidby Island.

The great island of British Columbia, and its energetic port city,
received the name of Vancouver himself, and Vancouver named most of the
places on Puget Sound in honor of his personal friends. He must have had a
heart formed for friendship, thus to have immortalized those whom he
esteemed and loved. It is the discovery and the naming of mountains,
islands, and ports of the Puget Sound that suggest poetic and patriotic
celebrations.

The old journals of Vancouver lie before us. In these we read:

"From this direction, round by the north and northwest, the high, distant
land formed, like detached islands, among which the lofty mountains
discovered in the afternoon by the third lieutenant, and in compliment to
him called by me Mount Baker, rose to a very conspicuous object."

It was on Monday, April 30, 1792, that Mount Baker was thus discovered
and named. In May, 1792, Vancouver states that he came to a "very safe"
and "capatious" harbor, and that "to this port I gave the name of Port
Townshend, in honor of the noble marquis of that name."

Again, on Thursday, May 29, 1792, Vancouver discovered another excellent
port, and says:

"This harbor, after the gentleman who discovered it, obtained the name of
Port Orchard."

In May, 1792, he makes the following very important historical note:

"Thus by our joint efforts we had completely explored every turning of
this extensive inlet; and, to commemorate Mr. Puget's exertions, the
fourth extremity of it I named Puget Sound."

A very interesting officer seems to have been this lieutenant, Peter
Puget, whose soundings gave the name to the American Mediterranean. Once,
after the firing of muskets to overawe hostile Indians, who merely pouted
out their lips, and uttered, "Poo hoo! poo hoo!" he ordered the discharge
of a heavy gun, and was amused to note the silence that followed. It was
in April and May, 1792, that Puget explored the violet waters of the great
inland sea, a work which he seems to have done with the enthusiasm of a
romancer as well as of a naval officer.

Mount Hood was named for Lord Hood, and Mount Saint Helens was named in
1792, in the month of October, "in honor of his Britannic Majesty's
ambassador at the court of Madrid." But one of the most interesting of all
of Vancouver's notes is the following:

"The weather was serene and pleasant, and the country continued to exhibit
the same luxuriant appearance. At its northern extremity Mount Baker bore
compass; the round, snowy mountain, now forming its southern extremity,
after my friend Rear-Admiral Ranier, I distinguished by the name of Mount
Ranier, May, 1792." This mountain is now Mount Tacoma.

The spring of 1892 ought to be historically very interesting to the State
of Washington, and it is likely to be so.




II.

THE OREGON TRAIL.


"There is the East. There lies the road to India."

Such was Senator Thomas H. Benton's view of the coast and harbors of
Oregon. He saw the advantage of securing to the United States the
Columbia River and its great basin, and the Puget Sea; and he made himself
the champion of Oregon and Washington.

In Thomas Jefferson's administration far-seeing people began to talk of a
road across the continent, and a port on the Pacific. The St. Louis
fur-traders had been making a way to the Rockies for years, and in 1810
John Jacob Astor sent a ship around Cape Horn, to establish a post for the
fur-trade on the Pacific Coast, and also sent an expedition of some sixty
persons from St. Louis, overland, by the way of the Missouri and
Yellowstone, to the Columbia River. The pioneer ship was called the
Tonquin. She arrived at the mouth of the Columbia before the overland
expedition. These traders came together at last, and founded Astoria, on
the Columbia.

Ships now began to sail for Astoria, and the trading-post flourished in
the beautiful climate and amid the majestic scenery. But the English
claimed the country. In June, 1812, war broke out with England, and
Astoria became threatened with capture by the English. It was decided by
Astor's agent to abandon the post; but Astoria had taught the United
States the value of Oregon.

The Oregon trail from St. Louis, by the way of the great rivers, the
Missouri, the Yellowstone, and the Columbia, followed the fall of Astoria,
and began the highway of emigration to the Pacific coast and to Asia. Over
it the trapper and the missionary began to go. The Methodist missionaries,
under the leadership of Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, were among the first
in the field, and laid the foundations of the early cities of Oregon. One
of their stations was at the Dalles of the Columbia. In 1835 the great
missionary, Marcus Whitman, of the Congregationalist Board, established
the mission at Walla Walla. Yet up to the year 1841, just fifty years ago,
only about one hundred and fifty Americans, in all, had permanently
settled in Oregon and Washington.

Senator Benton desired the survey of a route to Oregon, to aid emigration
to the Columbia basin. He engaged for this service a young, handsome,
gallant, and chivalrous officer, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who, with
Nicollet, a French naturalist, had been surveying the upper Mississippi,
and opening emigration to Minnesota.

Fremont espoused not only the cause of Oregon, but also Senator Benton's
young daughter Jessie, who later rendered great personal services to her
husband's expedition in the Northwest.

Kit Carson was the guide of this famous expedition. The South Pass was
explored, and the flag planted on what is now known as Fremont's Peak, and
the country was found to be not the Great American Desert of the maps, but
a land of wonderful beauty and fertility. In 1843 Fremont made a second
expedition; this time from the South Pass to the Columbia country. After
he was well on his way, the War Department recalled him; but Mrs. Fremont
suppressed the order, in the interest of the expedition, until it was too
late to reach him.

Fremont went by the way of Salt Lake, struck the Oregon trail, and finally
came to the mission that Dr. Whitman had founded among the Nez-Percés
(pierced noses) at Walla Walla. This mission then consisted of a single
adobe house.

The British claimants of the territory, finding that American immigration
was increasing, began to bring settlers from the Red River of the North. A
struggle now began to determine which country should possess this vast and
most important territory. When Dr. Whitman learned of the new efforts of
the English to settle the country, and the danger of losing Oregon by
treaties pending at Washington, he started for St. Louis, by the way of
Santa Fé. This ride, often called "Whitman's Ride for Oregon," is one of
the poetical events of American history. He went to Washington, was
treated cavalierly by the State Department, but secured a delay of the
treaties, which proved the means of saving Oregon and Washington to the
United States.

So his missionary efforts gave to our country an empire that seems
destined to become ultimate America, and a power in the Asian world.




III.

GOVERNOR STEVENS.


In the long line of brave American soldiers, General Isaac Ingalls Stevens
deserves a noble rank in the march of history. He was born at Andover,
Mass., and was educated at West Point, where he was graduated from the
Military Academy in 1839 with the highest honors. He was on the military
staff of General Scott in Mexico, and held other honorable positions in
the Government service in his early life.

But the great period of his life was his survey of the Northern route to
the Pacific, since largely followed by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and
his development of Washington Territory as a pioneer Governor. He saw the
road to China by the way of the Puget Sea, and realized that Washington
stood for the East of the Eastern Continent and the Western. He seems to
have felt that here the flag would achieve her greatest destiny, and he
entered upon his work like a knight who faced the future and not the past.
His survey of the Northern Pacific route led the march of steam to the
Puget Sea, and the great steamers have carried it forward to Japan, China,
and India.

His first message to the Legislature at Olympia (1854) was a map of the
future and a prophecy. It was a call for roads, schools, a university, and
immigration. The seal of Washington was made to bear the Indian word
_Alké_--"by and by"--or "in the future." It also was a prophecy.

He created the counties of Sawanish, Whatcom, Clallam, Chehalis, Cowlitz,
Wahkiakum, Skamania, and Walla Walla. Olympia was fixed upon as the seat
of government, and measures were taken by the Government for the
regulation of the Indian tribes.

Stevens was the military leader of the Indian war. He reduced the tribes
to submission, and secured a permanent peace. He was elected to Congress
as a Territorial delegate in 1857, and sought at Washington as earnestly
as on the Puget Sea the interests of the rising State.

He was a man of great intellect, of a forceful and magnetic presence--a
man born to lead in great emergencies. He carried New England ideas and
traditions to the Pacific, and established them there for all time to
come, creating there a greater New England which should gather to its
harbors the commerce of the world.

Governor Stevens was a conservative in politics, but when the news of the
fall of Sumter thrilled the country, he said to the people of Olympia, "I
conceive it my duty to stop disunion." He went to Washington and entered
the Union service.

He fell like a hero at Chantilly, and under the flag which he had taken
from his color-bearer, who had received a mortal wound. His was a splendid
career that the nation should honor. We recently saw his sword and
historic pictures at the home of his widow and son at Dorchester, Mass.,
and were impressed with these relics of a spirit that had done so much for
the progress of the country and mankind.

The State of Washington is his monument, and progressive thought his
eulogy. His great mind and energy brought order out of chaos, and set the
flag in whose folds he died forever under the gleaming dome of the
Colossus of American mountains and over the celestial blue of the Pacific
harbors of the Puget Sea.




IV.

SEATTLE THE CHIEF.


Seattle was a Dwamish chief, and a true friend of the white race, whom he
seemed to follow on account of their superior intelligence. He gave the
name to an early settlement, which is now a great city, and which seems
destined to become one of the important port cities of the world; for when
in 1852, some forty years ago, the pioneers of Alké Point left the town
which they had laid out and called New York, and removed to the other side
of the bay, they named the place Seattle, from the friendly chief, instead
of New York. Alké means _by and by_ and Seattle is likely to become the
New York of the Pacific, and one of the great ports for Asiatic trade.
With the immense agricultural and mineral resources with which it is
surrounded, with its inexhaustible stores of timber, its sublime scenery
and delightful climate, with its direct and natural water-road to Japan
and China, and its opportunity of manufacturing for the Asiatic market the
kind of goods that England has to carry to the same markets over an
adventurous course of three times the distance, with the great demand for
grain among the rice-eating countries of the East--the mind can not map
the possibilities of this port city for the next hundred years or more.
The prophecy of its enterprising citizens, that it will one day be one of
the great cities in the world, is not unlikely to be realized; and it is
interesting to ask what was the history of the chief who gave the name to
this new Troy of the Puget Sea.

He was at this time somewhat advanced in life, a portly man, of benevolent
face, recalling the picture of Senator Benton, of Missouri, whom he was
said to resemble. He was the chief of the Dwamishes, a small tribe
inhabiting the territory around what is now Elliott Bay. He became a
friend of Dr. Maynard, one of the pioneers of the new town, and of General
Stevens, the great Territorial Governor. He was well known to Foster,
Denny, Bell, and Borden, who took claims where the city now stands. His
last years were passed at Port Madison, where he died in 1866, at a great
age.

Governor Stevens confirmed his sachemship, and Seattle became the
protector and the good genius of the town. A curious legend, which seems
to be well founded, is related of a tax which Seattle levied upon the new
town, for the sake of the trouble that the name would give him in the
spiritual world. When a Dwamish Indian lost a near relative of the same
name by death, he changed his own name, because the name might attract the
ghost of the deceased, and so cause him to be haunted. The tribe believed
that departed spirits loved their old habitations, and the associations of
their names and deeds, and so they changed their names and places on the
death of relatives, that they might not be disturbed by ghostly
apparitions.

"Why do you ask for a tax?" asked a pioneer of Seattle.

"The name of the town will call me back after I am dead, and make me
unhappy. I want my pay for what I shall suffer then, now."

I hope that the rapid growth of the great city of the North does not
disquiet the gentle and benevolent soul of Seattle. The city should raise
a monument to him, that he may see that he is kindly remembered when he
comes back to visit the associations of his name and life. Or, better for
his shade, the city should kindly care for his daughter, poor old Angeline
Seattle, who at the time of this writing (1890) is a beggar in the streets
of uplifting commercial palaces and lovely homes!

We visited her in her hut outside of the city some months ago, to ask her
if she saved Seattle in 1855, by giving information to the pioneers that
the woods around it were full of lurking Indians, bent on a plot to
destroy it; for there is a legend that on that shadowy December night,
when Seattle was in peril, and the council of Indian warriors met and
resolved to destroy the town before morning, Jim, a friendly Indian, was
present at the conference as a spy. He found means to warn the pioneers of
their immediate danger.

The ship of war Decatur, under Captain Gansevoort, lay in the harbor. Jim,
who had acted in the Indian council, secretly, in the interest of the
town, had advised the chiefs to defer the attack until early in the
morning, when the officers of the Decatur would be off their guard.

[Illustration: _Middle block-house at the Cascades._]

Night fell on the Puget Sea. The people went into the block-house to
sleep, and the men of the Decatur guarded the town, taking their stations
on shore. As the night deepened, a thousand hostile Indians crept up to
the place and awaited the morning, when the guard should go on board the
ship for breakfast, and the people should come out of the block-house and
go to their houses, and "set the gun behind the door."

It was on this night, according to the legend, that "Old Angeline," as she
is now called, became the messenger that saved the inhabitants from
destruction.

The legend has been doubted; and when we asked the short, flat-faced old
woman, as she answered our knock, if she was the daughter of the chief who
saved Seattle, she simply said, "Chief," grinned, and made a bow. She was
ready to accept the traditional honors of the wild legend worthy of the
pen of a Cooper.

On returning from our visit to old Angeline, we asked Hon. Henry Yesler,
the now rich pioneer, why the princess was not better cared for by the
people of the city. He himself had been generous to her. "Why," he said,
"if you were to give her fifty dollars, she would give it all away before
night!" Benevolent old Angeline! She ought to live in a palace instead of
a hovel! Mr. Yesler doubted the local legend, but I still wished to
believe it to be true.




V.


The story of "Whitman's Ride for Oregon" has been told in verse by the
writer of this volume, as follows:

WHITMAN'S RIDE FOR OREGON.

I.

    "An empire to be lost or won!"
      And who four thousand miles will ride
      And climb to heaven the Great Divide,
    And find the way to Washington,
      Through mountain cañons, winter snows,
      O'er streams where free the north wind blows?
    Who, who will ride from Walla-Walla,
      Four thousand miles, for Oregon?

II.

    "An empire to be lost or won?
      In youth to man I gave my all,
      And naught is yonder mountain wall;
    If but the will of Heaven be done,
    It is not mine to live or die,
      Or count the mountains low or high,
      Or count the miles from Walla-Walla.
    I, I will ride for Oregon!"
      'Twas thus that Whitman made reply.

III.

    "An empire to be lost or won?
      Bring me my Cayuse pony, then,
      And I will thread old ways again,
     Beneath the gray skies' crystal sun.
     'Twas on those altars of the air
      I raised the flag, and saw below
      The measureless Columbia flow;
     The Bible oped, and bowed in prayer,
      And gave myself to God anew,
     And felt my spirit newly born;
      And to my mission I'll be true,
     And from the vale of Walla-Walla
      I'll ride again for Oregon.

IV.

    "I'm not my own; myself I've given,
      To bear to savage hordes the Word;
     If on the altars of the heaven
      I'm called to die, it is the Lord.
     The herald may not wait or choose,
      'Tis his the summons to obey;
     To do his best, or gain or lose,
      To seek the Guide and not the way.
     He must not miss the cross, and I
      Have ceased to think of life or death;
    My ark I've builded--heaven is nigh,
      And earth is but a morning's breath!
     Go, then, my Cayuse pony bring;
      The hopes that seek myself are gone,
     And from the vale of Walla-Walla
      I'll ride again for Oregon."

V.

    He disappeared, as not his own,
      He heard the warning ice winds sigh;
    The smoky sun-flames o'er him shone,
      On whitened altars of the sky,
    As up the mountain-sides he rose;
      The wandering eagle round him wheeled,
    The partridge fled, the gentle roes,
      And oft his Cayuse pony reeled
    Upon some dizzy crag, and gazed
      Down cloudy chasms, falling storms,
    While higher yet the peaks upraised
      Against the winds their giant forms.
    On, on and on, past Idaho,
      On past the mighty Saline sea,
    His covering at night the snow,
      His only sentinel a tree.
    On, past Portneuf's basaltic heights,
      On where the San Juan Mountains lay,
    Through sunless days and starless nights,
      Toward Taos and far Sante Fé.
    O'er table-lands of sleet and hail,
      Through pine-roofed gorges, cañons cold,
    Now fording streams incased in mail
      Of ice, like Alpine knights of old,
    Still on, and on, forgetful on,
      Till far behind lay Walla-Walla,
    And far the fields of Oregon.

VI.

     The winter deepened, sharper grew
      The hail and sleet, the frost and snow;
     Not e'en the eagle o'er him new,
      And scarce the partridge's wing below.
     The land became a long white sea,
      And then a deep with scarce a coast;
     The stars refused their light, till he
      Was in the wildering mazes lost.
     He droppèd rein, his stiffened hand
      Was like a statue's hand of clay!
    "My trusty beast, 'tis the command;
      Go on, I leave to thee the way.
     I must go on, I must go on,
      Whatever lot may fall to me,
     On, 'tis for others' sake I ride--
      For others I may never see,
     And dare thy clouds, O Great Divide,
      Not for myself, O Walla-Walla,
     Not for myself, O Washington,
     But for thy future, Oregon."

VII.

    And on and on the dumb beast pressed
      Uncertain, and without a guide,
    And found the mountain's curves of rest
      And sheltered ways of the Divide.
    His feet grew firm, he found the way
      With storm-beat limbs and frozen breath,
    As keen his instincts to obey
      As was his master's eye of faith--
    Still on and on, still on and on,
      And far and far grew Walla-Walla,
    And far the fields of Oregon.

VIII.

     That spring, a man with frozen feet
      Came to the marble halls of state,
     And told his mission but to meet
      The chill of scorn, the scoff of hate.
    "Is Oregon worth saving?" asked
      The treaty-makers from the coast;
     And him the Church with questions tasked,
      And said, "Why did you leave your post?"
    Was it for this that he had braved
      The warring storms of mount and sky?
    Yes!--yet that empire he had saved,
      And to his post went back to die--
    Went back to die for others' sake,
      Went back to die from Washington,
    Went back to die for Walla-Walla,
      For Idaho and Oregon.

IX.

    At fair Walla-Walla one may see
     The city of the Western North,
    And near it graves unmarked there be
      That cover souls of royal worth;
    The flag waves o'er them in the sky
      Beneath whose stars are cities born,
    And round them mountain-castled lie
      The hundred states of Oregon.




VI.

MOUNT SAINT HELENS.


We refer to the snowy range to the west, which terminates in the great
dome that now bears that name. There was once a great lava-flood in the
Northwest, and Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount
Tacoma (Rainier) are but great ash-heaps that were left by the stupendous
event.





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