Ha
I
OG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON
THE Columbia
A TALE OF THE PIONEERS OF THE
GREAT NORTHWEST
BY
HEZEKrAii Hi: rrKinvoKTii
AL'TIIOK OP THE ZIO/.AU BOOKa
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
D. APPT.KTON A N I) COMI'ANY
1890
CoPYKKillT. KiOO,
Dt d. ahpi.eton and company.
51^
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 Colum-
bia 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 le-
gend 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
4 PREFACE.
1 went over the Tlocky Mountains by the Canmh'an
Pacitic Kailway, and visited the Cohunl)ia River
and the scenes associated with tlie Indian story. I
met in Washington, Yesler, Dehney, and Hon. El-
wood Evans, the historian ; visited the daughter of
Seattle, the chief, " Old Angeline " ; and gathered
original stories in regard to the i)ioneers of the
Puget Sound country from many sources. In this
atmosphere the legend grew upon me, and the out-
growth of it is this volume, whicli, amid a busy
life of editorial and other work, has forced itself
upon my experience.
^ II. B.
28 WoRCKSTER Street, Boston, July 4, 1890.
CONTENTS.
• •
CIIAITKR
I.— Gretchen's Violin ....
II. — The Coief of the Cascades
HI.— " Boston' TiLiruM "
IV. — ^Iks. Woods's Tame 1'>ear, Lttti-e " Hon
Over"
V. — The Nest of the Fishino Eaole
VI. — The Mountain Lion
VII.— The "Smoke-Talk"
VIII. — The Black EAOLffs Nest of the Falls of the
Missouri
IX. — Oretchen's Visit to the Old Chief of the
Cascades
X. — Mrs. Woods meets Little " Holl Over
AGAIN
XT. — Marlowe Manx's New IIobixson Crusoe .
XII. — Old Joe Meek and Mr. Spauldino .
XIII.— A Warning
XIV. — The Potlatcii
XV. — The Traumerei again ....
VAOK
1)
27
4;}
86
95
114
127
14G
154
102
170
181
190
e
CONTENTS.
CIIAPTKB PAOR
XVI,— A Silent Tribe 204
XVII.— A Desolate Home and a Desolate People . 215
XVIII. — The Lifted Cloud— Toe Indians come to the
Schoolmaster 221
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
229
282
23G
230
244
250
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Gretchen at tho Potlatch Feast . . E. J. Aiiftten
Frontispiece
Indians spearing fish at Salmon Falls 16
" Here were mountains grander than
Olympus." The North Puyallup
Glacier, Mount Tacoma . . 88
In the midst of this interview Mrs.
Woods appeared ut the door of
the cabin A. E. Pope . . 72
Tho eagle soared away in the blue
heavens, and the flag streamed
after him in his talons . . . E, J. Austen . . 84
The mountain lion . . . . D. Carter Beard . 92
An Indian village on the Columbia . 130
Afar loomed Moimt Ilood ... 135
A castellated crag arose solitary and
solemn 14S
At the Cascatles of the Columbia . 183
Multnomah Falls in earlier years.
Redrawn by Walter C. Greenough 205
The old chief stood stoical and silent . E. J. Austere . 209
Middle block-house at the Cascades . 242
THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE
ON THE COLUMBIA.
CIIAPTEU I.
GUKTCllEN 8 VIOLIX.
An elderly woman and a German p^rl were
walking along the old Indian trail that led from the
northern mountains to the Columbia lliver. The
river was at this time commonly called the Oregon,
as in Bryant's poem :
" Where rolls the Orepon,
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 hud
lived in one of the valleys of the Oregon for sev-
eral years, but the German girl had recently arrived
in one of the colonies that had lately come to the
10 THE LOG SCnOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
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 glim-
mering shadows. Through the opening the high
sunnnits 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 8tunil)led.
" There, there you go again down in the hol-
low ! Haven't you any eyes ? I would think you
had by the looks of them. AVell, Gretchen, they
were placed right in the front of your head so as
to look forward ; they would havv) 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 jout 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
GRETCHEN'S VIOLIN. IX
— they have a religious sound and soothe me, like ;
but the reading of poetry and novels I never did
countenance, except JMethody 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 ascend-
ing a cloudless sky, and far away in the cerulean
arch of glimmering 8j)lendors the crystal peaks and
domes of St. Helens a])peared again.
The girl stopped.
" Wliat 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 beau-
tiful ! "
" Feel so out here ! Wliat do yon mean ?
Haven't I always been good to you ? Didn't I give
12 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBL\.
you a good home in Lynn after your father and
mother died i Wasn't I a mother to you ? Didn't
I nurse you tlirough the fever ? Didn't I send for
you to come way out here witli the immigrants,
and did you ever find a better friend in the world
than I liave l)een 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 overwhehn-
ing 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
2)eaJceder than they do. I didn't think that they
GRETCUEN'S VIOLIN. 13
would take lip so miicli of the kiid. I suppose that
they are all well eiioupjh in their way, but a i)ioneer
woman has no time for sentiments, except hymns.
I don't feel like you now, and I don't think that 1
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 queruh>usly, and to check the
flow, of the girl's emotions, which she did much to
14 TnE LOG SCHOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
excite. Her own life liad been so circumscribed
and liard tbat the day seemed to be too briglit to be
speaking the truth. She peered into tlie 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 i)ellucid waters of the Colmnbia, 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 mount-
ains 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 some-
times 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 !
ORETCIIEN'S VIOLIN. 15
They say that his folks are rich. Come out here
way over the mountains, and is just going to teacli
scho(jl 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 cov-
ered 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 jiew
scenes were all very strange to the young Ger-
man 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 murmur-
ing pines. The woman and girl came at last to a
10 THE LOO SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON TUE COLUMBIA.
V ild, open space ; before them rolled tlie Oregon,
beyond It ntretched 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-
liouse in the sense in which the term has been aj)-
plicd to more recent structures in the treeless prairie
districts of certain mid-ocean Sttites ; it was rudely
framed of pine, and was furnished with a pine desk
and benches.
Along the river lay a ]->latcau 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-fish-
ers awaited their prey, and dow^n the river M'ith pad-
dles apeak drifted the bark canoes of Cayuses and
Umatillas.
A group of children were gathered abont the
open door of the new school-honse, and among them
•s
^
5
5
GIIKTCIIEN'S VIOLIN. 17
rose the tall form of ^^Farlowc ^rann, the Yankee
Kchoolinaster.
lie had come over the mouiitaius 8omo years
before in the early exjK'ditions or«j;anized and di-
rected by Dr. ^larcuK Whitman, of the American
l>oard of Missions. AVhether the misHion to the
Cayuses and "NVallu AVallas, which Dr. AVhitnian
established on the bend of the Cohnnbia, was then
regarded as a home or foreign field of work, we can
not say. The doctor's .'Solitary ride of fonr thon-
sfmd miles, in order to save the great Korthwest
territory to the United States, is one of the most
poeti(! and dramatic episodes of American history.
It has ])roved to be worth to onr country more than
all the money that has been given to missionary
enterprises. Shonld the Pnget Sound cities ])ec(»me
the great ports of Asia, and the ships of commerce
drift from Seattle and Tacoma over the Japan cur-
rent to the Flowery Isles and China; should the
lumber, coal, minerals, and wheat-fields of "Washing-
ton, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho at last compel
these cities to rival New York and Boston, the
populous empire will owe to the patriotic mission-
ary zeal of Dr. AVhitman a debt M'hicli it can only
pay in honor and love. Dr. "Whitman was mur-
dered by the Indians soon after the settlement of
18 TITK LOO SCnOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
tho "Walla Walla country by the pioneers from the
Eastern States.
Mr. Mann'H inspiration to hoconu' i: missionary
pioneer on tho Oregon had been derived from a
lioston schoolmaster whose name also the North-
west should honor. An inspired soul with a proph-
et's vision usually goes before the great movements
of life; solitary men summon the march of prog-
ress, then decrease while others increase. Hall J.
Kelley was a teacher of the olden time, well known
in lioston almost a century ago. lie became pos-
sessed with the idea that Oregon was destined to
become a great empire. He collected all possible
information about the territory, and organized emi-
gration schemes, the first of which started from St.
Louis in 1828, and failed. He talked of Oregon
continually. The subject haunted liim day and
night. It was he who inspired Rev. Jason Lee,
the pioneer of the Willamette Valley. Lee inter-
ested Senator Linn, of ]\Iissouri, 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 rec-
ognition of the name of Hall J. Kelley, the old
schoolmaster, whose dreams were of the Columbia,
ORBTCIIEN'S VIOLIN. 19
iind wlio inspired some of Lis pupils to hccomc reso-
lute pioneers, lioston wjus always a friend to Wash-
ington and Oregon. Where the old eehoolinaster
now rests wo do not know. J'rohahly in a neg-
lected grave amid the hriers and mosses of some
old cemetery on the Atlantic coast.
When ]\rarlowc Miinn came to the Northwest
ho found the Indian tribes uiupiiet and suspicious
of tlio new settlements. One of the pioneers liad
caused a sickness among some thievish Indians hy
putting emetic ])oisou in watermelons. The Indians
helleved these melons to have been conjured by the
wiiite doctor, and when other sicikness catnc among
tliem, they attributed it to the same cause. The
massacre at Waiilaptu and the murder of Wliitman
grew in part out of these events.
Mr. Mann settled near the old Chief of the Cas-
cades. He sought thii Indian friendship of this
chief, and asked him for his protection.
" People fullill the expectation of the tnist put
in tliem— 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 hon-
est, and he will be honest with you. We help peo-
ple to be better by behoving in what is good in
20 THE LOG SCIIOOI^IIOUSE ON THE COLUMHIA.
tlicMn. I am going to trust tho frieiulHliip of tlio
old ('liief «)f tlie CaHcaclcs, and ho will novor bc-
tniy it."
It was Kinniner, and there wiw to he a great In-
dian Putlatch feartt under the autinnn moon. The
I'otlateh in a fea«t of giftH. It is unually a peaceful
gathering of friendly tribes, with rude music and
gay dances ; hut it bodes war and nuissacre 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 Englisli Government has recently for-
bidden among the Northwestern tribes.
The Indians were demanding tliat the great fall
Potlatch should end with this ominous dance of
fire and besmearings of bloo<l. Tlie wliito people
everywhere were disturbed by these reports, for
they feared wliat might be the secret intent of this
wild revel. The settlers all regarded witli appre-
hension tho October moon.
Tlie tall schoolmaster watched tho approach of
Mrs. Woods and Gretchcn 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 gentlenum.
OUKTCIIKN'S VIOLIN. 21
"Tliirt ii^ my gal what 1 liiivo broiiglit to ho
cdiicjited/' 8uid Mrs. Wootln, ])rt)U(lly. " Thvy
think a groat deal of education U[) around Bos-
ton where I caino from. Where did you eomo
from 'i "
" From IJoston."
"So I iiave been told — fntm Harvard College.
Can I Hpeak with you a minute in private?"
" Yes, madam. Step au'de."
" I suppose you are kinder surprised that I let
my gal there, (iretehen, 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 J'ool
rhyme with ftc/utol, und such things as that. Now,
I don't take any interest in sucli things. Hut she
does play the violin beautiful. Learned of a Ger-
man teacher. Now, do you want to know why I
let her bring her violin ? Well, I thought it might
/icij) 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
22 THE LOG SCriOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
mind, and know liow to use words when I am op-
posed. 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 Eng-
land, 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. Hus-
band 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.
GRETCIIEN'S VIOLIN. 23
"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 instru-
ment. I once plaved the violin mvself in the
orchestra of the Boston Handel and Haydn So-
ciety."
" 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 gram-
mar, 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
24 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
try to make every one true to the best tliat is in
them. I am glad to have Gretclieii for a scholar.
I will speak to her by and by."
How strange w^as the scene to Gretchen ! She
remembered the winding Ilhine, with its green
hills and terraced vineyards and broken - walled
castles ; Basel and the singing of the student clubs
in the gardens on summer eveiJngs ; the mountain-
like church at Strasburg ; and the old streets of May-
cnce. 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 Bhine to the scenery that pierced
the blue sky around her, and how light seemed
the river itself to the majestic flow of the Co-
lumbia ! Yet the home-land haunted her. "Would
she go back again ? IIow 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. " AVell, I sup-
pose it can't be helped. If a body has the misfor-
tune to be kiting off to the clouds, going up like
GRETCriEN'S VIOLIN. 25
an eagle and coming down like a goose, it can't be
liolpcd. There are a great many tilings that can't
ht' 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, bnt — 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. Wood^ liked
to have the world know that she had her trials, and
she was pleased to iind 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 in-
direction. She also was accustomed to quote freely
from the Scriptures and from the Methodist hynm-
book, which was almost her only accomplishment.
She had led a simple, hard-working life in her girl-
liood ; had become a follower of Jason Lee during
one of the old-time revivals of religion ; had heard
of the ]\rethodist 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 in-
20 THE LOG SCnOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
dustriuus and resolute. Mr. Lee saw in her the
spirit of a pioneer, and advised her to join liis col-
ony. She married Mr. Woods, went to the Dalles
of the Columbia, and afterward to her present
home upon a donation claim.
CIIArTER II.
THE CHIEF OF THE CASCADES.
Marlowe Mann was a graduate of Harvard in
the classic period of tlie college. lie liad many
scholarly gifts, and as many noble qualities of soul
as mental endowments. He was used to the ora-
tory of Henry Ware and young Edward Evei-ctt,
and had known Charles Sumner and Wendell Phil-
lips 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
Churchy like Phillif>s in his early years. There
28 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUxMBIA.
was an eiitliusiasm for missions in the churclius of
Boston then, and he began to dream of Oregon
and the mysterious empire of the great Northwest,
as pictured by the old selioohnaster, Kelley ; just
at this time came Dr. Whitnum to the East, half
frozen from his long ride, and asked to lead au
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. Whit-
man 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 scen-
ery, the grandeur of the Columbia, the vastness of
the territory, and the fertility of the soil. Here
were mountains grander than OljTiipus, and harbors
and water-courses as wonderful as the ^o-ean. 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.
When the log school-house was building, Mr.
^
THE CHIEF OP THK CASCADES. 29
Mann Imd gone to the old Chief of tlio Ciisctules
and had invited him to send his Indian hoy to the
school, lie had shown him what an advantage it
would be to the young chief to understand more
thoroughly Chinook and English, lie was wise
and j)olitic in the matter as well as large-hearted,
for he felt that the school might need the friendli-
ness 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 neighbor-
hood 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 :
30 TIIR LOO SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA
" Look 1 " and " Umatilla ! "
Out of tlio forcHt wuno an aged Indian, of gi-
gantic Ktuturu — Umatilla, one of the chiefs of tlie
Ca.s(^ade.s ; and bchside him walked his only son, tlio
IJght of the Eagle's Tlunie, or, as lie had been
named by the English, lien jamin.
Umatilla, like Massasoit, of tlie early colonial
liist(M*y of IMymouth, was a remarkable person.
Surrounded by warlike tribes, lie liad been a man
of peace. He was a lover of Nature, and every
shining cloud to Ids eye was a chariot. He per-
soniiied everything, like the ancient (ireeks. He
talked in ])()etic figures; to him the sky was alive,
every event liad a soul, and his mind had dwelt
npon the great truths of Nature until he had be-
come more of a philosoj)her than a ruler.
He liad been the father of a large family, but
six of his sons had died of the plagne, or rather of
the treatment which tlie medicine-men liad nsed in
the disease, which was to sweat the victims in hot
earthen ovens, and then plunge them into the Co-
lumbia.
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 chiefs life.
TIIK ClIIKF OF TIIK CASCADES. 81
Tlic two ji^jproiiclit'd tlio courtly schoolmaster.
*' White master," said the old chief, "I have
l)roii«,dit to you the Lij^ht (»f the Eaj^le's Plume,
lie is my heart, and will he the lieart of my [)eo|)le
when mv suns are all jjassed over and my stars
gone out. AVill you tea<'h him to he a good chiefs
I want him to know English, and how to worship
the ^[aster 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 scul[)tor in long ad-
miration. The chisel of a Phidias could hardly
have exceeded such a form. His features were
like the Koman, his eye quick and lustnnis, and
his lips noble and kindly, lie wore a blanket over
his shoulders, gathered in a long sash, ornamented
with shells, about bis loins, and a crest of eagle
plumes and shells on his head indicated his rank
and dignity. He could speak some words of Chi-
nook, and English imperfectly. He had mingled
much with the officers of the Hudson I>ay Com-
pany, and so Imd learned many of the customs of
civilization.
" I am honored," said the courtly, tall school-
32 THE LOO SCIIOOL-nOUSE ON TIIK COLUMniA.
muHter, " in Imviii'^ kucIi u youth for my [ni[n\.
(Jliiof of tlui IJiimtilluH, I tlumk tlufc. All tluit in
good in 1110 will I give to your noble boy. I live
with my eye upon the future; the work of my life
irt to lend j)eoi)le to follow their better natures and
to bo true to their best selves. There is a good
angel in all men here" — he put his luind on liis
heart — " it leads men away from evil ; it seeks the
way of life ; its end is yonder with the Inlinite.
Chief of the ITmatillas, I will try to tcacli the
young man to follow it. Do you understand ? "
Tho aged chief bowed. lie euught the meaning
of tho thouglit, if not of the rather formal words.
lie comprehended the idea that the tall school-
nuister believed goodness to be immortal. Tho
regions of the Cascades w'cre indeed beautiful with
their ancient forests and gleaming mountain walls,
but he had been taught to believe that tho great
Master of Life had provided eternal scenes that
transcended these for tlioso who were worthy to
receive them.
An unexpected turn camo to this stately and
pacific interview\ Mrs. Woods was piqued at tho
deference that the tall schoolmaster had shown to
tho chief and his son. She walked about restlessly,
cut a rod from one of the trees with a large knife
TIIK C'HIKF OF TIIK CASCADRS. 83
which hIio always carried witli her, and at lust called
the iiuiHter aside a^niiii.
"Say, mister, hero. You ain't g<>in^ t«> tako
that y(»un^ Injun into your school, arc you?
There'll he trouhle, now, if you do. Know Injuns
— you don't. You are youn^, hut 'tain't hest for
you to eat all your apples green. I've always heen
very particular ahout the company I keep, if T was
born poor and have had to work hard, and never
studied no foreign languages. I warn you!"
She raised her voice, and I*enjaniin heard what
she had said. He suspected her ill-will toward him
from lier manner, hut lie com2)rehendtd the mean-
ing of her last words.
He at first looked puzzled and grieved, then
suddenly liis thin 14ps were pressed together; the
passion of anger was possessing him, soon to be fol-
lowed 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. TI e dan-
ger to which she had exposed herself mrde her
nervous. But she began to act on her old princi[)lo
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
34 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Kcliool like a man. If I were a teacher, I'd make
my scholars smart in more "svays than one." She
hold out the rod to the master.
There was a movement in tlie air like a flush.
Benjamin, with noiseless feet, had sli^iped up he-
liind 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, sweep-
ing it through the air, with kindled eye and glow-
ing 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 Pa-
cific 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 apjiearance of defiance,
though her heart was really trembling with fear.
THE CHIEF OF THE CASCADES, 85
" I ain't afraid of no Injuns," she said, " and I
don't take any impudence from anybody. I've had
to light the wliole 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, defi-
antly. " 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. lie
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.
8
36 THE LOG SCIIOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
"Pil-pil" (blood), said Benjamin. "There are
liawks in the air — "
" Be still ! " said the chief.
" — they whet their beaks," continued Benjamin.
" Potlatch I "
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 mys-
terious 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
fee. 'ngs into his soul.
The music breathed of the Ehine, of \dneyard8
and festivals, but he understood it not ; to him it
recalled tlie mysterious legends of the Umatillas,
TnE CUIEF OF THE CASCADES. 87
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. Tlie air
was the Traimierei.
When the music ceased there w^as a long silence.
In it Mrs. Woods turned away slowly, with a word
of advice to Gretchen that under other circiun-
stances 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. lie had come toward the school-
house with high hopes, and what had happened
caused him pain. The word " Potlatch," spoken
by the Indian boy, liad caused his brow to cloud
and his face to turn dark.
38 THE LOG SCIIOOL-riOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" We will all go into the house," said the mas-
ter. " 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 tilicuni, 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 under-
stand. "Wliat 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.
THE CHIEF OF THE CASCADES. 89
" Boston tiliciiin," said lie, " If ever tlie 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. " Totlatch 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 comnules in the wilderness.
Who still your bodies feel."
The blue skies gleamed before her, and over-
head wheeled a golden eagle. To lier it was an
emblem, a good omen, and lier 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 Injims ; nevertheless — "
Mrs. "Woods wafj accustomed to correct the
wrong tendencies of her heart and tongue by this
word " nevertheless," which she used as an incom-
plete sentence. This " nevertheless " seemed to ex-
press her better self ; to correct the rude tendencies
40 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
of her nature. Had she heen educated in her oarly
days, this tendency to self-correction would liave
made her an ideal woman, but she owed nearly all
lier intellectual training to the sermons of the Kev.
Jason Lee, which she had heard in some obscure
corner of a room, or in Methodist chapel, or under
the trees.
Her early ex])erience with the Indians had not
made her a friend to the native races, notwithstand-
ing the missionary labors of the Kev. Jason Lee.
The first Indian that made her a visit on the dona-
tion 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 lierself,
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 mo-
TOE CniEP OP THE CASCADES. 41
ment's thought recalled her resolution. She lifted
her hand, and, ])ointing to the saw in the wood, she
said, with a coinnuinding 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 stoi)ped work with a beating
heart and bursting veins.
" Saw — saw ! " said Mrs. "Woods, with a sweep
of her hands, as though some mysterious fate de-
pended n])on 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.
"Wlien 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,
42 THE LOO SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
tliough Mrs. Woods ultimately had many advent-
ures among the wandering Siwashes.
A saw was no connnon 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 in-
strument 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 Imraanuel's name,"
which, if poor poetry, was very inspiring.
CHAPTER III.
BOSTON TILICUM.
Marlowe Mann — " Boston tilicum," as tlie Si-
waslies called all the iiiissionaries, 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 rongli frame. A curious
school confronted him. His pupils numbered fif-
teen, 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, whicli had
come to him on the banks of the Charles, seemed
indeed to be beginning to be fulfilled on the Co-
lumbia.
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
44 THE LOO SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
iiiider all coiulitions and circumstances," was one
of his views of a well-clothed character ; and this
nioniinii^ he addressed the school with the courtesy
of an old college professor.
"I have como 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 teacli you to obey your
sense of right in all tilings. This is the first prin-
ciple 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 spir-
itual 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
teacli them at the beginning. I have become will-
ing to be poor, and to walk life's ways alone. The
})ilot 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 wnll be con-
tent. I have selected for our Scripture lesson the
' incorruptible seed.' "
He rose and 6]3oke like one before an august
BOSTON TILICUM. 45
ft8soml)ly; and so it was to liiin, with liis views of
tlio I'uturo of the j^reat empire of the Northwest.
A part of the pupils could not comprehend all that
ho said any more than they had understood the
allusion to the pilot of the Argo ; hut his manner
was so gracious, so earnest, so ins[)ired, that they
all felt tlie spirit of it, and some had come to re-
gard themselves as the students of some greai: des-
tiny.
" Older domes than the pyramids are looking
down upon you," he said, " and you are horn to a
higher destiny than were ever the children of the
Pharaohs."
With the exception of Grctchcn, 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 witli
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 dis-
tances.
" 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
40 THE LOO SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUAIBLV.
is a ^(K)(l thing to luivc a teaclier witli great ex-
j)ectatioiiH."
" Yes," said Mrs. Woods, " wlien tlicrc is so
little to expect. IVojde don't take a lot (»f nothing
and make a heap of Honiething in thiH world. It is
all like a lot of feathers thrown againist the wind.
Neverthelem it makes one happier to have pros-
jiccts, if they are far away. I used to ; hut tliey
never came to nothing, unless it was to bring me
way out here."
The log school-house was a curious place. The
cliildrcn's benches consisted of sj)lit 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 bare-
footed, 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.
BOSTON TILICUM. 47
"You underfituiul Kn«^lisli T' wii<l Mr. ^[111111.
"A little. lean talk Chin.M.k."
In the Chinook vocabulary, which was originally
tlio trade language of all the tribes employed by the
Jludriou Bay Company in ctillecting furs, most of
the words resemble in sound the objects they repre-
sent. For example, a wagon in Chinook is chick-
chick, a clock is ding-ding, a crow is kaw-kaw, a
duck, <|uack-<iuack, a laugh, tee-liee ; the heart is
tum-tum, and a talk or speech or sermon, wah-
wali. The language was of English invention ; it
took its name from the Chinook tribes, and bo-
came connuon in the Northwest. Nearly all of
the old English and American traders in the North-
west 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. lie answered happily, however,
" Wise men said so."
48 TUE LOG SCnOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" Me iinderstand."
" Tliat is tlie letter B."
"Yes, aha! Boston tilicuin, you let her be.
01(1 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.
" ^o^ 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 wall-wall, 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 re-
member 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. IMann was pained to see the revengeful
BOSTON TILICUM. 49
trend of the Indian's tlioiight. Tlie liints of the
evil intention of tlie Potlatch troubled him, but his
faith in the old chief and the influence of liis 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 educa-
tion. She was well instructed in the English
branches, and had read five books of Virgil in
Latin. Iler reading had not been extensive, but it
had embraced some of the best books in the Enc:-
lish language. Her musical education had been
received from a German uncle, who had been in-
structed by Ilerr "Wieck, the father of Clara Schu-
mann. 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 chang-
ing keys, beginning with the Traumerei and return-
ing 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
50 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
study of the German poetR. 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
Fouqu^. She used to aspire to be an author or
poet, but these aspirations had received no counte-
nance 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 stir-
ring 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 sinco the Wliitman 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
BOSTON TILICUM. 51
the evil is})irits should conclude the approaching
There was a sullen look in Benjamin's face as
lie 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 innnediately after the opening exer-
cises, 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 M'hen I came —
sun ; f^/te hate Indian, talk against him to you ;
make me unhappy — shade ; think I will have my
reviiiv^G—jnl-j}/! / then music nuike me hajipy ;
you make mc happy ; night come, and I think of
her — she hate Indian — shade. Mo will have my
revenge — -pil-pil. She say I have no right here ;
she have no right here ; the land all belong to Uma-
tilla ; then to me ; I no have her liere. Look out
for the October moon — Potlatch — dance— ^;//-/>^7."
" 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 ? "
52 THE LOG SCllOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" Yes, Boston tilicuni."
" And wlien the music played ?"
" Yes, Boston tilicuni."
" Then you nuist be good to her ; that will
nuike her feel good toward you. Do you see i "
There came a painful look into the younj^ In-
dian's face.
'' I good to her, make her good i She good to
me make nie 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 nol)le to l)e 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 — -jnl-j)U • 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. AVhat me do ? IMe 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 :
BObTON TILICUM. 53
" I do as you say. You are friciRl. 1*11 do
as I feel when the music play. I try. So you
say."
The cloud passed. The teacher paid the In-
dian boy S2)ecial attention that morning. At
noon Gretchen played Yon "VVeljer's Wild Hunt of
Lutzow, which drove Xapoleon over the llhine.
The rhythm of the music picturing the heroic cav-
alry 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, length-
ening shadows of the trail the resolute form of
Mrs. lYoods 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
wall-wall."
The master laid his hand on the boy's slujulder
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 wall-wall."
He dropped his eyes ujion a page in the book,
and sat immovable. He was a noble picture of a
54 THE LOQ SCIIOOL-UOUSE ON THE COLUiMBIA.
Htruggle for self-control in a savage and untutored
heart.
IVrrs. Woods asked for (iretelien at the door,
and the master excused the girl, thanking lier for
the music that had (! "lighted the school at the noon-
hour. As she was turning to go, Mrs. Woods cast
a glance toward IJenjamin, and said to the master
in an midertone : " He's tame now — quiet as a pur-
ring cat. The cat don't lick cream when the folks
are around. But he'll make trouble yet. An In-
jun 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 antl 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 slant-
ing sun and the dreamy afternoon glories of the
glaciers, then moved silently out of the door. The
BOSTON TILICUM. 55
old chief met liiiii in tlie opening, and saw the hurt
and tronhled look in his face.
" What have you been doing to my boy i " he
said to the master. Has he not been good ?"
" Very good ; I like liim,'' said Mr. IVfann.
" lie 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 np the
cool trail. The tall master followed them with his
eye. In the departing forms lie 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 waa probably one of the hist 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 gatliered by the plagues that had
come to the territories and tribal regions ever since
the Hudson Bay Company established its posts on
tlie west of the mountains, and Astoria had l)een
planted on the great river, and settlers had gathered
in the mountain-domed valley of the Willamette.
Wlierever the white sail went in the glorious riv-
50 THE LOO SCIIOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMIHA.
ers, pestilencu eiiine to tlio native tribes. The In-
dian race \vm perceptibly vanishin*!^. Only one son
of Beven was left to Umatilla. AVliat would be tlie
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-mean-
ing woman and nominally a Christian.
His lirst thought was to go to ]\[rs. AVoods and
ask her to wlujlly change her sj)irit and manners,
and, in fact, preacli to her the same simple doctrine
of following only one's better self that he liad
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 nj^braided with her tongue but loved in
her heart.
Mrs. Woods had come to regard it as her aj)-
pointed mission to abuse people for their good.
She thought it tended toward their sj^iritual prog-
ress and development. She often said that she felt
" called to set things right, and not let two or three
peo])le have their own way in everything " — a view
of life not nncommon among peoj^le of larger op-
portunities and better education.
Benjamin came to school the next morning si-
BOSTON TILICUM. 57
lout iiiid sullon, and the master went to hlni ai^ain
in the same H})irit as before.
" Slie say I no ri<;ht here," he said. " She suf-
fer for it. Slie wah-wah. Look out fur the Octo-
ber 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. lie
at last said, slowly :
" But me know who will."
" Do what, Benjamin ? "
" Make her sulfer — 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-wali 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 chil-
dren clind) upon his l)ack and run away with them
until they tumbled off. He seemed perfectly bappy
when be was making the others hap])y, and nothing
58 THE LOa SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
so delighted him as to be coiimiuiided. llo loii<^ud
to bo popular, not from any sellitih reatjoii, l)Ut
because to be liked by otliers was bis atmospliere
of contentment. lie was kindly above most In-
dians, a trait for which his father was famous.
lie was even kindly ai)ove many of the white
people.
The next morniii<j; 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, stopj)ing at
times and lifting up its head curiously and cau-
tiously. 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 hannless 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.
BOSTON TILICUM. 59
"It no liiirin ; let it p>," Buid the boy on liis
roturn ; and tlio si)irit of tlie iiicidt'ut wna good
and ediu'iitionid in the liuirts of tlie scliool.
Tho I'luirni of hi.s life was (fretchen'H violin.
It tran8ii«!;ured him ; it changed the world to him.
Ilis father was a forest philosopher; the boy caught
a like 8i)irit, and often said things that were a reve-
lation to A[r. IVIann.
" 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 fiense it— I
shall know — something better— yonder— the thing
we lone 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 po(M' 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. i\[r. 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 die was giving more
00 THE LOO SCIIOOI^IIOl'SE ON THE COLUMniA.
than the ullottcd time to liini. Tu nieet tlie case,
ho appointed from time to time members of tlie
M'ljool " monitors," a.H he called ^'lem, to sit beside
liim and lielp liim.
One <luy lie asked ClreteheTi to do this "work.
Tlio hoy was ddii^dited to he instructed hy the
mistress of the violin, and she was as }»leased
with the lionor of such monitorial duties to the
son of a chief. Ihit an unexpected episode ^M'ew
out of all this mutual good-will and helpful kind-
ness.
T^enjamin was so grateful to Gretchen for the
pains that she took with his studies that lie wished
to repay her. lie had a pretty little Caynse pony
which he used to ride ; one day after school he
caused it to he brought to the school-house, and,
setting Gretchen npon it, he led it by the name up
the trail toward her home, a innnber of the pupils
following them. On the way the merry-making
party met IVIrs. "Woods. She was as astonished
as though she had encountered an elephant, and
there came into her face a look of displeasure and
anger.
" AVhat 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.
BOSTON TTTJrrM. 01
"Hiding out with an Iiijim, (iivtclR'n, are you (
Tliut'n what }'i)U urc (loin*;, (lirl, gut oil that horse
and coino witli mo ! That in tliu kind of propriety
that tlicy teacli out in these parts, is it 'i and tlie
master eanie from Harvard College, too I One
would think tliat this world was just made to en-
joy one'a self in, just like a sheep pasture, where
the lamhs go hopping and ski[)[)ing, not knowing
that tliey were horn to he tleeced."
She hurried Gretelien away exeltedly, and tlie
school turned hack. JJenjamin was disappointed,
and h)oked more liurt than ever before. On the
way lie met his old father, wlio had come out to
h>ok for liim, and the rest of the scholars dispersed
to their homes.
Tliat evening, after a long, vivid twilight, such
as throws its splendor over the mountain ranges in
these northern latitudes, l^Frs. "Woods and Gretchen
were sitting in their log-house just within the open
door. Mr. "Woods was at the block-house at AValla
"Walla, and the cabin was unprotected. The light
was fading in the tall pines of the valleys, and there
M'as a deep silence everywhere, undisturbed by so
nmcli as a whisper of the Chinook winds. Mrs.
AVoods's thoughts seemed far away — (hjubtless
among the old meadows, orchards, and farm-iields
62 THE LOG SCHOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
of New England. Gretclieii was playing the musi-
cal glasses.
Suddenly IVIrs. AVoods's thoughts came back from
their far-away journeys. 8he 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 Korth west-
ern 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 f'.cre ? There —
look ! "
A sinewy form in the shadows of the pines ap-
peared 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 dowTi 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
BOSTON TILICUM. 68
mean revenge — I feel it — revenge on nic, and Ben-
jamin — lie is the leader of it."
The Hitting of shadowy forms among the pines
grew alarming. Xearer and nearer they came, and
more and more excited became Mrs. Woods's ap-
]jrehensions. Gretchen began to cry, through nerv-
ous 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 nerv-
ous fingers, and drew the l)ow 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 quiv-
ered, rose and descended, and was repeated over
and over again.
" There is no movement in the i)ines," 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
04 THE LOG SCUOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
form. It is Benjaiuin. lie is coining alone.
AVliat 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. AVoods. " 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 pa-
thetic pleading to the old German forest hymn.
Over and over again she played the air, waiting
for the word of Mrs. Woods to cease.
" lie is going," said Mrs. AYoods, slowly. " He
is moving back toward the pines. He has changed
his mind, or has gone for his band. You may stop
now."
IMrs. "Woods watched by the split shutter until
BOSTON TILICUM. 66
past midiiiglit. Then slie laid down on tlie bed,
and Gretclien watched, and one listened while the
other dept, by turns, during the night. But no
footstep was heard. The niidsunnner sun l)lazed
over the pines in the early morning ; l)irds sang
gayly in the dewy air, and Gretelien prepared the
morning meal as usual, then made her way to the
log school-house.
She found Benjamin there. lie met her with a
happy face.
" Bad Indian come to your cabin last night,"
said he. " He mean evil ; he hate old woman.
She wall-wall 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— motlor-bird singing
to her nest ! I love that nnisic.
" Say, you play at Potlatch, frighten away the
hawks ; mother-birds sing. Ts'o devil dance. Say,
I have been good ; no harm old wah-wali. Will
you — will you play — play that tin-tin at Potlatch
under the bi<i; moon ? "
A great thought had taken possession of the
young Indian's mind, and a great plan — one worthy
00 THE 'LOG SCIIOOL-UOUSE ON TUE COLUMBIA.
of a leader of a peace congress. Gretclien saw
the plan in part, but did not fully comprehend it.
She could only see that his life had bect)nie a strug-
gle 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 slim-
mer. Iler husband was away from home during
tlie working days of tlie week, at the saw and shin-
gle mill on the Columbia, and during the same days
Gretchen was much at school.
The summer in the mountain valleys of "Wash-
ington 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. I^s'otwith-
standing her hard practical speech, which was a
habit, ]\[rs. 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
68 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
liur cabin, tifter looking belli nd to sec if the mother
bear was folhnving her. Kad she seen the mother
of the cunning little black creature in lier 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 discov-
ery of the loss in her family. She was probaljly out
berrying, and such exi)eriences of stolen children
were wholly unknown to the bear family in Wash-
ington before this time. The Indians would not
have troubled the little cub.
The black bear of the Cascades is quite harm-
less, 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. AVoods and Gretchen waiting
to meet her at the door. They were surpi-ised 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
MRS. WUODS'S TAME BEAR. (JD
served for a step, and, opening lier apron eantiously,
said :
" See here."
" Where did you get that ? " said !Mr. "Woods,
" I stole it."
" "VYliat are jou going to do with it i "
"Raise it."
"What for?"
" For company. I haven't any neiglibors."
" But wliat do you want it for i "
"It is so cunning. It just rolled over in the
trail at my feet, and I grabl)ed it and ran."
" But what if the mother-bear should come after
it ? " asked Gretchcn.
" I would shoot her."
"That would be a strange way to treat your
new neighbors," said ]\[r. 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
70 TIIH lAHi SCIIOOL-HorSE OX TIIK COLUMBIA.
cub to eat, hut liun<^or iiukIo it a tra('tal>lo pupil
t)f the herry dish, and Mrs. Woods was soon ahle
to say :
" Tliere 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 I^frs. AVoods! She soon found that her
pet did " belong to these parts," and that its native
instincts were strong, despite her moral training.
Slie lost her bear in a most disappointing way, and
after she supposed that it had become wholly de-
voted to her.
She had taught it to "roll over" for its din-
ner, and it had grown to think that all the good
things of this world came to bears by their willing-
ness to roll over. AVhenever 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 know-
ing as it is running, and lots of company for me
out here in the mountains. It thinks more of
me than of its old mother. You can educate any-
thing."
As the cub grew, Mrs. AVoods's attachment to
MRS. WOODS'S TAMK IJKAll. 71
it increased. 81ie could not beiir to see its free-
dom restrained by the strap and f«trin^, 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 l)erry
dish. I've tamed it comi»letely ; it's as faith-
ful to its home as a liouse-cat, and a great deal more
comi)anv than a cat or do«r or any other dunil> ani-
mal. 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 oidy
had 'em."
IVIrs. Woods had a pet blue-jay that she had
taken when voimo; from its nest, and it would do
many comical things. It seemed to have a sense of
humor, like a magi)ie, 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 fo<jd 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 ai)peared at the emigrant's
cabin. A black she-bear came out of the woods,
72 THE Loa SCIIOOL-IIOL'SE ON THE COLUMniA.
Hiul, Hct'ing tlio cul), stood up on Iior liiiunches in
sur])rise and seemed to wij, *' How oauio you
here 'i " It was evidently tlie uiotlier of tlie ciil).
Tlic cul) saw its mother and rolled over sev-
eral times, and tlien stood up on its haunehes and
looked at her, as much as to say, "Where did you
come from, and what brought you here?" In the
midst of this interestin<^ interview Mrs. AV^oods ap-
peared at the door of the cahin.
She saw the mother- hear. True to her New
England instincts, she shook her homespun apron
and said: "Shoo!"
She also saw that the little hear was greatly ex-
cited, and nnder 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 associa-
tions, and began to make signs by dipping her fore
paws. The cnb evidentlv understood these siirns,
and desired to renew its old-time family relations.
"Here," said ^Mrs. Woods, " yon— you— you
mind now ; roll over — roll over."
"5
9
MUS. WUODS'S TAMH WKAll. 78
Tlie cul) did ho, tnio to its cduciitidn in one ro-
8j)t't't, hut it did not n»ll in the dircctidii of its
fowter-nutthiT, l»ut rolled toward itn own mother.
It turned over sonio tivo or more times, then
h(»unded u\) and ran towanl the ulie-bear. Tlio
latter droi)i)ed her fore feet on tlie eartli n«,^iin, and
tlie two hears, evidently greatly delighted to iind
each other, (quickly disappeared in the woods. As
the cub was about to enter the bushes it turned
and gave a final glanee at Mrs. Woods and rolled
over.
This was too much for ^Frs. AVoods'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 Tn-
jnns," 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
74 TUE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
share. Maybe I'll get it back to me yet. Never-
theless — "
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.
CIIAPTER V.
THE NEST OF THE FISHING EAGLE.
Benjamin contiimcd to attend the school, hut it
was evident that he did so with an injure*! iieart,
and chiefly out of hjve for the old chief, his father.
He had a high regard for his teacher, whose kind-
ness was unfailing, and he showed a certain partial-
ity for Gretchen ; hut he was as a rule silent, and
there were dark lines on his forehead that showed
that he was unhappy. He would not he treated as
an inferior, and he seemed to f'jel that he was so
regarded hy the scholars.
He hegan to show a peculiar kind of contempt
for all of the pupils except Gretchen. He pre-
tended not to see them, hear them, or to he aware
of their presence or existence. He would pass
through a group of hoys 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.
7G THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
But this indiHerencc was caused by sensitive-
ness and the feeling tliat lie had been slighted.
Tlie dark lines relaxed, and his face wore a kindly
ii-low 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. ]\Iann ; 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 liad mat-
ted 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 sea-
son and reared tlieir young.
For a time after the opening of the school none
of the pupils seemed to give any special attention
to this hi<:;h 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.
THE NEST OP THE FISHING EAGLE. 77
One afternoon a sudden shadow like a fallin<r
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 mas-
ter looked out and said :
" Attend to your hooks, 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 hird 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 Xatnre,
and who understood the voices and cries of the
wild and winged inhabitants of the trees and air.
He raised his liand.
" ]\Iay 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 M'ithout 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
78 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSP: ON THE COLUxMBIA.
upon tliem. The eagle's nest was in ruins. It liad
fallen upon the lower boughs, and two young half-
Hedged eaglets were to be seen hanging heli)les.sly
on a few sticks in mid-air and in danger of falling
to the ground.
It was a briirht 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 dis-
tress this afternoon they darted downward almost
to the ground, as though appealing for he ^j for
their young.
While the school was watching this cnrious
scene the old chief of the IJmatillas came up the
cool highway or trail, to go home with Benjamin
after school.
The eagles seemed to know him. As ho 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.
THE NEST OF THE FISHING EAGLE. 79
" Yes, go — she cjill. She call — the God over-
head he call. Go ! "
A slender young pine ran up beside one of the
giant trees, tall and green. In a moment Jien jamln
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
liigher circles as he ascended. lie reached the
young eagles at last, but passed by them. AVhat
was lie going to do ?
There was a shelf of green boughs above him,
which would l)ear tlie weight of a nest. He went
up to them at a distance of nearly two hundred
feet. He then began to gather \\p the fallen sticks
of the old nest, and to l)reak off new sticks and to
construct a new nest. Tlie 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 lie descended,
and at the peril of his own life, on the decayed
limbs, he rescued the two young eagles that were
80 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
lian<^iii_i,' Avitli heads downward and open beaks.
He cai-ried tliem up to the new nest and i)laced
them in it, and began to descend.
But a withered bough that he grasped was too
slender for his weiglit, and broke. He grasped
another, Init that too gave way. He tried to drop
int(j the top of the tall young pine below him, but,
in his effort to get into position to do so, limb after
liml) of dead wood broke, and he came falling to
tlie 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 low-
ered slowly back again by the agonized father,
who sat down and dropped his head on his son's
breast.
Mr. Mann l)rouglit water and wet the boy's lips
and bathed his lirow. He then placed his hand
ON'er the boy's heart and held it there. There was
a louir silence. The old chief watched the teacher's
hand. He seemed waiting for a word of hope;
but Mr. Mann did not speak.
THE NEST OP THE FISHING EAGLE. 81
Tho old chief lifted his head at last, and said,
appeal iiigl J :
" Boston tilieuni, you do not know how I feel !
You do not know — the birds know — ijou do not
know ! "
The teacher rubljed the boy's breast and arms,
and said :
" lie will revive/'
" What, Boston tilieuni \ "
" He will Iher
"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.
82 THE LOG SCnOOL-noUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Presently tlie boy's eyes opened and gazed
steadily into the blue air.
The eagles were wlieeling about the trees. The
boy watelied them, as though nothing had passed.
They were making narrowing eircles, and at last
eaeli ahghted on the new nest beside their youjig.
He turned his face slowly toward his father.
" Saved ! '' lie said. " They are hapi)y. I fell.
Let's go.''
He rose up. As he did so the male eagle rose
from his nest and, uttering a glad seream, wheeled
in the sky and made his way through Ihe crimson
haze toward tlie fishing gritunds of the lower
Columbia.
The chief's eve followed him for a time: then
the old man turned a happy face on the schoolmas-
ter and children and said :
" I know how he feels — the Manitou overhead
— he made the hearts of all ; yours — the birds —
mine. lie is glad ! "
There was something beautiful and pathetic in
'i-^
P
the old chief's sense of the connnon heart and feel-
ing 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 :
THE NEST OF TUE IMSIIING EA(JLE. 83
" I myself nin \)L'\\^J^ tiiu<^lit. I am <:;lii(l to Icani
all this large life. 1 ho|)c tjiat yoii will (»ne day
l)cc'oinc a teacher."
(ireteheii went home that afternoon with a glad
heart. JJeiijauiin did not return to the seho(>l again
for several davs, and when he came back it seemed
to be with a sense of humiliation, lie seemed to
feel somehow that he ought not to have fallen from
the tree.
The fourth of July came, and blaster ^Mann
had invited the school to come togctlier on the
holiday for patriotic exercises. lie had one of the
pupils read the Declaration of TucK'pendence on
the occasion, and Gretchen played the President's
March on the violin. lie himself made an histori-
cal address, and then joined in some games out of
doors under the trees.
lie brought to the school-house that day an Amer-
ican flag, which he hung over the desk during the ex-
ercises. "When the school went out to ])lay 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 ?//?."
" Hang it on the eagle's nest," said one of the
jmpils. " The eagle is die national bird."
84 TIIK LOG SCIIOOL-IIOL'SK ON.THK COI.UMHIA.
Mr. Miinii hiiw that to kiis]K'ii(1 tlie imtioiiiil om-
l)lcMii from the t'Ugle'H nest would l»o u juitriotic
cpisodo of the (lay, and liu ^avo the Ihig to IJeiija-
iiiin, .saying :
" IJeware of the rotten hmhs."
"I no woman," said IJenjamin; and, waving
the ilag, lie moved like a s(|iiii-rel up the trees. Jle
placed the Hag on the nest, while the eagles wheeled
around him, screaming wildly. He descended
safely, and nuide the incident an ol)ject lesson, as
Mr. Mann rej)eated the ode to the American eagle,
found at that time in many readlng-l)ooks.
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 hauTier in Ids talons. lie rose again into tlu;
air and circled high, then with a swift, strong
curve of the wings, came down to the nest again,
and, seizing the Hag, tore it from the nest and bore
it aloft to the sky.
It was a beautiful sight. The air was clear, the
far peaks were sci-ene, and the glaciers of ]\[onnt
Hood gleamed like a glory of crystallized light.
The children cheered. The bird soared away in the
blue lieavens, and the flag streamed after him in
The emjle soared itintij in the liluv fieaietiK, und tin jlmi 4r<<iiiieil
afttt him in hi-'i talons.
TIJE NEST OP THE FISHING EAGLE. 85
his talons. lie dropped the flag at last over a dark,
green forest. The children cheered again.
It was miles away.
" I go And it," said Benjamin ; and he darted
away from the place and was not seen until tlie
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. AVoods sat in her door
picking over some red wliortleberries wliicli she
had gathered in the timber the day ])eforc, a yonng
cow came running into the yard, as if for i)rotec-
tion. Mrs. Woods started up, and looked in tlie
direction from which the animal had come running,
but saw notliing to cause the alarm.
The C(jw looked backward, and lowed. Mrs.
Woods set down her dish of red berries, took her
gun, and went out toward the tind)er 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 tlie
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 MOUNTAIN LION. 87
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 ai>])earod
upon it, and made a pretty j)icture as it sat eating
in tlie sun, its head lialf covered with its bushy tail.
Wliite squirrels were not conimun 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 scpiirrel," 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. AYoods 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 cat-
like face, with small ears and s])iteful eyes, and a
88 THE LOU SCHOOL-HOUSE OX THE COLUMIMA.
half-open mouth displaying a red tongue and sharp
teeth. Its face was sly, malicious, cruel, and cow-
ardly. It seemed to be such an animal as would
attack one in the dark. It was nuich larjijer than a
dog or connnon black bear.
Mrs. "Woods raised her gun, but she thought
that she was too far from the house to risk an en-
counter 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 tliiin. I
have seen ? "
" The white scjuirrel."
" Ko ; a tiger ! "
" But there are no tigers here ; so the chief
said."
" But I have just seen one, and it had the mean-
est-looking face that I ever saw on any living creat-
ure. 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. Til 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
THE MOUNTAIN LION. 89
twilight had (lis}H)pc'iirt'd and tho cool, dowy airs
began to move among the pines, a long, deep, fear-
ful cry \va8 heard issuing from the tind)er. Mrs.
"Woods started up from her bed and called, " Gret-
chen ! "
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 ^Irs. Woods.
" Let's get uj) and go out,"' said (4retchen.
Presently the same long, clear, i)itia])le 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 wIkj
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 uur
yU THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMIHA.
cattle. Tliey all lie dead near tlie eleariIl^^ just as
though they were asleep. They are not injured, as
we can see; they are not shot or hruised, nor do
they seem to be poisoned — they are not swelled —
they look as though they were alive — hut they are
cold — they are just dead. Did you hear anything
in the timber last night ( "
" Yes," said Mrs. Woods. " Wasn't it mysteri-
ous? Lost your cattle, boy ^ I am sorry for your
folks. IMabbie {iVidy be) 'tis Injuns."
" Xo ; father says that he can find no injury on
them."
" 'Tis awful mysterious like," said Mrs. Woods,
" cattle dyin' M-ithout anything ailin' 'em ! Tve
always thought this was a irood country, but I don't
know. Tell your folks I'm sorry for 'em. Can I
do anything for you ? I'll come oyer and see ye in
the course of the day."
That night the same strange, ^vild, pleading cry
was repeated in the tind^er.
" There's something yery strange about that
sound," said Mrs. Woods. "It makes me feel as
though I must run to^yard it. It dra\ys 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
THE MOUNTAIN LION. 91
to do witli tlio death of Mr. TJoiincv's cuttle?"
asked (Jivtclieii.
" I don't know — wo don't uiulerstand tliis conn-
try fully yet. There's sonietliin<^ very mysterious
about the death of those cattle. You ou;ij;ht to have
seen 'em. They all lie there dead, as though they
had just lost their hreath, and that was all."
The next night was silent. Rut, on the follow-
ing mt)rning, a hoy came to the school with a
strange story. He had been driving home his fa-
ther's cows on the evening before, when an animal
had drop})ed 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 di-ad. The
boy and the other cattle had run away on tlie sud-
den appearance of the animal. The dead cow ])re-
sented the same aj)i)earance as the cows of ^Ir.
Bonney had done,
AVhen the old chief appeared at the school-
house with Benjamin that morning, the school
gathered around him and asked him M'hat these
things eonld mean, lie re})lied, in broken Chinook,
that there was a puma among tliem, and that this
animal sucked the blood of its victims.
The piima or cougar or panther, sometimes
spelled painter, is the American lion. It is com-
92 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
monly culled the inoimtiilii lion in the Northwest.
It l)el(»ii<^s to the cat faiuily, and received the luuno
of lion from its tawny color. "When its appetite
for blood has been satislied, uiul its face is in repose,
it is a very beautiful animal ; but M'hen seeking its
prey it presents a mean, cowardly, etealthy ajjpear-
ance, 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 affec-
tionate and devoted of pets. It will j)urr about the
feet and lick the hands of its master, and develop
all the attractive characteristics of the domestic cat.
" We must have a j^uma-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. Benja-
min and I will go hunt."
The two disappeared. For several days they
did not return. But, one nu)rning, a party of
Indians in hunting-gear came riding up to the
school-house, full of gay spirits and heroic pride.
4
-'^-.f-i ■■■: ■^'i-'^-
I
I
a
THE MOUNTAIN LION. 93
Behind tlioin mine tlio oM cliicf on foot, moving
slowly, art though tirud, and with hini was Honja-
niin.
The Indian boy had a hrown skin of an ani-
mal on his nhoulder — a raw hide with very beauti-
ful fur.
The old chief came into the Fchool-room with
an air of ])ride, 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. lie 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 Benja-
min's shoulder, and held it up before the eyes of
all.
"Boston tilicum, who killed the animal?" he
said.
" It was yon ? " asked the teacher.
" No — not me, not me, no ! "
" The l)rave8 ? "
" Xo — not the ])'*aves. Xo." The old chief
paused, and then sai<l :
" Boston tilicum, it was Benjamin. Treat him
well. He is good to me — he mean well. He likes
94 TIIK LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON TJIE COLUMBIA.
you— he die fur you. Tell the boys it was Ben-
jamin.'"
lie turned away t^lowly, with a beariun; 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 Mas touching, and the
master's lip quivered as he tot>k the old chiefs
hand that bright morning, as a i)arting sign of
gratitude and good-will. He feh the innate
brotlierhood of all human hearts, and returned to
his desk hap])y in his calling and work ; and seeing
that the natural rights of all men were secured ;
and that the human heart has the same imjudses
everywhere, as he had never seen these truths be-
fore.
That night Gretchen told the story of the
puma to ]\Irs. "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 Sopteiiiher Mrs. Woods was at
work in lier cabin, and Gretclien was at school.
Mrs. Woods was trying to sing. She liad a liard,
liarsli 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 .^ing.
It was a very censorious rhyme and took a very
do.-pondent view of the human heart :
" The pure testimony poured forth from the Spirit
Cuts like a two-edged sword ;
And hypocrites now are most sorely toriiionted
Because they're condenuied by the Word."
She made the word ''l\ypocrites" ring through the
solitary lo<«:-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.
OC THE LOG SCnOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" Tlu.'ri''s one lionest woniiin alive," she re-
marked to herself. " Thank Heaven, / never yet
feared the faee of elaj ! "
A tall, dark form met her eye — a great shadow
in the seintillant smdight. It was an aged Indian,
walidni:: witli a staff. He was eomini; toward the
cabin.
" Umatilla ! " she said. " AVhat ean he want of
me ? "
The old ehief 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."
" Yon have been a good man," said Mrs. Woods,
yielding to an impidse of her better natnre. She
presently added, as though she had been too gener-
ous, " And there aren't many good Injuns — nor
wdiite 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 liim 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
TUE SMOKE-TALK. 97
smoke of the wigwiiin. Tliere comes a time wlieii
all want to go home. I want to go home. l"ma-
tilla is going home. I have not spoken.''
The smoke from his pipe curled over his white
liead in the pure, clear Septcmher air. lie was
eighty or more }'ears of age. lie had heard the
traditions of Juaji de Fura, the Greek pilot, who
left his name on the straits of the PuL;;et Sea. He
had heard of the coming of Vancouver in his hov-
hood, the English explorer who named the seas
and mountains for his lieutenants and friends,
Puget, Baker, lianier, and Townscnd. He had
known the forest lords of the Hudson ]5av Com-
pany, and of Astoria; had seen the sail of Gray as
it entered the Columhia, and liad heard the ])reach-
ing of Jason Lee. The nmrder of AVhitman had
caused him real sorrow. Umatilla was a man of
peace. lie had loved to travel np and d(»wn the
Colund)ia, and visit the great bluffs of the l*uget
Sea. lie lived for a generation at peace Avith all
the tribes, and now that he was old he was -vipner-
ated by them all.
" You are a good old Injun," said IMrs. "Woods,
yielding to her better self again. " I don't say it
about many people. I do think you have doire
your best — considering."
1)8 THE LOO SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" I am ii(»t "vvliat I want to be," paid Uiiuitllla.
" It is what we want to be that we sliall be one (hiy ;
don't you think so? The Great Si>irit is going to
make me wliat I want to be — he will make us all
wliat we \vant to be. My desires are better than I
— I will be my desires by and by. My stafl is in
my hand, and I am going home. The old warriors
liave gone home. They were thick as the flowers of
the field, thick as the stars of the night. Mj Ixjys
are gone home — they were swift as the hawks
in the air. l>en jamin is left to the Umatillas. lie
is no butcher-bird ; no forked tongue — he will re-
member the shade of his father. My heart is
in his heart. I am going home. I have fiot
spoken."
He puffed his ])ipe again, and watched an eagle
skimming along on the great over-sea of September
gold. The Indian language is always pictures(pic,
and deals in synd)ols and figures of speech. It is
j)icture-speaking. The Indians are all ])(^ets in
their imaginations, like children. This habit of
personification grows in the Indian mind with ad-
vancing 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.
Tilt: SMOKE-TALK. 0<)
There was a K)ii<^ pause. lie tlien laid duwii
liis pipe. He was alK»iit to speak :
" AV^onian, opvn your ears. The Great Spirit
lives in w<»iueii, and ohl people, and little children.
He loves the smoke of the wigwam, and the green
fields of the flowers, and the hlue gardens of stars.
And he loves music — it is his voice, the whis2)er of
the soul.
"He spoke in the pine-tops, on tlie lips of the
seas, in the shell, in the reed and the war-drum.
Then s/te came. He sj)eaks through /wr. I want
/icr to speak for me. My people are angry. There
are hutcher-hirds among them. They hate you —
they hate the cabin of the Mhite man. The white
men tid<e 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 ])eople ask for the Dance
of the Evil One. I no consent — it means graves.
"Let mc have /wr a moon — she play on the air.
She play at the Potlatch for me. She stand by my
side. The Great Spirit speak through lier. Indi-
ans listen. They will think of little ones, they will
think (»f departed ones, they will think of the hunt
— they will see graves. Then the night will pass.
loo TlIK LUG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THH COLUMBIA.
Then tlic smoke \vill rise ii<:,-iiiii from v.liite man's
euhin. Then I die in peace, and go home to tlie
(treat Spirit and rest. AVill you let me liave her?
I have spoken."
Mrs. AVoods comprehended the tigvirative speech.
Tlie old chief wished to take (Jretchen to his wiif-
warn for a month, and have her play the violin on
the great night of the Potlatch. lie hoped that
the influence of the music would aid him in pre-
venting the Dance of the Evil S^jirits, and a massa-
cre of the white settlers. AVhat should she say?
" I will talk with (Jretchen," she said. " You
mean well. I can trust you. AVe will see."
lie rose slowly, leaning on his staff, and emptied
his ])i])e. It re(piired a resolute will now to cause
his withered limhs 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 Sennon on the Mount
that he had spoken, but he knew not how close-
ly his heart had caught the spirit of the Divine
Teacher.
When Gretchen came home from school, Mrs.
Woods told her what had hap])ened, and what the
old chief had asked.
Mr. Woods had returned from the block-houses.
THE SMOKE-TALK. lol
lie m'n\: "' (iretclieii, go! Your Traumenl will
HJivo tlio c;oloiiy. Go ! "
Gretchcn nut 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 V
'"brother!" how sweet that word sounded to
])oor 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 yoit. 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 llenjamin. 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. AYoods, starting
102 THE LOG SCIIOOIj-IIOUSK CN TIII^ COLUMBIA.
up. " Well, I liJito him, ami I'll never forgive liiin
fur telliii' ym guch a tliiii<^ as that."
" But, inv>the'*, don't you love t/ie Master, and
won't you be friendly and forij^iving to llenjaniin,
for /tin sake? 1 wish you would. It would give
you ]H)wer ; I want you to do so."
" ril think about it, Gretchen. I don't feel
quite right about these things, and I'm goin' to
have a good talk with Fatlier Lee. The boy has
some good in him.''
" I wish you would tell him that."
" Why ? "
" Sympathy makes one grow so."
"That's so, (Tretchen. Only praise a dog for
his one good (piality, 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. AVoods, 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 AVhitman
and a part of his missionary colony.
THE SMOKE-TALK. 103
That was a torril)le event, and it was a seene
like tlmt that tlio new settlers feared, at the aj)-
])r()aehing Potlatch; and the th(»n<i,ht of that dread-
ful day almost weakened the faith c»f ^[r. Mann in
the Indians.
AVe must tell you the old-time history of the
trairedy which was now revived in the new settle-
ment.
TUE COXJUliED MELOyS.
Mot people who like history are familiar with
the national storv of IVFarcus AVliitman's "liide
for Oregon"* — that dariniii: horseback trip aeross
the continent, from the Columbia to the IVfissouri,
which enabled him to convince the Ignited States
Government not only that Oregon could be
reached, but that it was worth possessing. Exact
liistory has robbed this story of some of its ro-
mance, but it is still one of the noblest wonder-
tales of our own or any nation. ]\[(^numents 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 Kocky ]\rountains with their husbands,
*See Historical Notes.
H)4 TIIK IA)V, SCIIUOL-IIOUSK ON TIIK COM'MIJIA.
AVliitJimii uud S[)iiul(liii^ ; liow oiio of tlicin wm^',
in the littlo country cliurch on «lL'i)urtin<^, tlio whole
<»f tho liynin —
" Yo8, my nutivo laiul, I lovo thoo,"
wlicn the voices of others failed from emotion.
They luive rend how the whole J^irty knelt down
on the (ireut Divide, l)esi(le the open Uihle and
nnder the Americiin Ihij^, and took j)ossession of
the great empire of the Northwest in faith and in
imagination, and how history fuliilled tlie dream.
At tlie time of the coming of the missionaries
the Cayuse Indians and Nez-Perees occupied the
elhow of the (yolumhiu, and tlie region of the musi-
cal names of the Wallula, the AValla AValla, and
Waiilaptu. 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 sj^irit,
or both — the mountains, tlie rivers, the forest, the
sighing cedars, and the whispering firs.
The great plague of the tribes on tlie middle
Columbia was the measles. The disease was com-
monly fatal among them, owing largely to the man-
ner of treatment. When an Indian began to show
the fever which is characteristic of the disease, he
TIIK SMt»Ki:-TALK. 105
waa put into aiul iiiclosctl in a liot clay oven. Ah
Boon as lie wa.s covltimI with a |)r<»t'ii>t' jK'is|iirii-
ti(>n lie was let out, to K-ap int(» the cold waters df
tlie C«>luiiil»ia. I'snally the pluii<j;e was fuilowiMl
hy death.
There was a rule aniou<jr these Indians, in early
times, that if the " niedieine-niaii " undertook a (•a>e
and failed to cure, he forfeited his «»wn life. The
killiiii^ of the inedicine-inan was one of thi' (Iramatic
and fearful e])is(»(les of the Columbia.
Keturninix from tlie Kast after his famous ri<le,
"Whitman huilt up a nohle missi(»ii stati(»n at
AVaului)tu. lie was '\ man of stron<^ character,
and of tine tastes and ideals. The mission-house
was an imposinjjj structure for the place ajid time.
It had heautiful trees and jj::ardens, and inspirin<^
surround iufji^s.
^Irs. "Whitman was a remarkable wonian, as in-
telliijent ajul sympathetic as she was lieroic. The
colony became a prosperous one, and for a time
occupied the happy valley of the AVest.
One of the vices of the TWuse Indians and
their neighbors was stealin*;. The mission station
may have overawed them for a time into seeniini;
lionesty, but they bei!;an to rol) its gardens at last.
and out of this circumstance comes a story, related
KM] THK LOU SCIlOOL-irorsK ON TIIH COMMIMA.
t<» luu hy nil old Territoriiil otlicer, wliicli uniy ho
new to iiu>st ruadiTs. I do not vouch for it, hut
only Huy that thu niuTutor of the i)rinc'iiml incidents
is un (dd Territorial jud^'e who lives near the jdaco
of the Whitnum tni;<c<ly, and who knew many of
the Kurvivorri, and lias a iarjjc knowlcd-rc <d' the
In(Han races of the Colundda. To ids statements
I add some incidents of another pioneer:
"Tlic thieving' Cayuses have made 'way with
our melons apiiii," said a yon n;; f aimer one morn-
ing', returning from tlie gardens (d" the station.
*' One theft will he followed hy another. I know
the Cayuses. Is there no way to stop them V
One of the missionary fraternity was sitting
quietly among the trees. It was an Angnst morn-
ing. The air was a living splendor, clear and
warm, with now and then a breeze that rii)])led the
leaves like the waves of the sea.
lie looked up from his hook, and considered the
question half-seriously, half-hnmorously.
"I know how we used to jn-event hoys from
stealing melons in the East," said he.
"How?"
" Put some tartar emetic in the hiirirest one. In
the morning it wonld he gone, hut the boys would
never come after any more melons."
TllK SMOKK-TALK. 107
Tlu' young fiu'uiL'r imderstood tlio ivmoUy, ami
liiuglu'd.
" And," addt'd .0, ''tlio 1m»vs didn't Imve nuich
to my ul)out niolon.s after tlioy liad nitt-n t/i<tf one.
The Hultjoct IK* loiiiiii'r intorestod tlieni. I guess tlie
Indians would not care for more than one melon ot"
that kind.''
"I would like to see a wah-wah of Indian
thieves over a melon like that ! " said the gartlener.
" I declare, I and the hovs will do it ! "
Ho went to his work, laughing. That day he
o1)tained some of the emetic from the medical stores
of the station, and i)higge<l it int(» 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 solemidy to the station. His face had a troub-
led look, and there was an air of mystery about
lufl gait and attitude. He sto})ped before one of
the assistant missionaries, drew together his blanket,
and said :
'' Some one liere no goot. You keep a con-
jurer 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
108 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
^uossed why ho luu'. come. All laughed us they
heard liis isoleiiin words. The ridicule incensed
liini.
'' You one conjurer," lie said, ''he conjure mel-
ons. One nu)on, two moons, he shall die."
The laborers laughed again.
'' Half moon, nu^re moons, he shall suiTer — 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." lie spread out his blanket and
folded it again like wings. " Braves double up iSy> "
— he bent over, ojoening and folding his blanket.
"Braves conjured; melon conjured — white man
conjure. Indian kill him."
There was a puzzled look <»n all faces.
" Braves get well again," said the missionary, in-
cautiously.
" Then you Z7?o?r," said the Indian. " You
know — vou coniure. ]\rake sick — make well I "
lie drew his blanket again around him and
strode away M'itli an injured look in his face, and
vanished into the forests.
" I am sorry for this joke," said the missionary ;
" it bodes no good."
Xovember came. The nights were long, and
THE SMOKE-TALK. IQO
there was a perceptible coolness in the air, even in
this cliniiite of Aj)ril days.
Joe Stantield, a half-breed Canadian and a mem-
ber of AVliitniairs family, was observed to spend
many of the lengthenin«j; evenini^s with the Ca-
yuses in their lodges, lie had been given a home
by "Whitman, to whom he had seemed for a time
devoted.
Joe Lewis, an Indian who had come to AVhit-
man sick and half-elad, and had received shelter
and work from him, seems to have been on intimate
terms with Staniield, and the two l)eeame bitter
enemies to the mission and sought to turn the Ca-
yuses against it, contrary to all the traditions of In-
dian gratitude.
In these bright autumn days of 184-7 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 infecti(m. Many sickened and died, and Whit-
man was appealed to by the leading Indians to stay
the disease. lie undertook the treatment of a num-
ber of cases, but his patients died.
The hunter's moon was now burning k)W in the
skv. The o;atherinf>: of rich harvests of furs had
begun, and British and American fur-traders were
110 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
seeking these treasures on every hand. But at the
beginning of these liarvests tlie Cajuses were sick-
ening and dying, and the mission was powerless to
stay tlie pestilence.
A secret council of Cayuses and lialf-brecds was
lield one night under the hunter's moon near AValla
AValla, or else on the Umatilla. Five Crows, the
warrior, Avas there with Joe Lewis, of Whitman's
household, and Joe Stanlield, alike susjiicious and
treacherous, and old Mungo, the interpreter. Sit-
kas, 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. Address-
ing 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.
Kone 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 SMOKE-TALK. m
The men waited seriously to lietir what he would
say.
It was the same Indian who had a})|)eared at
the mission after the joke of the ])lugged melons.
" Brothers, listen. The missionaries are eon^
jurers. They conjured the melons at AVaiilaptu.
They made the melons siek. I went to missionary
chief. He sav, ' 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 missi(jnaries conjure the melons,
to save their gardens. They conjure you now, to
get your furs."
The evidence was conclusive to the Cavuse
mind. The missionaries Avere conjurers. The
comicil resolved that all the medicine-men in the
comitry should be put to death, and among the
first to perish v'^hould be "Whitman, the conjurer.
Such in effect was the result of the secret coun-
cil or councils held around Waiilaptu.
"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 t(» all
men, and zeal for the gospel.
He was nothing to himself — the cause was
112 TlIK LOO SCIlOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLU.MUIA.
everything. lie rode liitlier tiiid tliitlier on the
autuniii days and bright nights, engjiged in his
great \V(jrk.
He went to Oregon City for supplies.
" Mr. MeKinley," he said to. a friend, '* a Ca-
yuse cliief has told me that the Indians are al»ont to
kill all the niedicine-nien, and myself among them.
I think he was jesting."
" Dr. Whitman," said MeKinley, " a Cayuse
chief never jests."
He was right. The fateful days wore on. The
splendid nights glimmered over ]\Iount Hood, and
glistened on the serrated mountain tents of eternal
snow. The Indians continue to sicken and die,
and the imiversal suspicion of the tribes fell upon
Whitman.
Suddeidy there was a war-cry ! The mission
ran with l)l()od. 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 Wash-
ington to me. " They indignantly deny it. I have
studied the whole subject for years with this opin-
ion, that the Indian outbreak and its tragedies had
THE SMOKE-TALK. 113
its origin, and liirgoly gatliorcMl its force, from tlie
terrible joke of tlie conjured nieloiif^.
'• Tliat was the evidence that must liave served
greatly to turn the Indian mind against one of tlie
hravest men that America has produced, and whose
name will stand immortal among the heroes of
Washinijton and Oreijjon."
I n;ive this account as a local storv, 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 'i
C'ilAPTEK VIII.
THE ]{LACK eagle's NEST.
In the log seliool-liousc, Lewis and Clarke''s Ex-
pedition was used as a reading-book. Master Mann
liad adopted it becanse it was easy to obtain, antl
served as a sort of local geography and history.
In this book is an aeconnt of a great black
eagle's nest, on the Falls of the Missouri ; and the
incident seemed intensely to interest the pictur-
es(pie mind of Benjamin.
" Let ns go see," said Benjamin, one day after
this poetic part of Lewis and Clarke's narrative had
been read.
" What do you mean ? " asked ]\Ir. IMann.
" I carry canoe, and we go and find him ! "
"A\niat?"
" The black eagle's nest."
"Why?"
" I'll get a plume — wear it here. Please father.
I love to please father."
THE BLACK EAGLK'S NEST, 115
There was to be a few weeks' vacation in a part
of Se[)teinl»er and October, and Uen janiin's siig<;c8-
tion led Mr. ^lann to plan an excursion to the
Falls of the ^lissouri at that time. The old chief
would be glad to have Ik-njamin go with him and
lielp hunt, and carry the canoe. They would fol-
low the Salmon Iviver out of the Columbia, to a
point near the then called JelTerson IJiver, and so
pass the mountains, and launch themselves on the
Missouri, whence the way would l)e easy to the
Falls.
The dream of u." 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 rolund)ia
and Missouri Elvers is serene, and yet kindles, with
a sort of fiery splendor. The perfect days of
America are here.
Master ISIann and 'Renjamin started on their
expedition with a few Indians, who M'ere to see
them to the Jefferson Iliver and there leave
them.
The Yankee schoohnaster had a prophetic soul,
and he felt that he was treading the territory of
future empires.
8
116 THY. LOO SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMRIA.
Liiuiu'lic'd oil tlic ^Missouri, tlio thouglit of wliut
tilt' vast plains niiijht heconic itvcrwlieliiied liim ut
times, ancl lie 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 <»n 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 IVFauTi 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, r>en jamin ! "
" You do not know. They have' a hitter heart.
My father does not sleep. It is you that keeps
liim awake. He loves you ; you love nie and treat
me well ; he loves you, and want to treat you
well — see. She make trouble. Indians meet at
night — talk bitter. Thev own the land. Thev
liave rights. They threaten. Father no sleep.
Sorry."
THE BLACK EAOLF/S NEvST. 117
THE FALLS OF THE MlSSOrUI.
Tlie Falls (if the Missouri arc not only wonder-
ful and beautiful, but they abound with jj^rand tra-
ditions. Hefore we follow our y»»ung explorer to
the plaee, let us give you, good reader, some views
of tliis part of i\I(»ntana as it was and as it now
ai)j)ears.
AVc reeently looked out on the i>land that once
lifted the great black eagle's nest over the j)hing-
ing torrent of water— the nest fannnis, doubtless,
among the Indians, long before the days of J.ewis
and Clarke.
We were shown, in the eity of Great Falls, a
mounted eagle, which, it was claimed, came from
this nest amid the mists an<l rainbows. The fall
near tliis island, in the surges, is now known as the
Black Eagle's Fall.
This waterfall ha> not the beauty or the grand-
eur of the other cataracts — the lIaini)ow Falls and
the Great Falls — a few miles distant. r>ut it
gathers the spell of poetic tradition about it, and
strongly appeals to the sense of the iirtist and
the poet. The romancer w(udd choose it for
his w^ork, as the black eagles chose it for their
liome.
118 THE LOa SCIIOOr.-IIOUSE ox THK COLrMIJIA.
Near it is oiio of tho most lovely foimtiiiiirt in tho
world, C'ulk'd tin; (iiiiiit Spriii*^.
" Closo Inwido tho groat Missouri,
Ere it tttkos its sooond loap,
Is u spring of sparkling water
liiko u rivor broad and doop."
Tho spring pours out of the eurtli near the fall in
a great natural fountain, emerakl-green, elear as
erystal, bordered with water-cresses, ami mingles its
waters with the clouded surges of the Missouri. If
a person looks down into this fountain from a point
near enough for liim to touch his nose to the water,
all the fairy-like scenes of the Silver Springs and
the AVaui. 'a Spring in Florida api)ear. 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 Fou({u6 that created Un-
dine.
The Black Eagle Falls, with its great nest and
marvelous fountains, was a favorite resort of the
Blackfeet Indians and t»ther 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 fonntain :
TIIK BLACK EAGLKS NKST. ny
" Hither onmo the warrior I'icpins
On tlit'ir way to lif^lit the Cmw;
Stood upon its ver;,'!', and wondered
Wlml could nieiiu tlie power below,"
Tilt! PiL'^ims were tilled witli awe tliat t)ic
fttiiiittiiii rose and fell and ^Mir<j;le(l, us if in spasms
of j)ait». They sent for a native inedieine-iiiaii.
" Why is the fomitaiii ti-()iil)led { " th''y asked.
"This," said the Iiidiati jir(»|)liet, " is the j)iirc
sti'eain that flows through the earth t»» the sim. It
asks for olTeriiigs. AVc east tlie s])oils of war iiit(»
it, and it earries them away to the Sun's t<[p(C, and
the Sun is glad, and so sliines for lis all,"
The IMaekfeet M-orshiped the Sun. The Sun
River, a few miles ahove this eataract, wiis a medi-
eine or sacred river in the trihal days, and it was
in this region of gleaming streams and tliiindering
waterfalls that the once famous Sun-dances were
lield.
There was a bar])arous splendor ahout these Sun-
dances. The tribes gathered for the festival in
the lonii", hrio-ht days of the year. Thev wore
ornaments of crystal, (jiiartz, and mica, such as
would attract and reflect tlie rays of the sun. The
dance was a glimmering maze of reflections. As it
reached its height, gleaming arrows were shot into
120 TIIK I.Oti SCIlOOL-IiorSK ON TIIK COLl'MIUA.
tliu air. AliMve thoin, iti tliclr j)o('ti<r vision, siit
tliu Sun in liis V^xv- They Ik-M timt the thuiuU'r
wu.s caused l)y the wings of a great invisihle hinl.
Often, at the eh).se of the Sun-dance (^n the; sul-
try dayn, the cloudrt would gather, and the tiiunder-
hii'd Would shake its wings ahove them and eool
tho air. iKliglitt'nl times were these old festivals
on the Missouri. At evening, in the long North-
ern twilights, they W()uld recount the traditions of
tho j)ast. Some of the old tales of the Hlackfeet,
riegans, and ('hii)i)ewas, are as eharniing as those
of La Fontaine.
The liainhow Falls are far more heautiful than
tliose of thr ' ... Eagle. They are some six miles
from th ■ i.<\v ei* of Great Falls. A long stairway
of two 1.... ,,red or more steps conducts the tourist
into tlieir very mi.st-land of rocks and surges.
Here one is almost deafened hy the thunder.
When the sun is shining, tlie air is glorious with
rainhoM's, 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 greati'st water-
powers of the continent.
The city of Great Falls is leaping into life in
a legend-haunted region. Its horizon is a horder-
Till-: m.ACK KACJhK'S NKST. 121
IiukI (if \v<Mi(U'i'.s. Afar olT t^li'iini the IIi;;liN\niMl
Moiiiitiiiiis, with n»ofs of <;listeiiiii<^ siiow. Ihitti's
(hills with level tops) rise like giiint |»yniiiii(ls here
iiitd there, and one may almost ima^'iiie that he is in
the laii<l of the IMiaruohs. JJeneh lainls diversify
the wide plains. Ranehes and j^o'eat tloeks are
everywhere ; armies of eattle ; ereeks shaded with
Cottonwood and box-elder; hirds and flowers; an<l
«^olden eagles j:jleamin<^ in the air. The Rockies,
wall tiie northern plains.
The IJelt Mountain rci^ion near (treat Falls is a
wonder-land, like the (Jarden of the (iods in Colo-
rado, or the Goblin Laiul near the Yellowstone. It
wonld seem that it on^^ht to be made a State pai-k.
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 <tf birds and flowers ; of rock roses, wild
sunflowers, j^olden-rods ; of wax-wings, orioles, spar-
rows, and ea;jles. Here roams the stealthv mount-
ain lion.
This region, too, has its delightful legends.
One of these legends will awaken gi'eat curios-
ity as the State of ^fontana grows, and she hcems
destined to become the monarch of States.
In 1742 Sieur de la Verendrve, the French
122 THE LOU SCllOOL-llOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Governor of Quebec, sent out an expedition, under
his sons and brother, tliat discovered the lloeky
Mountains, which were named La Montana llocheH.
On tlie 12th of May, IT-i-t, this exi)edition visited
tlie ui)[)er Missouri, and phinted on an eminence,
])robably in the near region of Great Falls, a lead-
en plate bearing the arms of France, and raised a
monument above it, which the Verendryes named
Beauhamois, 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 wh" claim to have discov-
ered this monument, but they fail to })roduce the
leaden plate with the arms of France that the ex-
plorers buried. The search for this hidden plate
will one day l)egin, and the subject is likely greatly
to interest historical societies in ]\rontana, and to
become a very poetic mystery.
Into this wonder-land of waterfalls, sun-dances,
and legends, our young explorers came, now pad-
dling in their airy canoe, now bearing the canoe on
their backs around the falls.
Mr. Mann's white face Mas a surprise to the
native tribes that they met on the way, but Benja-
min's brightness and friendly ways made the jour-
ney of both easy.
THE BLACK EAGLE'S NEST. 123
They came to the Black Eagle Falls. The great
nest still was there. It was as is described in the
book of the early e.\[)lorers.
It hung over the mists of the rapids, and,
strangely enough, there were revealed tlnvc black
plumes in the nest.
Benjamin beheld these plumes Mith a kind of
religious awe. His eyes dilated as lie ])ointed to
them.
" They are for me," he said. " One for me, <»ne
for father, and one for vou. I'll get them all."
He glided fdong 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 Afedicine Kiver, now called the
Sun River, and there witnessed a Sun-dance.
It was a scene to tempt a brilliant j)ainter or
poet. The chiefs and warriors were array(Ml in
crystals, quartz, and every bright ])roduct of the
earth and river that would reflect the glory of the
sun.
They returned from where the city of Circat
Falls is now, back to the mountains and to the
124 THE LOO SCUOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
trihutaries of tlio Colniiibiii. Ik'njainin appeared
l)efoi'e liis father, on ]iis return, witli a crest of
l)la';k ea^de's plumes, and this crest tlie 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.
" ]}oth together," said Benjamin.
" Both together," replied T- nuitilla.
"Always?" said Benjamin.
" Always " answered the chief.
The Indians remend)ered these M'ords. Some-
how there seemed to he something prophetic in
them. Wherever, from that day, Umatilla or
Younir Ea<rle's Plume was seen, each M'orc the
black feather fron> 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 Sf^hool of poetry. The Potlatch was
sentiment, and the Sun-dance was an actual poem,
]\Iany of the tents of skin abounded with picture-
writing, and the stories told by the night fires
were full of picturescpie figures.
THE BLACK EAGLE'S NEST. 125
Gretcheu's poetic eye found subjocts iov voriso
ill all these things, and she often wrote down her
impressions, and read them to praetieal Mrs.
"Woods, who allected to ignore sueh thinjjs, hut }et
seemed secretly delighted with them.
" You have talons,''^ she used to say, " hut they
don't amount to anything, anyway. IS'everthe-
less— "
The expedition to the Falls of the Missouri,
and the new and strange sights which l>enjamin
saw there, led him to desire to make other trips
with the schoolmastei-, 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. lie seemed to be ])erfectly
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 Y-shaped flocks
passed in long processions overhead, honJtliKj in a
trumpet-like manner. Sometimes a flock of snowy
geese would be seen, and the laughing goose would
be heard.
" AVhere do they go ? " said Mr. Mann one day
to Benjamin.
126 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Tlie boy told him of a wonderful iishuid, now
known as Whidby, where there were great gather-
ings of iloeks of geese in the fall.
" Let's go see," said he. " The geese arc
thicker than the bushes there — the jionds are all
alive with them there — honk — honk — honk ! Let's
go sec."
" When the school is over for the fall we will
go," said Mr. Mann.
The Lidian boy's face beamed Avith delight.
lie dreamed of another expedition like that to
the wonderful Falls, lie 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 Cohnnbia 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 ok the
cascades.
" Go to tlie cliief H lod^jje, (irctcliun, and stay
until the Potlatcli, and I will conic to visit you."
Such were the words of Mrs. AVoods, as her final
decision, after long considering the chiefs re-
(juest.
The forest lodge of the old chief of the Cas-
cades was picturesque without and within. Out-
wardly, it was a mere tent of skins and curious
pictography, under the shadows of gigantic trees,
looking down on the glistening waters of the
Columhia ; inwardly, it was a inuseuni of relics of
the supposed era of the giant-killers, and of the
deep regions of the tooth and claw ; of rotlatches,
masques and charms of mcdas and vahenocs ; of
curious pipes ; of odd, curious feathers, and heauti-
ful shells and feather-work and pearls. Rut, though
all things here were rude and primitive, the old
128 THE L(X} SCnOOL-IIOUSE OX THE COLUMBIA.
cliii'f liad a stron<^ poetic sense, and tlie place and
tlie arranii^einent of everything in it Avere very
pictnresque in its eileet, and would have delight-
ed an artist. On a hill near were <^rave-]K)sts,
and a sacred i^rove, in whicli were bark cotlins in
trees. Near by was an open field where the Indian
hunters were accustomed to «ri^ther their peltries,
and where visiting bands of Indians came to be
hospitably entertained, and feasts were given d la
mode He sanvacje. From the plateau of the royal
lodge ran long forest trails and })athways of blazed
trees ; and near the opening to the tent rt)se two
poles, to indicate the royal rank of the occupant.
These Avere ornamented with ideograi)hic 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 school-
master.
'^'he old chief was very kind to his unfortunate
wife, and treated her like a child or a doll. Benja-
min was about to take as his bride an Indian crirl
whom the English called Fair Cloud, and she was a
frecpient visitor at the tent.
To this patriarchal family Gretchen came one
day, bringing her violin. Fair Cloud was there to
GIlETCriEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF. ]2d
recei\ liLT, juul the crazy old i?(|iuiw soemod to he
made happy by the .siglit of her \vhite face, and she
did all that «he could in her simple way to make
her welcome. She gave her ornaments oi shells,
and pointed (»ut to her a wabeno-tree, in whose
tops 8])irits M'cre 8up])osed to whis})er, and around
which Indian visitors sometimes danced in the sum-
mer evenin<i:s.
The Indian maid was ca<^er to liear the violin,
hut the old chief said : " It is the voice of the Mer-
ciful ; let it be still — the god should not speak
nnich."
He seemed to wish to reserve the influence of
the instrument for the Potlatch, to make it an ob-
ject 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
wnth fan-like feathers, in the lodge. Fair Clond
used to play upon it, or i-ather shake it in a rhyth-
mic way. There was also a war-drum in the lodge,
and an Indian called lilackhoof used to beat it,
and sav :
" I walk upon the skv,
My wivr-dnim 'tis you hoar;
When tho sun fjoos out at noon,
My war-drum 'tis you hear !
130 TlIK LOO SCIIOOL-IIorSR ON THE COLUMBIA.
" When forkod light iiiiif,'s flash,
My wiir-dnim 'tis you hour.
1 wiilk upon the sky,
And call the clouds; be still,
My wur-druiu 'tis you hour ! "
Tlio tribes of tlie Oivgoii at tliis tiiiio were
miinerous but siiuill. Tbej consisted cliieriy of the
Chino(»ks N'iincouvers, tlie Walla Wallas, the Va-
comai's, the Spokans, the C'aynses, the Nez-Perces,
tlie 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 Orei^-on or Columbia a common fishin*;-
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. Ked M'hortleberries filled the woodland
])astures and blackberries the margins of the
woods.
The climate was an almost continuous April ;
there was a cloudy season in winter with rainy
m'ghts, but the Japanese winds ate up the snows,
and the ponies grazed out of doors in mid-winter,
and s]>ring came in February. It was almost an
ideal existence that these old tribes or families of
Indians lived.
Among the early friends of these people was
GUETCIIEN'S VISIT TO TIIK OLD ClilKK. lai
Dick Trevette, whotic t«»inl) stiirtk-s tlio tourist on
tiie Coluinl)iu an he pjisscy MaimiloosL', or tlu' Isliiiul
of tho Dt'jul. lie (lied in ('uliforniii, luul his lust
re(|uest was that he nii^'lit be buried in tlie Indian
graveyard on tlie Cohnidtia River, among a race
whose hearts had always been true to him.
The old chief taught (Jretchen to lish in the
Columbia, and the withered crone cooked the fish
that nhe caught.
Strange visitors came to tlie lodge, among them
an Indian girl who brought her old, withered
father straj)ped uj)ou 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 even-
ing were invited to dance about the whispering
tree.
The song for the rcccpti(m of strangers, which
was sung at the dance, was curious, and it was ac-
companied by striking the hand U})on the breast
over the heart at the words " Here, here, here" :
" You rcs(Mnl)le 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.
9
132 TIIK LOO SCIIOOL-IIOL'SK ON TIIH (OiAMlJIA.
" i\ro wo not l)rt)tlii'rs, thou ;
JShull W(( not nict^t iiK'iiin—
I lore, horo, here y
"Mi, yes, wo IjiotluTM ho,
So my fiiMil liciirl .sinj,'s to thco—
lli'ie, liiro, /tar.
" Ah ! yes, wo brotluTs Ih' ;
Will you not answer nic —
lloru, liuru, here /"
Gretclien wjw I'uppy in the new kiiul of life.
Sliedid not feur tlie Iiuliuns; in fuct, the thing that
nhe feared inoht wus tlie j)roniised visit of IMrn.
Woods. She WHS sure tlitit lier foster-niotlier's
spirit would ehange toward the Indians, hut the
change had not yet come.
One evening the schoohnastor came to call.
lie was hent upon a mission, as always. The
family gave him a seat outside of the tent, and
gathered aroun<l him, and they talked until the
stars came out and were mirrored in the Columhia.
One of the first questions asked hy the old chief
was, " Is Eagle's Plmne (I>enjamin) hrave ? " (a
good scholar).
" Yes, hrave at times ; he must learn to he brave
always. lie must always keep his better self. The
world wonhl he good if people would learn to
keep their better selves. Do you see ? "
UKHTCIIKN'S VISIT TU TUK OLD ClIIKF. 1^3
« YC8."
"A cliief should ('(HKjiu'r hiiihsclf lii-Ht ; olti-y
the will of the (irt'iit Manitou — do you huo i "
" Yu8, hut how ciui wu know liis will?"
"It 18 his will thiit wo ho our he>t niindrt. For-
give, and BO inuke hud j)eople good, and return
good for had. Do you see r'
''Yes, boy, do you see?" (to Ijeujaniin).
" Yes, yes, I see "what white nuin ineiiuH. "Hut
white man do not so. He cheat — he kill."
'* Botiton tillcu7n, 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 he 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. IJen-
jamin 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.
134 THE LOG SCIIOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
When any asked lier 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 occa-
sion 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.
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
AYillamette Vallev. Seattle * was there, from the
* See Historical Notes.
r "^€- ".*■ "-ri-' m _
J.
GRETCIJEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF. I35
"VVillaiiiette, tlieii young, and not yet the titular
chief of Governor Stevens. * It was a company of
diverse spirits — Trevette, the reputed gambler, hut
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 nmsical German girl, with memo-
ries of the llhine; and the Indian chief and his
family. The Columbia rolled below the tall pali-
sades, the opjiosite bank was full oi cool shadows of
overhanging rocks, suidess retreats, and dripping cas-
cades of glacier-water. Afar loomed Mount Hood
in grandeur unsurpassed, if we exce})t Tacoma, in-
swathed in forests and covered with crvstal 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. AVarm in winter,
cool in sunnner, 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
* See nistorical Notes.
130 THE LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
cliief. " lie lights tlio sun, and lifts his wings for a
bIuuIow, and breathes on the earth. He lills 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 sec what great resources here await man-
kind. I do it only for the good of others — some-
thing 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 tlie 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 runninc: water that freshens the earth. Husband
and I built our house with our own hands, and I
made my garden Avitli my own hands, and I have
GRETCIIEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CUIEF. 137
defended my property with my own hands against
bears and Injuns, and have kept Inisband to work
at the block-house to esfi-n 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. Tm an honest woman, that's what I
am, and have asked nothing in the world but what
I liave earned, and don't you dare to (piestion 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 dif-
ferent temper and tongue. There are black wings
in the sky, and you would not be so cool if yon
had heard the things that liave 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 Pot-
latch masks — fearful and merciless visages, fit to
cover the faces of crime. She had heard that Uma-
tilla would never put on a mask himself, although
he allowed the custom at the tribal dances. IVIrs.
Woods dropped her black eyes from the ominous
masks to the honest face of the chief.
138 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" There," said she, lifting lier arm, " there sits
an lionest man. lie never covered his heart with a
mask — he never covered his face with a mask. lie
has promised me protection. He lias 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 Uma-
tilla, he will find great UmatiHa only, fearless and
noble — honest and true, but no mask. He never
wore a mask."
" But, woman," said Umatilla, " you arc 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 Unuitilla 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 ir struct me — I honor you. Listen to an old
Indian's ^lory. 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
GRETCIIEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF. i;39
THE WOLF niiOTUER.
An old Indian hunter was dying in liis lodge.
The l)arka were lifted to admit the air. The winds
of the seas came and revived him, and lie called
his three children to him and made his last he-
(juests.
"■ My son," he said, " I am going out into the
unknown life whence I came. (Jive yourself to
those who need you most, and always he true to
your younger hrother."
" My daughter," he said, " he a mother to your
younger hrother. 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 ; V)ut now, aft(jr his
death, the oldest son sought the villages and he de-
sired to live in them. " ]\[y sister," he said, " can
h)ok out for niv little brother. I nuist look out for
myself."
r>ut the sister tired of solitude, and longed to go
to the villages. So one day she said to her little
140 THE LOG SCUOUL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMIUA.
brotlier : " I am jfointc uwav to find our Itrothor wlut
1ms taken up liis alMxlu in the villages. 1 will come
back in a few moons. Stay you liere."
But blie married in the villages, and did not
return.
The little brother was left all alone, and lived on
roots and berries. lie 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 tliey had left him to the animals.
" No — no ! " said he. " I would rather be a wolf.
The wolves have been kinder to me than yon.
" My brother,
My brother,
I am turning —
I am turning
Into a wolf.
You made me so I
GKETCIIEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF. Ul
" My sister,
JNIy si.'jjer,
1 um turning —
I jun turning
Into a wolf.
You nuido rao so 1 "
" O little broth(!r, forgive me," said the sister ;
'" forgive me ! "
'' It is too late now. See, I am a wolf ! "
lie 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 tiie 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 Maim now a]ipcared
before the open entrance of the lodge. The Yan-
kee schoolmaster had been listening to the story.
The old chief bent his eye upon him, and said,
" And, Boston tilicnm, do yon be good to Benjamin
when I am gone, so that he shall not become like
the little brother."
"Yon may play, Gretchen, now — it is a solemn
honr ; the voices of the gods shonld speak."
Gretchen took her violin. Standing near the
door of the tent, she raised it to her arm, and the
142 THE LOO SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Ktraiiis of Homo old (lorimm music rose in tlie glim-
mering uir, and drifted over the ('olumhiii.
" I think that tiiere are worlds around this,"
said the old chief. '^ The (Jreat Spirit is good."
The sun was going down. High in the air the
wild fowls were Hying, with the bright light yet on
their wings. The glaciers of ]\Iount Hood were
flushed with crimson — a sea of glass mingled with
tire. It was a ])astoral scene ; in it the old history
of Oregon was coming to an end, after the mys-
teries of a thousand years, and the new history of
civilization was beginning.
Evening came, and the compaii}' dispersed, but
the old chief and Ciretchen sat down outside of the
tent, and listened to the nuirmnring music of the
Dalles of the Cohnnbia, and breathed the vital air.
The Cohnnbia is a mile wide in some ])laces, 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 solenm — the remnant of some great
upheaval in the volcanic ages.
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.
A castellattd crag arose solitary and solemn.
GRETCilEN'S VISIT TO TlIK OLD CHIIIF. U.j
#
"Sit down by my feet, my diild," he wiid to
Clretclien, or in words of thiiA meaning. '* I liiivc
heeii thiiikiii"^ wliiit it is tluit mjiken the music in
the violin. Lot us tidic tt>^c'tii('r, for sometiiin^'
whispers in the leaves tlmt my duyb are almost
done."
"Let me get the violin and j>lay to you, father;
we are alone."
" Yes, yes ; get the music, child, and you shall
})lay, and we will talk. Vou shall sit down at my
feet and play, and we will talk. (Jo, my little
spirit."
(Jretchen brought her violin, and sat down at
his feet and tuned it. She then drew lier bow, and
threw on the air a haunting strain.
"Stop there, little spirit. It is beautiful. Ihit
what uuide it beautiful ? "
" My bow — don't you sec ? "
Gretchen drew her bow, and again lifted the
same liaunting 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."
144: THE LOO SCnOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" My hciu\—/iej'e f "
" No — soinctliin^ beliiiid tliat."
"My heart?"
" !No — no — soinothing beliiiid that."
" I ? "
" Yes — you, but something jjehind that. I have
not seen it, my girl — your spirit. It is that that
makes the nnisic ; l)ut theize is something behind
tliat. I can feel what I can not see. I am go-
ing away, girl — going away to the source of the
stream. Then I will know everything good is beau-
tiful — 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. Wlien 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 Good-
GRETCIIEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF. 145
ness with a Fatlicr's love watched over every-
thing.
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 o])en
vision — " I will bo their teacher."
The old chief seemed satisfied, and said : '' It is
well ; I am going away.
Much of the chiefs talk was acted. If he
wished to speak of a star, he would point to it ; and
lie would imitate a bird's call to designate a bird,
and the gurgle of water when speaking of a running
stream. He spoke Ghinook freely, and to see him
when he was speaking was to learn from his mo-
tions his meaning.
CIIAPTEK X.
MRS. WOODS MEETS LITTLE ROLL OVER AGAIN.
One day Rev. Jason Lee came up from tlie
Cascades, in a boat, to visit Mr. and Mrs. Woods on
tlieir donation claim. Mr. Lee at tliis time was
inspired with missionary zeal for the Indians, and
he remembered Mrs. Woods kindly as an ignorant
but earnest and teachable woman, whom the influ-
ence 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 writ-
ten by Thomas Olivers, one of Wesley's coad-
jutors, beginning —
" The God of Abrah'm praise."
MRS. WOODS MEETS LITTLE ROLL OVER AC.AIN. 14 7
(She used to sing it often about her work ; and
one approaching the cabin, might often liave lieard
lier trying to sing to the old Hebrew niekxlj of
Leoniel — a tune perliaps as okl as the Jewish Tem-
ple itself — such sublime thoughts as these —
" The God of Abrah'tn praise,
At whose supreme command
From earth I rise, and seek the joys
At his ri<;^lit hand ;
I all on earth forsake.
Its wisdom, fame, and power;
And him my only portion make,
My shield and tower.
" lie by himself hath sworn,
i- I on his oath depend ;
I sliall. 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 AVesley's triumphant review of life in liis
middle age. The tune, although nuirked in tlie
music-books c. p. m,, and thus indicating some difli-
culty, was really as simple as it was lively, and
carried the voice along like the music of a meadow
stream :
10
148 TUE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" How happy is the pilgrim's lot,
How free from every nnxious thought,
From worhlly hope and fear!
Confined to neither court nor cell,
His soul dischiins on earth to dwell —
Ho only sojourns hero."
Mrs. Woods was sini^iiig an usual about her
work, wlieii Jason Lee r;ij)ped at her door.
" Father Lee," said Mrs. Woods, " can I trust
my eyes ! — coiiie again to see me, away out here in
tlie timber i Well, you are welcome. I have got
something on my mind, and I have long been want-
ing to have a talk with you. IIow 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 clianged your
mind ? You surely can not think it your duty to
leave this great country in tlie 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
MRS. WOODS MEETS LITTLE ROLL OVER AGAIN. 149
the people of tlie East of tlieir great opi)ortiinity
here. I owe it to my country's future to do tliis,
I have e.'iteii the grapes of a promised hind, and I
must return to my own people with the good re-
})ort. I helieve that the best life of America will
yet he here — it seems to he 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 calliug and
duty, and none of us are led alike. Father Lee,
Gretchen has been reproviu' me, thcnigh 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 l)e 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 su^jposc.
Afterward, Young Eagle's Plume — Jk'njamin, 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 when-
ever I meet them, and these things hint that they
are goin' to capture me at the Potlatch and carry
me away. I hate Injuns.
150 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBLV.
" But (irc'tclicii liiis told nie fi tliiiijj:; that touches
my feeliu\s. Slio says that Beiijainiii lio says that lie
will protect iiie on account of his love for the mas-
ter ; and that, on account of my love for the good
Master of us all and his cause, I ought to show
a dillerent s})irit toward the Injuns. What do yon
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 w^ell. 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 yeV 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 TThitman, remcndier AYhitman : he showed
the right spirit, and the Injuns killed h'uri!^^
MRS. WOODS MEETS LITTLE ROLL OVER AGAIN. 151
" His death was caused by a inisappivliuusion,
and it made liiiii a martyr. His work lives. Men
live ill their work.'"
" Well, Father Lee, if IkMijaniiii can overcome
his evil feeliirs for his master, 1 ou^ht to do so for
mine, as Gretchen says. My bad s])irit in this mat-
ter has lung troubled me; it has caused a cloud to
come over me when singiii' hymns. 1 will give it
all u[) now — I will give U]) everything, and just
follow the butter spirit. 1 want to do right, so that
I can sing hymns.''
AVhen Father Lee left the cabin, ]\rrs. Woods
accomj)anied him U) his boat on the river.
As they were passing along under the tall
spruces whose tops glimmered in the sun, and
whose cool shachnvs made the trail delightful and
refreshing, a black she-bear suddenly rose up be-
fore 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 sur])rise. !Mrs. Woods sto})ped
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
152 THE LOO SCriOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
the ejus of the startled luissiunary. The Httle bear
rolled itself into a ])all, and began to turn over and
over, and to come tinvard them in its sonier.saults.
The mother bear made a peculiar noise, dro])ped
upon her four feet and ran off into the thnber ; and
the little one, hearing the noise and movement,
leaped up and followed her.
" AVhat does that mean ? " asked the missionarv,
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 tlic 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 every-
where for her pet bear. She did not fear the old
bear, for.these animals are generally harmless it un-
molested. She called, "Eoll Over! Roll Over!"
when slie cauKi 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 MEETS LITTLE ROLL OVER .\GAIN. 153
Mrs. Woods caiiiu lioiiic to liuve a loii^ liuttlu
witli herself. Her idea of liappiiiess seemed to he
the freedom to sing liymns witli a clear coiihcieiice,
and tlie poor pioneer woman's philosophy was not
very far from right.
CIIAPTEU XI.
MAHLOWI'; MANN'h NKW ItoIJINSON CRUSOE.
JjKsidks the Nurnitivcj of Lowiri Jiiid Chirko,
wliich was Uisud in the school as a reador, Mr. Mann
made use of another hook in liis teaching wljicli
greatly delighted his pi j>ils and often awakened
their sympathies. It was called "John 11. Jevvett
and Thompson." It presented a picture of life on
the coast early in the century. The strange story
was much as follows :
THE ItOniXSON CRUSOE OF VANCOUVER.
About the year 18(»2 the ship Boston, from
Boston, Mass,, went to Hull, England, to secure a
cargo of goods to carry to the Indians on the North-
west coast of America to trade for furs. Slie 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.
MAllLOWK MANN'S MOW IIOUINSON CRUSOK. 155
SIk; whs coiniiiimdc'd \)y Ciiptaiii .loliii Suiter, ji
clover nmii uiid u natunil story-tclkr, whose eiij^ii^^-
iij^ j)ictures of travel were mrv t() fiisciimte tlit;
yoiiiii^.
While ir England this man met a lad hy the
name of John Rogers Jewett, mIio listened eagerly
to his romantic adventures, and who desired to
emhark with him for America, and was allowed l>y
his parents t(» make the voya<;'e. The ship sailed
around C'a])e Horn to Nootka I>land, one of the
islands on the west coast of Vancouver Island he-
tvveen the forty-ninth and fiftieth parallel. Here
the whole crew, with the exception of younij: Jewett
and a man hy the name of Thompsitn, were mas-
sacred ])y the Indians, and the strange and trai^ic
narrative of the survivors was an American and
Enjjjlisli wonder-tale seventy years ago. Mr. Jewett
puhlislied the accotnit of his capture and sufferings,
under the title (tf "John 11. Jewett and Thomp-
son," or, to copy the title of the (juaint old hook
before me, '"A Narrative of the Adventures and
SuiTerings of John U. Jewett, only Survivor of the
Crew of the Ship Boston, (hiring a Captivity of
nearly Three Years among the Savages of Nootka
Sound." The book was issued from London, Eng-
land, and from Middletown, Conn. After llobin-
150 TIIK l.OG SCIIOOL-IIOL'SK ON TIIK CULl'MIUA.
K<jn Cru.sut', perlmps no hook wiw more I'ligorly rciul
hy our <j;nin(lfjitlR'rH in tlit'ir boyhood thun this.
The Indiim king of >iootka was Miniuiim. He
iiHod to visit the ship, 8ometinies wearing ii wmmkU-u
iiiiisk over hin face representing some wild heiist.
Sucli masks are still to be found among the In-
dians of Vaneouver.
;Ma(itiina was at first very friendly to Captain
Salter, but inie day the latter olfended 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,'' re))lied the captain.
"You love salmon — much in Frier. Ilv Cove:
go, then, and catch some," said the chief.
The captain thought it very desirable to have a
large 8up[)ly of ilsh on board, so he assented to the
chiefs proposal, and, after diimer 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 visc-bencli in the steerage," says ISIr. Jewett,
in his Narrative, " where I was employed in clean-
ing muskets. I had not been there more than an
MAIILOWK MAWS XKW UoniNSON CRUSOK. 157
hour, wIk'ii I lii'iml a ^reat Imstlo and cotifiision on
<leck. 1 nm w[» tliu stetTa^t; ntairn, l»ut hcarci'ly \va8
my lK'a<l above dirk wliuii I wan caught \>y tlif liair
l)y one (»t' the savages. My hair was short, and I
fell from his hold into tlie steenip'. As I was fall-
ing, lie struck me with an axe and cut a deep gash
in my forehead. I ri'iuained in a state of suspense
for some time, when Maijuina him.>elf appeared at
the hatch and ordered me to come up. AVhat a
territic spectacle met my eyes ! Six naked savagen
stood in a circle around me, covered with the hlood
of my murdered comrades ! I thought that my
last moment had come, and connnended my soul to
my ^[aker.
"'John,' said the chief, ' I speak — you no say
no ; you say no — daggers come. "Will you become
my slave and fight for me?' T 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 pre-
sented 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 tlie shij)
under way for ]• i-iendly Cove. AVe were there re-
ceived by the inhabitants of the village with loud
158 TllH LOG SCnoOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
bliuiits of joy and a liorriblo dnimmiiig of sticks
upon tliu ivjofs and sides of thoir houses. JMaquina
took nie on shore to his house."
Young Jewett became a favorite of the chiefs
son, and was made a member of the tribe. He was
compelled to marry an Indian ])rincess, 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 beautifnl, and served him with the most affec-
tionate devotion, but he could not love her, because
he had been compelled to marry her.
The most remarkable incidents of this stranire
narrative are associated with the fate of those who
were enjxaircd in the massacre of the ofHcers and
crew of the Boston, and which show that the ex-
perience of retribution is a law common to all peo-
ples and lands.
The princii)al chief or sub-chief among the war-
riors was Tootooch. He had married ]\ra(|uina's
sister. Tie raidced next to l\Ia(|uina 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. lie killed two men on
shore, presumably with his own hand.
MARLOWE MANN'S NEW ROBINSON CRUSOK. I59
Insanity is not conimon among tlic Indians.
But a terrible mania tocjk possession of this ambi-
tious warrior. "While in the enjoyment of the
highest health," says Mr. .jewett, "he was sud-
denly seized with delirium, in which he fancied
that he saw the ghosts of the two men that he had
nnirdered." The avenging vision followed liini
wherever he went. He was tilled with terror at
all times, and at last refused to eat to sustain his
life. The Indians forced food into his mouth.
Ma(|uiria was informed of the terrible state of
the warrior's mind by his sister, TootooclTs wife.
IIe\^ent 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 .lewett. " ^[afpiina placed provisions
before him, but he would not eat."
At last the distressed tijce^ induced by hunger,
put forth his hand to touch the food. But he sud-
denly drew it ])ack. raying that Hall and Wood
were there.
" They w^ill Tiot let me cat," said he, with a look
of despair and terror.
Maquina pointed to Thompson and Jewett.
" Is it they who have bewitched you ? " he
asked.
160 THE LOG SCUOOL-UOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" Wlk (no) ; John Hashish (is good), Thompson
Hashish (is good)."
He arose and ])iteonsly put liis hand on Jewett's
sliouluor, and, pointing to the food ollered him, he
said, " Eat."
'' Eat it yourself," replied :Mr. Jewett. " Hall
and Wood are not there."
'' Vou 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 r' asked Macpiina.
" We contine the person and whip him," said
Jewett.
The chief ordered that the haunted warrior
should he 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 l)ecame completely exhausted, and Death
came with a merciful face.
" Early in June," says jMr. 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 wra])ped
in an otter-skin robe and placed in a large coffin.
MARLOWE MANX'S NEW ROBINSON CRL'SOE. KU
which was ornamented witli rows of white shells.
It was buried bj night in a cavern."
The ii/('('s or chiefs had discusk'd often the
policy of putting Mr. Jewett and ^fr. Thompson
to death, and so end all evidence of the destruction
of the JJoston 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 hilled, and
wasting awaj amid days and nights of horror, made
them fear that the other warriors en^i'aLa'd 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 IJiver, wliere he arrived
shortly after the visit of Lewis and Clarke, of the
famous expediti»ui that bears these names. lie
finally came to New England and settled in ]\Iid-
dletown. Conn. His history gives a very pictur-
esque view of the habits and customs of th« In-
dians on the Northwest coast nearly a century ago.
The book can be found in anticjuarian libraries, and
should 1)0 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.
CITAPTER XII.
()LI> JOE MP:EK AM) MK. SPAULDINO.
One (liiv a man in a laickskin habit cninc to the
door of the scliool-liouse and looked in iij)on the
school. Ili.s 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, affe'3ted, or insincere. His form had the
strength and mettle of a pioneer. lie rapped a
loud, hard rap, and said, in a sturdy tone :
" i\[ay I come in ? "
The master welcomed him cordially and courte-
ously, and said :
"This is Mr. Meek, I believe ?"
" Yes, old Joe Meek, the jnonecr — you have
heard of me."
" Yes, yes,"' said IMr. IMann. " 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
OLD JOK iMKKK AND AIR. SPAULDINCJ. 103
over nie. Wliat we do liere is done for a tliousaiid
years, for here the ^reat Hfe of tlie Aiighi-Saxon
race is destined to eoiiie. I can see it ; 1 feel it.
The morning twilight of time is about me. J can
liear tlie Oregon calling — calling; to teach here is
a y-lorious life ; the whole (»f liumanitv is in it.
I have no wish to return to the East again."
" Stranger, jj-ive me vour hand.'"
The New England sclutolmaster tooh the hard
hand of the old ])ioneer, and the two stood there in
silence.
The children could not understand tlic great,
soul-ex[)anding sym})athy that made these two men
friends. They gazed on ^fr. IVfeek's buckskin jacket
and trousei'8 with curiosity, for th(y were pictui--
esque with their furs, belts, and weapons, and lie
looked like a warrior or a forest knight clad in
armor.
He wore the same buckskin suit when he ap-
peared in AVashington as the delegate to Congress
from Oregon. It was at the time of Polk and
Dallas, and not a ])erson in Washington j)robably
knew him when he nuule his a]»]»earance at the
Congressional Hotel.
The people at the hotel stared at him as the
children did now. lie went into the great dining-
11
• 104 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE OX THE COLUMBIA.
room witli tlio other Coiigressmeii, l)ut ulone and
uiikiiovvn. The eoh)rccl waiters ]aiiy;hed at him u.s
ho took his seat ;t tlie table.
The (jther [)e()ple at the tahU' were served, hut
no one eame near liim. At last he tnrned and
faeed a hurrying eolored man, and, in a voice that
sileneed the room, said :
" Waiter, come here ! "
The waiter rolled up liis e}'es and said, " Sir? "
" Have you any big meat to-day i "
" Yes, sir."
" Any bear ? "
" Any bear ? bear ? Xo, sir."
" Any buffalo ? "
"Any buffalo — buffalo? "Where did you come
from 'i No, sii"."
" Well, waiter you may bring me what you
have."
The waiter went away with white teeth, and a
smile and titter jiassed around the table. The
waiter returned with the usual first course of the
meal, and was about to huriy away, M'hen the old
pioneer took out his jMstol and laid it down on the
table, saying :
"Waiter, you stand there, T may M-ant you ; and
if anybody M-ants to know who I am, tell him T
OLD JOE MEHK AND Mli. SPAL'LDINO. 105
am Hon. Joseph Meek, the clclogate of the people
of ()iv<^oii."
When it was known who ^[r. ^leek was, he was
met hy Mr. Dallas, the courtly Vice-President.
" I will attend you to the reception this after-
noon, where you will meet the wives of the Con-
gressmen," said he. '' I will call for you at
three."
The Vice-President called, and was suri)rised to
find Mr. Meek still in his buckskins.
" You do not intend to go in that habit to the
reception i " 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 anu)ng the
people of Oregon is good enough for their repre-
sentative here."
"We have given, in these two anecdotes, very
nearly Mr. Meek's own words.
A few days after the visit of this most extraor-
dinary 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 innnediate sym-
pathy with her. The lady was Mrs. Spaulding, one
of the so-called " Prides of Oregon." Her husband
ICO TllK !/)(} SCHOOL-IlorSK ON TIIH COLUMIHA.
luid (!<»nu; to the 'JVrritory with Dr. Whitiiiun uiul
his hridt'. Tiic h)n<:; missionary journey was the
bridal tour of Afrs. AVhitiiiaii and Mrs. SiJauldiiiir.
Thi'v WL'rc the iirst wliite woiuun who crossed the
Roeky iMountains. It was related of AFrs. Spauld-
inj;, who had a heautifnl voice, an<l was a niein-
her of a cliurch (juartet or choir in a country town
in New York, as a leadin<; singer, that, just beforcj
leaving the place for her long horseback journey
of more than two thousand miles, she sang in the
cliurch the hymn bi-ginning —
" Yes, my native land. 1 love thee,"
in such an affecting manner as to silence the rest of
the choir, and melt the congregation to tears :
" Homo, thy joys are passinc; lovely,
Joys no stnuifjor's lioart can tell ;
Happy sc'i'iics and happy country,
Can I bid you all farewell?
Can 1 leave thee,
Far in heathen lands to dwell f "
This lady addressed the school, and spoke feel-
ingly of the condition of the Indian race, and of
the field for the teacher in the valleys of the
Columbia.
Gretclien listened to the address with open
heart. There are moments of revelation wdien a
OLD JOK MKKK AND Mil. Sl'AULDIXG. lf;7
knoNvlt'dgu of ouu'h triiu cullini; in life conies to tiie
«oul. Faith as a Itliiul but true «j;ui<le vanisiies, and
tiie eve sees. Sucli was the hour to (Jretehen.
I'
Siie had often felt, when playing on the violin, that
the inspiration that «;ave such influence to her
music shouhl he used in teaching- the tribes that
were so suscepible to its inlluence. This feeling
had grown in the playing and singing of a school-
song, the words of which were written by Mrs.
Hunter, an Knglish lady, and the wife of the
famous Dr. Ilimter, which showed the heroism and
fortitude of the Indian character :
" Tlio sun sots at nij,'lit uud the stars shun tlio day,
Hut j^lorv fi'iuiuns \vlu>n tlio li^lit fades away;
Ht'j^in, yo tonnciitors, your tliroats an^ in vain,
For the son of Allinooniook will novt-r compluin."
The tune or melody was a(hniral)ly ada])te(l to
tlie violin. Ik'ii janiiii loved to hear it sung, and
Gretchen was pleased to sing and to play it.
Mr. ^rann asked (iretchen to ])lay for Mrs.
Spaulding, and siie chose this simple but expressive
melody. lie 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. ^Nfrs. Spaulding
could hardly keep from joining in the tune and
1(58 TIIH LOG SCIIUUL-IIOUHK ON THE CULL'MIUA.
liynin, tlicii \\v\\ known to all the niLstiionury pio-
nociu At the wohIh —
•' III till' desert lei ino Iiil)C)r,
On lliu inouiitaiii let inc tell,"
licr liciiutiful voice rose iil>ove tlie Bcliool, and
(iretelien'H iingers tremliled us ishe played tlie air.
Ah tlie lady rode away, Ciretelien felt tears
eoniin*^ into her eyes. The school was dismissed,
and the i)U[)ils went away, but (Jretcheti lingered
behind. She told nenjanuu to go to the lodn^c, and
tliat she would follow liini after ishe had had a talk
with the master.
"That song is beautifid," said Clretchen. " ' Tn
the desert let me hibor.' Tliat is what I would like
to do all my life. Do you suppose that I could be-
come a teacher among the Indians like Mrs. Spauld-
ing ? It would make me perfectly hai)py if I could.
If I were to study hard, would you help me to iind
such a place in life?"
Gretchen's large eyes, filled with tears, were
bent earnestly on the face of Mr. IMaiin.
"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 Colum-
bia."
Gretchen started; she trembled she knew not
OLD .loK MKKK AND Mil. Si'All.DINd. H\\)
^vlly, tlu'ii I>iiri('<l lior fuce in her anus on the rmle
lot; (h'sk and sohhcd.
She raised her head at last, ami wi-nt <Mit, sink-
ing —
" In tlio (lesort lot mo labor."
Tt was a glorious sundown in autunni. The
hurning disk of tlie sun liung in ('{(MidH of [)earl like
an <»ri(.'l-windo\v in a niagnitieent ten^jle. illack
shadows fi'll on the plaeid waters of the Colundiia,
and in the lini[>id air under the hlutTs Indians
fished for salmon, and dueks and grehes s]>orted
in river weeds.
l^farlowe ^fann went away from tlu? log school-
house that night a happy man. lie had seen that
Ids plans in hfe were ah'eady budding, lie cared
little for himself, Init oidv for tlu -ause to which
he devoted his life — to begin Chri Ji educati<»n
in the great empire of Oregon.
T>ut how unexpected this episode was, an<l how
far from his early dreams ! His spirit had inspired
first of all this orphan girl from tlu! lihine, who
had bee!i led here bv a si-ries of stranjje events.
This girl had learned faith from her father's
])rajers. On the Tlhine she had never so much as
heard of the Cohnnbia — the new iihine of the sim-
dowTi seas.
CHAPTER XIII.
A WAUNINO.
One evening, as Gretclien was sitting outside of
the lodge, she saw tlie 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. Gretclien started up
and stood looking into the darkening shadows of
the firs. Suddenly the form came out of the clear-
ing — it M'as Mrs. Woods. She waved her hand and
beckoned to Gretclien, and then drew back into the
forest and disaj)peared.
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 re-
turned to the lodge, but said nothing about what
she had seen. She passed a sleepless night, and re-
solved to go to see her foster-mother on the follow-
ing day.
A WARNING. 171
So, after school tho 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
troul)led by some ominous experience.
" So you saw me?" was her tirst Habitation. "" T
didn't dare to c(jme 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, husl)and 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 j)rotect that."
" But that isn't all, Gretchen. Oh, I am so glad
that you have come home! There are dark shad-
ows around us everywhere. I can feel 'em — can't
you? The atmosphere is all full of dark faces and
172 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
evil tliouglits. I can't bear to Hleej) alone here
now. Gretehen, there's a plot to capture the
schoolmaster."
" Don't fear, mother. I know Umatilla — lie
will never permit it."
"But, Gretehen, the Injun told husband some-
thing 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
Gretehen ! "
"But, mother, I do not fear. The Indians
thought that Dr. Whitman was a conjurer. We
make j)eoj)le true, the master says, by putting confi-
dence 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."
" Gretehen, are you sure ? Then I did not
bring you away out here for nothing, did I ? Yon
may be the angel of deliverance of us all. Who
knows? But, Gretehen, I haven't told you all
yet."
Mrs. Woods's face clouded again.
A WARNING. 173
" The Injun told husband that some of tlie
warriors had formed a ph>t against Tne, and that, if
they were to capture nie, they would torture me.
Gretchen, I am afraid. Don't you ])ity me ? "
" Mother, I know my i)ower over the chief and
Benjamin, and I know the power of a chiefs sense
of honor. I do ])ity 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 njy work will somehow begin here."
" A teacher among the Injuns ! You ? You a
teacher? Arc anvils going to iiy ? Here lam, 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 leav-
in' 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 un-
less you wished it."
174: THE LOG SCnOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
"\Vliat did you think was goin' to become of
1110 ? I never kissed any child hut you, and soniu-
tinios, wlien you are real good, I feel just as though
1 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 nuike an eagle run arohid 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 ; never-
theless — "
" I knew, mother, that you would say ' never-
theless.' 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."
A WARNING. 175
" Yes — lie 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 heen to
visit the school. She sang so beautifully! These
were the words :
" ' In the desert let me labor,
On the mountain let me toll.'
"When she sung that, it all came to me — wiiat 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 neverthehss, 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."
" IVIake them love you."
" How ? "
" Say nevertheless to them."
17(5 TIIK LOG SCIIOOI^IIOUSE ON THE COLUMRIA.
" Well, (Jrctchcn, you are a good girl, and 1 am
sorry for the liard things that 1 liavo said. I do
not feel that I have shown just the right spirit
toward J»enjanjin. ]>ut he lias said that lie will not
do me any luirm, 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 liave their
desires in this world, and anybody who docs an
injury to another makes for himself a judgment-
day of some sort. You may tell Ijenjamin that I
am real sorry for bein' hard to him, and that, if he
will come over and see me, Til give him a carved
pi 1)0 that husband nuxde. Kow, Gretchen, you may
go, and I'll sit down and think a spell. Til 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 teaclies me, I'll teach you."
" AYliat— 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
A WARNING. 177
boslde the dusky wife of the old cliiof. The fold.-*
of the tent were open, and the cool winds emne in
from the Colunihiii, under the dim light of the
moon and stars.
The tc2>cfi, or tent, was made of skins, and was
adorned with picture-writinj:; — Indian poetry (if so
it might he called). Overhead were clusters of
l)cautiful feathers and wings of birds. The old
chief loved to tell her stories of these strange and
l)eautiful wings. There were the wings of the
condor, of the hald and the golden eagle, of the
duck-hawk, pigeon-hawk, sfpiirrel-hawk, of the saj)-
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 lauirhinj;
goose. Througli 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 imusual and strange at the opening of
the tent. There was a soft, light step without, a
guarded footfall. Then a tall, dark shadow dis-
tinctly appeared, with a glitter of mother-of-pearl
178 TIIR LOG SCnOOIi-noUSK ON TIIK COLUMBIA.
ornainonts and a waving of plumes. It stood there
like a ghost of a vivid fancy, for a time. Greteh-
en's heart heat. It was not an unusual thin«^ for
an Indian to eome to the ttjxc late in the eveniii|x;
but there was soniethiuj^ mysterious and ominous iu
the hearing and atmosphere of this shadowv visitor.
The form stepped within the opening of the tent,
and a voiee whispered, '' I'matilla, awake!''
The old chief raibed himself on his elbow with
an " Ugh ! "
" Come ont under the moon."
The old chief arose and went out, and the two
shadowy forms disa])peared among a column of
Hj)ruce8 on the musical ]»anks 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 osociated with
the great Potlatch, now near at hand. She had
heard the strange visitor say, " The moon is grow-
ing," and there was something shadowy in the very
Umo, in which the words were sjxtkcn.
lyfrs. Woods sat down in her home of bark and
splints all alone after Gretchen's departure.
" She offers to teach ine," she said to herself.
A WARN I NO. 170
" I am Ko sorry tliat I wits not h1»K' to tnich ]wv. I
never read imicli, unv wav, until I came uimIit the
influence of the Alctliody. I Tni<^'ht have taii^'lit
Ijor spiritual thin;^s — any one can liave spiritUul
knowlcdj^c, and tliat is the hi^diest of all. iJut I
liave loved my own will, and to give vent to my
temper and touijue. I will change it all. There are
times when I am mv better self. I will onlv talk
and decide upon what is hest in life at such times as
these. That would make my hetter nature grow.
AVhen I am out of sorts I will he silentdike.
Heaven liel]) me ! it is hard to hegln all these things
M'hen one's liair is turnin' j/rav, and 1 never knew
any one f< gray luiir to turn young again."
She sat in the twilight crying over herself, ai»d
at last sang the mournful min(>r measures of a very
quaint old hymn with a peculiar old history:
" From whence doth this union arise
That hat red is I'onfiiiercd by lovef
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 liori-
zon now in the late afternoon, as if to see tlie re-
splendent setting of the sun. One wandered along
the cool roads at the ])arting of day between the
12
180 THE LOU SCllOOL-UOUSE ON THE COLUMlilA.
red HUii in thu west and thu goldcMi moon in tliu
eartt, and felt in tlio light of the two worldn tlio niul-
ancholy cliango 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 hy
that name was called hy the settlers, was wonder-
fully beautiful in the twilights of the sun and
moon. Mount Hood was a celestial glory, and the
shadows of the year softened the glimmering glo-
ries 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 liill as
though the air was a succession of hollow cham-
bers. Water-fowl filled the streams and drifted
through the air, and the forests seemed filled with
young and beautiful aninuils full of happy life.
CUAPTER XIV.
TUE I'OTLATCll.
A PoTLATcii amon^ the tribes of tho Northwest
means a feast at which some wealtliy Iiulian gives
away to liis 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 princij)al features
is the TamanonSy or Spirit -dance, which takes
place at night amid blazing torches and deafening
drums.
182 THE LOG SCnOOL-IIOUSE ON TUE COLUMBIA.
A chief rarely gives a Potlatcli ; he has no need
of lionors. But Umatilhi desired to close his long
and beneficent chieftainship with a gift-feast. He
loved his peo})le, 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 thtir
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 jjeople lie desired to possess. The
gift-feast w^as held to be the noblest service that an
Indian could render his race.
At the great Potlatcli he would not only give
away his private goods, bnt 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 yonng heart of
the boy, and he longed to see The Light of the
Eagle's Plume, sitting in his place amid the council-
ors of the nation and so beginning a new history of
the ancient people.
The full moon of October is a night sun in the
empires of the Colnmbia and the Puget Sea. No
nights in the world can be more clear, histrous, and
splendid than those of the mellowing autumn in the
vallevs of Monnt Saint Helens, Mount Hood, and
Af the Camtdta or l/te Columbif.
THE POTLATCn. 183
the Cohiinbia. Tlio iiioun rises over the crystal
peaks and domes like a living glory, and mounts
the deep sky amid the pale stars like a royal torch-
hearer of the sun. The Columbia is a rolling Hood
of silver, and the gigantic trees of the centuries
heeome a ghostly and shadowy s]*!ondor. There is
a deep and reverent silence everywhere, save the
cry of the water-fuwl 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 imple-
ments 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. Kot a human
form was to be seen anywhere, not even on the
river. Stars came out like lam])s set in celestial
windows, and sprinkled their rays on the crimson
curtains of the evening.
184 TUE LOG SCnOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
The glaciers on Mount Hood began to kindle
as with silver lires. The east seemed like a lifting
gate of light. The great moon was rising.
Ilark ! At the lirst 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 for-
ests, 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
tlie forest are full of leaping and dancing forms.
The ])lateau 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 wav-
ing blankets and dancing plumes. All is gayety
and mirth.
There is another roll of drums, and then silence.
THE POTLATCn. 185
The circling blankets and plutnes become motion-
less. The chief of the Cascades is coming, and
with him is Benjamin and his young bride, and
Gretchen.
The royal party mount the ]>latform, and in
honor of the event the toreh-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 j)lateau is a dazzling scene
of circling fire. Gretchen recalled the old fetes
amid the vineyards of the Ilhine in her child-
hood.
Hither and thither the circles move — round and
round. There is poetry in this fire-motion ; and
the great army of fire-dancers l)ecome 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
186 THE LOO SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMULV.
and feet, uttering terrible cries, and are followed
by women, who, to make the scene more feaiful,
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 witli their
teeth. They also gnard the dance like sentinels,
and lly at one who attempts to leave it before it
is done.
The frenzied shrieks of these human animals,
and of the women who follow tlicm, produce a
wonderful nervous effect ui)on the listening nmlti-
tudes. 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 peli-
can's beak, or a wolf's head. It may be a wooden
animal's face, which can l)e 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 mascpics, and some missionaries
TIIK rOTLATCII. 1S7
in the Xortliwest iniike curious collections of
them.
The whirling lu <^ins. Everywlicre are whirlinjjf
circles — round luid round they <j;(>. The si<;ht of it
ull would nuike a sj)ectiitor dizzy. Cries arise, each
more and more fearful ; the whole multitude are
at last shrieking with dizzy heads and wiMly heat-
ing pulses. The cries become deafening; an almost
superhuman frenzy passes over all ; they seem to
1)0 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' ])aradise.
One ])y one they drop down, until the whole assem-
bly is exhausted.
At midnight the great fires are kindled, and
throw their lights and sha<low8 over the frenzied
sleepers. Such was the Ta7nanous-diXi\cej 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 wed-
ding 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 sliadowy moon. Could it
be prevented after the traditions of unknown cent-
uries, and at a time when the historical pride of
188 THE LOO SCnOOL-IlOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
the warriors was awakened to celebrate the barbar-
ous deeds of their ancestors ?
The wedding v/as simple. It consisted chiefly in
gifts to the bride, Multoona. The girl was fantas-
tically dressed, with ornaments of shells and feath-
ers, and she followed the young prince demure-
ly. 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 Tamanoua 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 ac-
count 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 witn
yellow ochre and war-paint. Every head was
plumed. There was a savagery in their looks that
had not been seen before.
THE POTLATCn. 189
The wild dancers began their motions. The
Spirit or Tainanmi8 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 pres-
ently gave a clouded gold color to the air.
The biters were out, running hither and thither
after their manner, and tilling 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 war-
riors of old. Twice four times sixty seasons, ac-
cording 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
190 TlIK LOO SCIIOOL-IIOUSK ON TIIK COLUMBIA.
given you nil I liiivu — my days are done. Vou
will reMpect me."
There were mutterings everywliere, suppressed
criea of nige, and sharp words of eliagrin and dis-
ap})ointment. Tlio old chief saw the general dis-
Batisf action, and felt it like a crushing weight upon
his soul.
" I am going to light the pipe of peace," said
lie, " and smoke it now before you. Ah many
of you as love Umatilla, light the pipes of
j)eace."
Not a light glimmered in the smoky air. There
were words of hate and suppressed cries every-
where. A circle was forming, it widened, and it
seemed as though the dreaded dance was about
to begin in spite of the conunand of the old
chief.
Suddenly a form in white stood beside Uma-
tilla. It was Gretchen. A white arm was raised,
and the martial strain of the " Wild Hunt of Lut-
zow" marched out like invisible borsemen, and
caused every Indian to listen. Then there were a
few sharp, discordant strains, and then the Trau-
merei lifted its spirit-wings of music on the air.
THE POTLATCII.
101
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Tlie iriurmurs ceased. The i)l!iin grew still.
" Konuince" 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 I^niatilla.
" Play it again."
Airain and ajrain the dream-music drifted out on
the air. The plain was now tilled 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 glinmiering peace-pipes, a heavenly presence
seemed near her. She had Itroken the traditions of
centuries by the sympathetic thrill of four simple
strings. She felt that Yon 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 Connnission.
She bowed her head on the instrument, thought
of poor, terrorized Mrs. Woods in her lonely home,
and wept.
A seen and unseen w^orld had come to her — real
THE POTLATCn. I95
life. She saw licr power ; tlio gates of tliat inyBte-
rious kii»gck>ni, in wliieh the reborn soul is a new
creation, had been openeil to her. Jler spirit
seemed to rise tis on new- created wings, and tlie
world to sink beneatli her. Slie had spiritual sight,
ears, and senses — a new consciousness of Divine
happiness. Her purj)ose became strong to live for
the soul alone, and she sung, over and over again,
amid the silence of the peace-pipes and tlie rising of
those puffs of 6nK>ke in the silver illumination of
the high moon —
" In the deserts let me labor,
Ou the mouataius let me tell."
18
CHAPTER XV.
THE TRAUMERFI AGAIN.
An lionr passed in tliis 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 wis-
dom 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 hostili-
ties against the settlers. Their plan had been to
burn the loff school-house and the house of the
Woodses, and to make a captive of Mrs. Woods,
whose hostile spirit they wished to break and pun-
ish. 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.
TUE TUAUiMEllEI AGAIN. lyy
The old cliief knew tlieii* feelings, and saw the
stormy rip[)les here and there. lie arose slowly,
and called :
" My people, draw near."
The trihe gathered about the platform. The
young braves knew what the old chief was al)out to
say, and their cries of discontent grew loud and
multiplied.
"The log school-house I ■' shrieked one, in a
voice of raire.
''Pn-jnl ! " cried another. " Pll-j^U ! " echoed
many voices. A tumult folloMX'd, and (iretchen
started up from her reverie, and h< i-d among the
restless murmurs the name of ]\rrs. Woods.
She felt a nervous terror for a moment, but her
spiritual sense and faith, which had come to her
like a new-b(»rn 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 1)0W. The music
cpiivered. There M-as 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 l)eside her.
" Play the beautiful air.'' She played the
Traurrierei again.
198 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
The cliief arose, as the last strain died away,
and said :
" My people, listen."
The plateau was silent. The Columbia could
he heard flowing. The trees seemed listening.
Benjamin came upcni the i)latform, 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 Benja-
min dropped at the feet of his father. It was his
voice that uttered the cry of agony and despair as
he fell.
AVhat had happened ?
The boy lay on the platform as one dead. The
old chief bent over him and laid his hand on his
face. lie 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. lie looked wist-
fully 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 ! "
TIIK TIIAUMEUEI AGAIN. 109
"Send for tlio inedicine-maii/' said tlie cliief.
" Quick ! "
nc)ppin<]^-P)Our, the old nu'dicimMimn, cjimo, a
dreadful iigure in eagle's plumes and bear-skins.
To affect the imagination of the peoj)le 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. lie be-
lieved that sickness was caused bv obsession, or the
influence of some evil spirit, and he endeavored, by
liowlings, jumpings, and rattling of snake-skins, to
drive this imaginary spirit away. Ihit he did not
begin his incantations here; he looked upon lienja-
min with staring eyes, and cried out :
" It is the plague ! "
The old chief of the Cascades lifted his helpless
face to the sky.
" The stiirs are gone out ! " ho said. " I care for
nothing more."
The boy at times was convulsed, then lay for a
time unconscious after the convulsions, then con-
sciousness 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 vou
are sick."
200 Till-: i.OG SCIIOOL-IIOL'SE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" Itiiii for liiiii ; tell him I can't go to the Mis-
souri with liiin. 1 can't tind the Black Eagle's nest.
Run ! "
Ills mind was dreaming and wandering.
Gretclien sent a runner to bring the school-
master to the dreadful scene.
A convulsion passed over the boy, but he re-
vived again.
"Have faith in Heaven," said Gretclien. "There
is One above that will save von."
" One above that will save me ! Are you sure?"
" Yes," said Gretclien.
She added :
" Mother is oorry for what she said to you."
" I am sorry," said the boy, pathetically.
lie was lost again in spasms of pain. When he
revived, Marlowe ]\binn 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," lie said. "' We shall never go to
the lakes of the honks together. Boston tilicnm, T
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.
THE TRAUMERKI AUAIN. 201
" Boston tilicum ! "
" What can I do for you ? "
" JiOiston tilicum, listen. Do yon hear? What
tauglit tlie honks wliere to go i "
'' The Great Father of alh"
" He leads tlieni i "
" Yes."
"He willleadme?"
" Yes."
"And teach me when I am gone away. I can
trust him. l>ut my fatiier — my father ! Boston
tilicum, lie loves me, and he is old."
Flock after tiv ': af wild geese llew overhead in
the dim light. The hoy lay and listened, lie.
seemed to have learned a lesson of faitli from the
insthicts of these mi<;ratorv hirds. 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 jirocession of Canadian geese
going toward the sea. The air rang with tlieir
calls. The poor hoy 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."
202 THE LOG SO 1 100 r^I 10 USE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Gretchoii raised her bow. As she did so a
sharp spasm came over him. lie lifted his hand
and tried to feel of one of the feathers from tlie
lilaek Eagle's nest, lie was evidently wandering
to the Falls of the j\[issouri. His hand fell. He
passed into a stertorous sleep, and lay there, watehed
l)y the old chief and the silent tribe.
Just as the light of early morn was llaniing
through the tall, cool, dewy trees, the breathing
became labored, and ceased.
There he lay in the rising sun, silent and dead,
with the hel])less chief standing statne-like above
him, and the tribe, motionless as a picture, circled
around him, and with Gretcheii 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.
" Wlilte girl, go back," he said ; " I want to be
alone."
lie 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 :
THE TltAUMEliEI AGAIN. 203
" Bury him as the wliitu iiirii hiiry ; open the
blanket of the earth ; and coniniund tlie trihe to he
there — to-niorrow at sundown. Take them all
away — I will watch. AVHiere is the white girl T'
" She has gone home," said the Indian.
" Then [ will watch alone. Take them all
away — I want to he alone. It is the last night of
the chief of the Umatillas, It is the last watch of
the stars. My hlood is oold, my heart heats slow —
it will not he long ! "
The chief sat all night hy the hody. In the
morning he went to his lodge, and the trihe made
the preparations for the funeral, and opened a grave
in the earth.
(UIAPTER XVI.
A 8ILKNT TlilUE.
Tt was Riinsct on tlic bluffs nrul valleys of the
Coluiiihiii. Tliroii<jjli the tail, dark ])iiies and firs
the red west glowed like the lights in an oriel or
mnllioned window. The air was voiceless. The
Columbia rolled silentlv in the shadows with a
shinnnering of erinison o!i its deep middle tides.
The Ion. brown l)oats of the Falmon-fishers sat
motionless on the tide. Am(»nf>: the craft of the
fishermen glided a long, nirv canoe, with swift pad-
dles. Tt contained an old T'^'matilla Indian, his
daughter, and a young warrior. The party were
going to the young chief's funeral.
As the canoe glided on amid the still fishermen
of other tribes, the Indian maiden began to sing.
Tt was a strange song, of immortality, and of
spiritual horizcms beyond the visible life. The
TJmatillas have poetic minds. To them white
Multnomah InUs.
A SILKNT TUIHK. 205
Taronia witlj licr pi^liiii;; strnuns iiiciins ii iiiotlit'r'H
l)rt'asr, and the Hrn-aiiis thi'iUM'Ivcs, like tlic hills
of tlie (listiint Sli( (.shone, were " falling hjikii-
dorH."
Slu; win-; in Ciiiiutok, and tlic hurdcn cd" Iut
song was that horizons will lilt fort-vcr in the
unknown future. The Cliifiook word tnnnthi
means " to-uK/rntw " ; and to-morrow, to the Indian
nnnd, was eternal life.
Tlio young warrior joitied in tlie refrain, and
the old Indian listened. The ihonglit of the song
was Homething as follows :
"Aim! it is cviT fD-moiTdW, to-innrrow —
Tiiiiiiilu, tiiiiiala. siuj; as we row ;
Lift thine cyo to the niouiil ; to tlic wave pivo thy sorrow:
The river is l)ri^'ht. and the lividets flow;
Tamal«. tamala,
Kver ami ever;
The morrows will come and the morrows will go^
Tamala ! tatnala!
" Happy hnat, it. is ever to-morrow, to-morrow —
Tamala. whisper the waves as they How ;
The orafjs of the sunset the smiles of Iij,'ht borrow,
And soft from th(> ocean the Chinook winds i)luw:
Tamala, tamala,
Ever and ever ;
The morrows will como nnd the morrows will go —
Tamala I tamala I
"Aha! the iii<rht eomcs, hut the light is to-morrow —
Tamala, tamala, sing as we go ;
20G THE LOa SCIlOOlj-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Tlio waves ripplo past, like the heiirt-bouts of sorrow,
And the oar beats the wave to our song as wo row:
Tamahi, tainuhi,
Ever and uvcr ;
Tho moiTows will come and the morrows will go —
Tamala I 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,
p]ver and ever ;
Tho morrows will como ami the morrows will go,
Tamala ! tamala ! "
The paddle dipped in the Mave at the word
tamala, and lifted 1k> i to mark the measure of the
song, and strew in the warm, soft air the watery
jewels colored hy the far tires of the Sound. So
the boat swept on, like a spirit hark, and the beau-
tiful word of immortality was echoed from the
darkening blufTs 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 spread-
ing out in the red sunset like a sea. It had a
scanty vegetation, but a slight rain would some-
times change it into a billowy plain of flowers.
The tribe had begim tt> assemble about the
grave early in the long afternoon. They came one
A SILENT TRIBE. 207
by one, solitary ami ^^llL'nt, \vm])pc(l in l)ljiJikets and
ornaniciited with gray j)liimL'vS. The warriors cainu
in the same solitary way and iiiet in silence, and
stood in a long row like an army of shadows.
S(|naws came, leading children hy the hand, and
seated themselyes 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 oyer the open
graye, the toj)s gleaming with sunset fire.
Afar, ISIount Hood, the dead yolcano, lifted its
roof of glaciers twelve thousand feet high. Silver
ice and black carbon it was now, although in the
long aujes <jone it had had a history written in fiame
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 sun-
set, so weird under the moon.
Just as the red disk of the sun sunk down be-
hind 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.
208 TUE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
lie was coining — 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 thou-
sand dusky forms awaited him in the sunset.
Tiiere was another guttural s(jund. Another re-
markable life-picture came into view. It was the
school in a silent 2)rocession, following the tall masks,
out of the forest trail on to the glimmering plain, the
advent of that new civilization before which the for-
est lords, once the poetic bands of the old irmatillas,
were to disappear. Over all a solitary eagle l)eat
the luminous air, and flocks of wild geese made
their way, like Y-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.
He readied the grave at last by these slow
movements, and stepped upon the earth that had
s
■?
A SILENT TRIBE. 209
been thrown out of it, and folded liis iinns in view
of all. A golden btar, like a lanij) in the windows
of lieaven, hung over Mount Hood in the fading
splenilors of the twilight, and the great chief bent
his eye upon it.
Su(Uleidy the air was rent by a wail, and a rat-
tle of shells and drums. The body of Ijenjaniin
was being l)rought out of the lodge. It was borne
on a bier made of poles, and covered with boughs
of pine and lir and red mountain pldox. It was
wrapped in a blanket, and strewn with odonHis
ferns. Four young braves bore it, besmeared with
war-i)aint. They were followed by nuisieians, 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 dowers, 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 ])eautiful
in its death-sleep. Over it wt^re 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 help-
less hands seemed like a picture as they lay crossed
on each other.
210 TIIK LOG SCllOOL-lIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
As soon as the body was laid in the earth, the
old chief bent his face on the ])eople. The mys-
terious dimness of deatli was in his features. His
eyes gleamed, and his bronze lips were turning
])ale.
" 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 connnand 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 pij^es 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 be-
yond.
" One son was left me — Benjamin. He was no
A SILENT TlillJE. 211
common youth ; the liigh spirits were with him,
ail 1 he cuine to be like tiiem, uikI lie has gone to
them now. I loved him. lie was my eyes; he
^vas my ears ; he was my heart. When I saw his
eyes in death, my eyes were dead ; when he eonld
hear me call his name no l(»nger, my ears htst their
licaring ; when his young lieart ceased to beat, my
own heart was dead. All that I awi lies in that
grave, beside my dead boy.
" My nation, you have always obeyed me. I
have but one more conmiand to make. AVill yon
obey me ?
" You bow again. My life-blood is growing
cold- I am about to go down into that grave.
" One step ! The clouds lly and darken, and
vou will see them return aijain, 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 de-
scend 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 mv
life, the heart of my heart.
14
212 THE LOG SCllOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
" You have promised to obey me. T rcjieat it —
you liiivc promised to obey me. You have always
(lone so. You nuist do so now. My hands are
cold, my feet are cold, and my heart Ijeats very
slow. Three steps more, and I shall lay myself on
the body of my boy. Hear, then, my last cou)-
mand ; 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
l)reath will be gone ; Umatilla will be no more.
You must obey.
" One step — look ! There is fire on the mount-
ain 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. "War-
riors, fill the grave ! The black eagle's plumes will
now rest forever."
There \\ is deej) silence, broken only by the sobs
of the little school. A warrior moved and passed
round the grave, and uttered the word " Dead ! "
The lu'aves 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.
A SILENT TRIBE. 213
As they were so doing, like plmntoms in the dim
light, Mount Saint Helens* blazed again — one vol-
canic 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 war-
riors.
The moon now moved free in the dark-blue
sky, and sky, forest, and plain were a silver sea.
The Indians ])egan 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
* See Notes.
214 TIIK LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE OX THE COLUMllLV.
life MOW Hoemed cleur : «lic imi«t teach tho Uma-
tilhts.
81io loft tlio pony ill a granny clearing, on tlio
trail that led to lier home, and hurried toward tho
cahiii to des<!ril)c all the events of the day tu her
fotiter-niother.
CIIAI'TER XVII.
A DKSOI.ATK HOMK AM) A DKSOLATE I'KOIM.E.
As Gretchen was Imrryin*^ lioiiic on tlio cvonin*;
after these ex('itin<; sfones, slie met Mrs. ^V'<kk!s in
the trail, and she saw at a glance that her foster-
mother was iji great distress.
"O Gretchen," she said, "I am so glad that
you have come — you are all that is left to me now I
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 dis-
tress, 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
21G TlIK LU<i SCllUOL-IIOUSK ON Till': COLUMBIA.
und iito a Hiiii{)lu iiioul of milk miil horries, and
lay down and slept tlic Hleep of Horrovv.
At tho early Hglit tliry awoko. Almost tlio
first w'onls tiiat (initclioii Hj)oko wure : " Let un
face life aii<l be fearlesH. I have faitli. i^Iy father
had faith, and my mother lived by faith. It was
faith that led them tteroHS the 8ea. Their faith
seemed to bo unfulfilled, but it will be fulfilled in
me. T feel it. Mother, let trouble pass. AV'e be-
lonjjj to the family of (lod."
" You are a comfort to me, Gretelien. T can
not see my way — it is covered."
" IJut you can trust your (Juide, mother, and
the end of trust is j)eace."
" What are we to do, Gretchcn ? "
" I will ^o to Walla Walla and seek the advice
of Mrs. Spaulding."
"(iretclien, don't you think that the schoid-
master is a good man ? "
" Yes, I am sure that he is."
" I am. Let us go to him and follow his advice.
Wo 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.
A DKSOLATK IIOMK AND A DKSOLATK riKHMJ:. lilT
" AVheru is he now ? " txAvA 'SWa. "WiunU.
"I left him iii the cleuriiig. I will go tiiul \uu\
him."
" I will <^<> with you," siiid ^frs. "WimkU.
The two wont out togi'tluT. They came to
the (•leiirin<; — a place of waving grass, surroumkMl
with gigantic trees, in whose to])s were great nestn
of birds. Tlic pony was not tliere.
" He 1ms gone to the next clearing," said
CTrctchcu.
They passed through a strip of wood to another
clearing. Hut the yumy 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 lieels in a very comical way, then
ran quickly into the thick bushes. It was the last
time that Mrs. Woods ever saw little HoU Over,
and Gretchen never saw the pony again. The
latter probably found a herd of horses and wan-
dered away with them. It was a time of sucli con-
fusion 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.
218 THE LOG SCIIOOL-nOUSE ON THE COLUiMBIA.
" Let 118 seek work in one of tlie missionary
stations," said Gretclien, " or let us tind a home
among tlie Indians tliemselves. I want to become
a teacher among tliem, and I know that they
would treat you Avell."
Mrs. AVoods's views on these matters were
changing, Imt something of her old distrust and
l)rejndice remained despite her good resolutions.
" Foxes and geese were never made to hold
conference meetings together. You can't make one
man out of anotlier if you try."
" But, mother, your English ancestors once wan-
dered 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 thou-
sand years ago."
" Yes, I suppose that is so. But, Gretchen, T
want your heart ; I never thouglit that you would
give it to the Injuns. I ouglit not to be so
ruled b}' 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 w^orld. It is
A DESOLATE HOME AND A DESOLATE PEOPLE. 219
tlie tilings done liere 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. I'ut
you have helped me, Gretehen, and hymns have
hel}3ed me. I want you to be charitable toward
my feelins', Gretehen, wlien 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 vill wish me to do as I
liave 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, Gretehen. I have had a hard
time, goin' out to service when I was r. girl. My
oidy ha2:)py days were during the old Methody
preaching of Jason Lee. I thought I owned the
lieavens 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. Gretehen, some
people kiss each other by scoldin' ; I do — I scold to
make the world better. I suppose everything is for
220 THE LOG SCUOOL-UOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
the best, after all. There is no experience in life
that dues not teach us something, and there is a bet-
ter world beyond that awaits all who desire a better
life. Our desires are better than ourselves — mine
arc. Good desires are prayers, and I think that
tlrey will all be answered some day."
She sat in silence, thinking of her lonely situa-
tion, 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 XYIir.
THK LIBTED CLOUD THE INDIANS COME TO THE
SCUOOLMASTEK.
The next day witisessed a strange scene at
tlie loiic school-house on tlie 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 :
"Wliat's themf"
"Wliere?"
" 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 woidd teach them."
"You?"
222 THE LOG SCnOOL-IlOUSE ON TUE COLUMBIA.
" They have no father now."
"No father?"
" No chief."
Mrs. Woods had been so overwhelmed with her
own grief that slie had given little thought to the
deatli of Benjamin and the chief of the Cascades.
The nnliappy 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. INfann to teach their nation.
It was an unexpected assembly that Marlowe
Mann faced as he canie 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. AVoods.
" 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 ? "
TUE LIFTED CLOUD. 223
" Yes," said Mr. Mann. " I need you, and the
way is clear."
" What do you mean i "
*' 1 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 v.ill 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 ujjon 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. W^e shall
never see Young Eagle's plume again !
" Bostom tilicum, be our chief. AVe have come
to school."
Mr. Mann turned to Gretchen. Her young
224 THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
face was lovely that morning witli sympathy, lie
Kiid in a low voice :
" You see our work in life. Do you under-
stand ? Will you accept it? "
She understood his heart.
" I will do whatever you say."
In 1859 a great Indian Keservation was estab-
lished 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 Gretchcn 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
"hoolmaster and his wife devoted themselves to
the cause of Indian education. Through the silent
influence of Mr. Mann's correspondence w^ith the
East, Indian civilization was promoted, and the
way prepared for the peaceful settlement of the
great Northwest.
TUE LIFTED CLOUD. 225
Gretclien taught the Indians as long as slio
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. h^he ])layed hut
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 Colam])ia. It was the
Traumerel.
Iler poetic imagination, which had been sup-
pressed by her foster-mother in her girlhood, came
back to her in her new home, and it was her de-
light to exi)res8 in verse the inspirations of her
life amid these new scenes, and to publish these
poems in the papers of the East that most sympa-
thized with the cause of Indian education.
The memory of Benjamin and the old chief of
the Cascades never left her. It Mas 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 even-
ing, she would recall Benjanun, and say, " He who
guides led me here from the Bhine, and schooled
me for my work in the log school-house on the
Colmnbia."
22G THE LOG SCIIOOIj-nOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
Such irt not an ovenlmwn picturo of the early
pioneers of the Cohinibia uiul tlie great North-
west.
Jason Lee was censured for k'aviii'j^ his mission
for the sake of Oregon — for turning his face from
the stars to the sun. "VVliitman, when he appeared
ragged at Washington, was blamed for having left
his post. Tlie early pioneers of the great North-
west 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 :
THE LIFTED CLOUD. 227
" Happy the man whoso wish imd care
A few paternal acres hoiiiul ;
Content to l)realhe his native air
On his own ground.
" Whose iieiils witli milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose floeks 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,
Willi 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 unlamentcd let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie."
15
HISTORICAL NOTES.
I.
VANCOUVER.
The remarkablu })r(>«i^res8 of the PacIHc jmii;
cities of Seattle and Tacoiua make AVa>Iii!i<rt()n
an especially bright, new star on the national lla<;.
Surrounded as these cities are with sonic of the
grandest and most poetic scenery in the United
States, witli gigantic forests and rich farm-lands,
with mountains of ores, with coal-mines, iron-
mines, copper-mines, and mines of the more pre-
cious treasures ; washed as they are by the water
of noble harbors, and smiled n])on by skies of
almost continuous April weather — there must be a
great future before the cities of Puget Sound.
The State of ^Vashington is one of the youngest
in the T'nion, and yet she is not too young to cele-
brate soon the one-liundredth anniversary of several
interesting events.
2.':0 TIIK ]A)(i SCIKKH.-llorsK ()\ Tin: CuLUMniA.
It WHS oil tlio ir)tli (if DccemlKT, 17!»o, timt ('ii|>.
t^iin (ft'orgo Vancouver ruoeivi'd liis cuimnission as
coTtiiDandi'r of liis ^^ajl•sty's Hloup (.f war the Dis-
coverv. Tlircc of liis ulliccrs were IVter I*u«rct.
Joseph llaker, and ,Ium'|»1i AV!ii<|l»v, whose iiaiiies
now live ill riii;et S(»un(l— Mount llaker, and
Whidhy Island.
Tho groat island of Iiritish C'olunihia, and its
ener<;oti(^ l)ort city, received the name of Van-
couver himself, and Vancouver naii'ed most of the
places on Pu^et Sound in honor <»f his persoiud
friends. He must have had a heart formed for
friendshi]), thus to have imnwtrtalized those whom
he esteemed and loved. It is tho discovery and
the naminjjj of mountains, islands, and ])orts of the
Pup:et Sound that suggest poetic and patriotic cele-
brations.
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 de-
tached islands, among which the lofty mountains
discovered in tho afternoon by the third lieutenant,
and in C(»nipliment to him called by me Mount
Baker, rose to a very C()ns])icnous object."
It was on Monday, April 30, 1702, th.y^ Mount
VANCOUVEIl, 281
r.uki'P wius thus di.scoveretl uinl iiaiiuul. In ^Iiiy,
lTi>li, \'iiiK't)UVL'r btatcs that lio ciiiiir to ii ^' wry
wif(!" and '* capatioiis" liarlxM', and that "to tliis
port I {^avc tliu iiauiu of Port Towiisheiul, in honor
of tliu nohle marquis of tliat nanii'."
A^ain, on Tliurstlay, iMay iil>, 1T'.*2, Vaneouvcr
disc'ovcri'd another exoelk'nt port, and says :
"This liarhor, after the «;('ntk'nian who dist-ov-
ered it, ohtainecl tlic nanii' of Port ( )r('liard."
In Mav, 1T1''J, lie makes tlie following; very iin-
portant liistorical note:
"Thus by our joint efforts we laid coinpk'teiy
explored every turninjj: of this extensive inlet ;
and, to eonnneniorate Mr. I'uj^et's exertions, the
fourtli extreniitv of it I named Pnwt Sound."
A very interesting,^ otHeer seems t(» have l)een
this lieutenant, Peter Pu^et, whose soundings gave
the name to the American ]\rediterranean. Once,
after the firing of muskets to overawe hostile Indi-
ans, Avho merely pouted out their lips, and uttered,
'• Poo hoo! j)oo hoo!'' he ordered the discharge of a
heavy gun, and was annised to note tlie silence that
followed. It was in April and May, ITOii, that
Paget explored the violet waters of the great inland
sea, a work which he seems to have d(»iie with the en-
thusiasm of a romancer us well as of a naval otlicer.
232 THE LOG SCnOOL-nOUSE ox THE COLUMBIA.
Muiiiit Hood was iiiinied for L(jrd Hood, and
Mount Saint Helens mus named in 1TU2, in the
niontli of October, " in honor of his Britannic
Majesty's ambassador at tlie court of Madrid."
But one of tlie most interesting of all of A an-
couver's note<! is the following :
" The weather was serene a^d pleasant, and the
country continued to exhibit the same luxuriant
ap])earance. At its northern extremity Mount
Baker bore compass ; the round, snowy mountain,
now forming its southern extremity, after my
friend Tlcar-Admiral Ranier, I distinguished l)y the
name of Mount Eanier, May, 1792." This mount-
ain is now Mount Tacoma.
The spring of 1892 ought to be historically very
interesting to the State of "\Yasliington, and it is
likely to be so.
II.
THE OREGON TRAIL.
" There is the East. There lies the road to
India."
Such was Senator Thonuis II. Benton's view
of the coast and harl)ors of Oregon. He saw
the advantage of securing to the United States
THE OREGON TRAIL. 233
the Columbia Kivcr and its great bayin, and tbe
Puget Sea ; and lie made himself the cham])ion 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 waj to the Rockies for
years, and in 1810 Jojin Jacob Astor sent a ship
around Ca])e Horn, to establish a post for the fur-
trade on the Pacific Coast, and also sent an ex-
peditioii of some sixty persons from St. Louis,
overland, hy the way of the Missouri and Yellow-
stone, to the Columbia liiver. The pioneer ship
was called the Ton(piin. She arrived at the mouth
of the Columbia before the overland ex})cdition.
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 hy
Astor's agent to abandon the post; but Astoria had
taught the I'^nited States the value of Oregon.
The Oregon trail from St. Louis, by the way of
2?A TIIP] LOa SCHOOL-HOUSE ox THE COLUMRIA.
tlio groat rivers, the Missouri, the Yellowstone,
and the Columbia, followed the fall of Astoria, and
began the highway of emigration to the Paeiiic
coast and to Asia. Over it the trapper and the
missionary began to go. The ]\Iethodist mission-
aries, under the leadership of lievs. Jason and Dan-
iel Lee, were among the lirst 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 1885 the great missionary, Marcus Whitnum, of
the Congregationalist IJoard, established the mis-
sion at AValla Walla, Yet up to the year lcS41,
just tifty years ago, only about one hundred and
fifty Americans, in all, had })ermanently settled in
Oregon and AV^ashington.
Senator Benton desired the survey of a route to
Oregon, to aid emigration to the Columbia basin.
lie engaged for this service a young, handsome,
gallant, and chivalrous oflieer. Lieutenant Jolm C.
Fremont, who, with Nicollet, a I'rench naturalist,
ha<l been surveying the upper ^lississippi, and
o[)ening emigration to Minnesota.
Fremont espoused not only the cause of Oregon,
but also Senator l>enton's young daughter Jessie,
who later rendered great personal services to her
husband's expedition in the Northwest.
THE OREGOX TRAIL. 035
Kit Carson was the guide of tliis famous expe-
dition. The Soutli T*ass was explored, and tlie flag
phmted on what is now known as Fremont's Peak,
and the c<juntrj was foiuid to he not the (ireat
American Desert of the maps, hut a hind of won-
derful heauty and fertility. In 1S43 Fremont
made a second expedition ; this time from the
South Pass to the C^)luml)ia country. After he
was well on his way, the AVar Department re(!alled
him ; hut Mrs. Fremont su})j)ressed the order, in
the interest of the exj)edition, until it was too late
to reach him.
Fremont went l)y the way of Salt Lake, struck
the Orcijon trail, and tinallv came to the mission
that Dr. Whitman had founded among the Nez-
Perces (pierced noses) at Walla Walla. This mis-
sion then consisted of a single adohe house.
The British claimants of the territory, finding
that American innnigration was increasing, began
to bring settlers from the Ped Piver of the North.
A struggle now began to determine which country
should possess this vast and most important ter-
ritory. When Dr. AVhitman learned of the new
efforts of the English to settle the country, and
the danger of losing Oregon by treaties ])en(ling
at Washington, he started for St. Louis, by the
23G THE LOG SCi; )OL-IIOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
way of Santca Fe. This ride, often c.'illed " AVliit-
man's Ride for Oregon," is one of the ix)etieal
events of American history. He went to Wash-
ington, was treated cavalierly by the State De])art-
meiit, but secured a delay of the treaties, which
proved the means of saving Oregon and AVashing-
ton to the United States.
So liis missionary efforts gave to our country
an empire tliat 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 Inujalls Stevens deserves a noble
i-ank in the march of history. lie M'as born at
Andover, Mass., and was educated at "West Point,
where he was graduated from the Military Academy
in 1839 \vith the highest honors, lie was on the
military staff of General Scott in Mexico, and held
other honorable positions in the Government serv-
ice in his early life.
But the great period of his life was his survey
GOVERNOR STEVENS. 237
of the Xortlicrn route to the Pjicific, Pincc l<'ir<::L'l_v
followed by the Northern Paciiic liuilroad, and his
deveh)pinent of AVashingtoii Territory as a pioneer
Governor. lie saw tlie road to C.^hina by tlie way of
the Puij^et Sea, and realized that "Washington stood
for the East of tlie Eastern Continent and the West-
ern, lie seems to have felt that here the ilag
would achieve her greatest destiny, and he entered
upon his work like a knight who faced the future
and not the jiast. Tlis survey of the IS^ortherTi
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
(1854r) was a map of the future and a prophecy. It
was a call for roads, schools, a university, and inuni-
gration. The seal of Washington was made to bear
the Indian word yl/Z'J — ''l)y and l)y " — or "in the
future." It also was a prophecy.
He created the counties of Sawanish, AYhatcom,
Clallam, Chehalis, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, Skamania,
and Walla Walla. Olympia was fix'cd upon as the
seat of government, and measures were taken by
the Government for the regulation of the Indian
tribes.
Stevens w-as the military leader of the Indian
238 TlIK LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSE OX THE COLUMBIA.
war. lie reduced tlic tribes to submission, and
secured a permanent peace, lie was elected to
Con<^ress as a Territorial deleijjate in IS.5T, and
sought at AVasliington as earnestly as on the Puget
Sea the interests of the risinir State.
He was a man of great intellect, of a forceful
and magnetic presence — a man horn to lead in
great emergencies. He carried Xew England ideas
and traditions to the Pacific, and established then:
there for all time to come, creatinir there a <rreater
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." lie went to
AYashington and entered the Union service.
He fell like a hero at Chantillv, and under the
flag which he had taken from his color-bearer, who
had received a nxn'tal wound. His was a splendid
career that the nation should honor. AYe recently
saw his sword and historic pictures at the home of
his wudow and son at Dorchester, ISIass., and were
impressed with these relics of a spirit that had
done so much for the progress of the country and
mankind.
SEATTLE THE CHIEF. Op.O
The State of Wasliiiij^'toii Is his monumeiit, atid
progressive thoui^ht liis eulojjry. His ij:;r(>at niiiul
and energy hrouglit order out of cliaos, and set tlic
Hag in wliose fohls he died forever under tlie jjk'ani-
ing dome of the Coh)ssns of American mountains
and over tlie celestial blue of the I'aciiic harbors of
the Puget Sea.
IV.
SEATTLE THE CHIEF.
Seatfle was a Dwamish chief, and a true friend
of the white race, whom he seemed to follow on
account of their superior intelligence. lie gave the
name to an earlv settlement, which is now a <;rcat
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 ])ioneers of Alke
Point left the town which they had laid out and
called Xew York, and removed to the other side
of the hay, they named the })lace Seattle, from the
friendly chief, instead of New York. Alk6 means
hy and hy^ and Seattle is likely to become the
!New York of the Pacific, and one of tlie great
ports for Asiatic trade. With the innnense agri-
240 THE LOO SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBLV.
cultural and mineral resources with which it is sur-
rounded, with its inexhaustihle stores of timber, its
sublime scenery and delightful climate, with its di-
rect and natural water-road to Ja^jan 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 ad\'enturous 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 i)()ssibilities 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 somewliat advanced in life,
a portly man, of benevolent face, recalling the pict-
ure of Senator Benton, of Missouri, whom he was
said to resemble. He was the chief of the Dwa-
mishes, a small tribe inhabiting the territory around
wliat 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 Gov-
ernor. He was well known to Foster, Denny, Bell,
and Borden, who took claims where the city now
SEATTLE THE CI II KF. 241
8taud.s. Ilia lust yndrn wcru pasbULl at Port Madi-
son, where he died in 1S(W>, at a great age.
Governor Stevens contirnieil his saelieiiiship, and
Seattle became the protector and the good genius
of the town. A curious legend, wliicli seems to he
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 spirit-
ual world. When a Dwamish Indian lost a near
relative of the same name l»v di-ath, he changed his
own name, because the name might attract the ghost
of the deceased, and so cause him t() be haunted.
The tribe believed that departed s[)irits loved their
old habitations, and the associations of their names
and deeds, and so they changed tlieir names atid
places on tlie death of relatives, that they might
not be disturbed by ghostly aj){)aritions.
" AV^liy 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 nidiappy. I want my i)ay
for what I shall suffer then, now."
I hope that the ra})id growth of the great city
of the Xorth does not disquiet the gentle and be-
nevolent soul of Seattle. The city should raise a
monument to him, that he may see that he is kindly
212 THE IA)(\ SCIlOOL-IIOrSE ON THE COLrMIUA.
reinenihored wlii'ii Ik; {•(Hiics buck t<» visit tlio asKoci-
iitions of Ills iiaiiie mid life. Or, hotter for liis
nluule, tlie city slioiild kindly care for liis daiij^litcr,
])(»(ir (tld A!i;:;('liiie Seattk', wlio ut tliu time of this
writing (IMMi) is a l»e<,^gar in the streets of uplift-
in'; ('((niinereial palaees and lovely homes!
"We visited her in her liut outside of tlie eity some
montlis ago, to ask lier if slie saved Seattle in lsr»r),
by giving information to the ])ioneers tliat tlie
woods around it were full of lurking Indians, hent
on a plot to destroy it; for there is a legend tliat
on that shadowy Decemher night, when Seattle was
in j»eril, and the ('"'ineil of Indian Marriors met
and resolved to destroy the town before morning,
Jim, a frii'iidly Indian, was |)reM.'nt at the confer
ence as a spy. He found means to Marn the pio-
neers of their immediate danger.
The ship of war Decatur, under Captain (ian^e-
voort, lay in the liarlior. Jim, who had acted in
the Indian council, secretly, in the interest of the
town, liad advised tlie chiefs to defer the attack
until early in the morning, when the otHcers of the
Decatur would be off their guard.
Night fell on the Puget Sea. The people went
into the block-house to sleep, and the men of tlie
Decatur guarded the town, taking their stations on
Middle hlocn' fiO'ise nt the CrwcadcK.
SKATTLK TIIK CillKF. 243
hhorc. Ah till! Tii<^lit (Urpciu'd, a tliniisjuid liostili'
Iiidiutis crept up to the phuv luid uwiiitod the iiiuru-
liiiif, wlieri the ^uiird hlumld ^<t (»n hoard the sliip
for lireakfjist, and tlie pe(»[»U' should eoine out *>i
the hlock-lioune and j^o to their houses, and '* 8C't
the ^un heliiud the door/'
It was on this niglit, aceordin«^' to the legend, that
"Old Aiii:;('line,"asshe is now called, became the ines-
seni^i^r that saved the inluihitants from destruction.
The legend has Iteen doubted ; and when we
asked tlie short, tlat-faced old woman, as she
answered our knock, if slu^ was the; daughter of
the diief who saved Seattle, she simply said,
"Chief," grimied, 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 frotn our visit to old Angeline, wo
asked lion. Henry Vesler, the now rich pioneer,
why the ])rijicess was not better cared for by the
people of the city. !!(! himself had been generous
to her. " Why,'' he said, " if you were to giv(^ her
lifty dollars, she would give it all away bef(»re
night!" Hcncvolent <»ld ATigcliiie! She ought
to live in a palace instead <if a hovel ! Mr. Yesler
doubted the local legend, but I still wished to be-
lieve it to he true.
16
244 TIIK LOG SCIIOOL-IIOUSK ON THE COLUMBIA.
V.
The story of " Wliitnian'rt Hide for Oregon''
lias bueii told iu vcrtjo by the writer of tlii« voluiue,
•ds 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 JJivide,
And find the way to Washington,
Through mountain canons, winter snows,
O'er streams where free the north wind blows?
Who, who will ride from Walla- Walla,
Four thousand miles, for Oregon i
II.
" An empire to be lost or won ?
In youth to man I gave my all,
And nauficht 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 AValla- Walla.
I, T will ride for Oregon ! "
'Twas thus that Whitman made reply.
WIIITMAX'S RIDE FOR ORHGON. ^45
III.
" An empire to be Ju.st or won ?
I>ring luu my Cajuse pony, tlieii,
And I will t':.'jad old waysaoain,
Beneath the gray skies' crystal .s,ni. '
'Twas on those altars of the air
I raised the Hag, and saw helovv
The measnreless Columbia How;
The Bible oped, and bowed in pi-ayer,
And gave myself to God anew,
And felt my spirit newly boi-n ;
And to my mission I'll ]>c true.
And from the vale of Walla- Walla
ril ride again for Oregon.
IV.
" I'm not my own ; myself Vvr given,
To bear to savage hordes the Won] •
If on the aU.irs of the heaven
I'm called to die, it is the Lord.
The hevald may not wait or choose,
'Tis his the snnnnons to obey ;
To do .lis best, or gain or lose,
To seek the Guide and not the way.
He mnst not nn'ss the cross, and I
Have ceased to think of life or death ;
240 THE LOO SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA.
My ark I've builded — licavcii is nigli,
And earth is but a morning's l)reatli !
Go, then, my Cayuse pony bring;
The hopes that seek myself are gone,
And from tlie vale of AVallaAValla
I'll ride again for Oregon."
V.
He disappeared, as not his own,
lie heard the warning ice winds sigh ;
The smoky sun-ilames 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 Hed, 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 uj^raised
Against the winds their giant forms.
On, on and on, past Idaho,
On past the mighty Saline sea.
His covering at niglit the snow,
His only sentinel a tree.
On, past Portneuf's basaltic heights,
On where the San Juan Mountains lay,
WHITMAN'S HIDE FOR OREGON. 247
Through sunless days and starless nights.
Toward Taos and far Santo Fe.
O'er taljle-lands of sleet and hail,
Throngli i)ine-roofed gorges, cafions cold.
Now fording streams incased in mail
Of ice, like Alpine knights of old.
Still on, and on, forgetful on.
Till far hehind lay Walla- AValla,
And far the lields of Oregon.
VI.
The winter deepened, sharper grew
The hail and sleet, the frost and snow ;
Not e'en the eagle o'er him Hew,
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 hxst.
lie dropped rein, his stiffened hand
Was like a statue's hand of clay !
" My trusty beast, 'tis the connnand ;
Go on, I leave to thee the way.
I nnist go on, I must go on.
Whatever lot may fall to me,
On, 'tis for others' sake I ride —
•248 'i'lTK ]j()(} SCIIOOL-IIOUSE ON THE COLl'MBIA.
For others 1 may never see,
And dare tliy clouds, () Great Divide,
Not for myself, O Walla-AValla,
Xot for myself, () AVashiiioton,
Hut for thy future, Oregon. "
VII.
And oji and on the dund) ])east pressed
Uncertain, and without a guide.
And found the mountain's curves of rest
And sheltered ways of tlie Divide.
His feet grew lirm, he found the way
With storm-l)eat limbs and frozen breath.
As keen his instincts to obev
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 iields of Oregon.
viir.
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.
WHITMAN'S IIIDK FOJi OREGON. 24!)
" Is Oregon worth savin«j; i " asked
The treaty-makers from the coast ;
And him the Church with questions tasked,
And said, ** Why did you leave your post i "
Was it for this tliat he had hi-jived
Tlie warring storms of mount and sky i
Yes !— yet tliat em])ire he Iiad saved,
And to his post went back to die-
Went back to die fur others' sake.
Went back to die from Wasliington,
Went back to die for Walla-Walla,
For Idaho and Oregon.
IX.
At fair Walla-A\^alhx one may see
The city of the Western North,
And near it graves nnmarked tliere I)e
That cover souls of royal worth ;
The Hag waves o'er them in the sky
Beneath whose stars are cities ]).)rn.
And round them mountain-castled lie
The hundred states of ( )re«''on.
250 TIIK LOO SCIIOUL-llOUSE ON THE COLUMUIA.
vr.
MOUNT SAINT HELENS.
We refer to tlie niiuwy range to tlie west,
wliicii teriiiiiuites in the great dome tliat now Itear.s
that name. There was once a great lava-flood in
the Northwest, and ^fount Hood, Mount Adams,
Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Tacdnia (Rainier)
are but great abh-liea])s tliat were left by the stu-
pendous event.
THE EXI).