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

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

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

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

"Come out under the moon."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XIV

THE POTLATCH.

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is another roll of drums, and then silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The wild dancers began their motions. The Spirit or Tamanous dance awakened a frenzy, and all were now impatient for the dance of the Evil Spirits to begin.

The moon hung low over the plateau and the river. The fires were kindled, and the smoke presently gave a clouded gold color to the air.

The biters were out, running hither and thither after their manner, and filling the air with hideous cries.

All was expectation, when the old chief of the Cascades stepped upon the platform, and said:

"Listen, my children—listen, O sons of the warriors of old. Twice four times sixty seasons, according to the notch-sticks, have the wings of wild geese cleaved the sky, and all these years I have lived in peace. My last moon has arisen—I have seen the smile of the Great Spirit, and I know that the last moon hangs over my head.

"Warriors, listen! You have always obeyed me. Obey me once more. Dance not the dance of the Evil Spirits to-night. Let me die in peace. Let not blood stain my last days. I want you to remember the days of Umatilla as the days of corn and maize and the pipes of peace. I have given you all I have—my days are done. You will respect me."

There were mutterings everywhere, suppressed cries of rage, and sharp words of chagrin and disappointment. The old chief saw the general dissatisfaction, and felt it like a crushing weight upon his soul.

"I am going to light the pipe of peace," said he, "and smoke it now before you. As many of you as love Umatilla, light the pipes of peace."

Not a light glimmered in the smoky air. There were words of hate and suppressed cries everywhere. A circle was forming, it widened, and it seemed as though the dreaded dance was about to begin in spite of the command of the old chief.

Suddenly a form in white stood beside Umatilla. It was Gretchen. A white arm was raised, and the martial strain of the "Wild Hunt of Lutzow" marched out like invisible horsemen, and caused every Indian to listen. Then there were a few sharp, discordant strains, and then the Traumerei lifted its spirit-wings of music on the air.

[Music: Tranmerei.

BY ROBERT SCHUMANN, SIMPLIFIED BY F. BRANDEIS.]

[Music]

[Music]

The murmurs ceased. The plain grew still. "Romance" followed, and then the haunting strain of the Traumerei rose again. It ceased. Lights began to glimmer here and there. Peace-pipes were being lighted.

"You have saved your people," said Umatilla. "Play it again."

Again and again the dream-music drifted out on the air. The plain was now filled with peace-pipes. When the last blended tones died away, the whole tribe were seated on the long plateau, and every old warrior was smoking a pipe of peace.

Gretchen saw that her spirit, through the violin, had calmed the sea. She was sure now that she had rightly read her mission in life. Amid the scene of glimmering peace-pipes, a heavenly presence seemed near her. She had broken the traditions of centuries by the sympathetic thrill of four simple strings. She felt that Von Weber was there in spirit, and Schumann. She felt that her father's soul was near her; but, more than all, she felt that she was doing the work of the Great Commission. She bowed her head on the instrument, thought of poor, terrorized Mrs. Woods in her lonely home, and wept.

A seen and unseen world had come to her—real life. She saw her power; the gates of that mysterious kingdom, in which the reborn soul is a new creation, had been opened to her. Her spirit seemed to rise as on new-created wings, and the world to sink beneath her. She had spiritual sight, ears, and senses—a new consciousness of Divine happiness. Her purpose became strong to live for the soul alone, and she sung, over and over again, amid the silence of the peace-pipes and the rising of those puffs of smoke in the silver illumination of the high moon—

"In the deserts let me labor, On the mountains let me tell."



CHAPTER XV.

THE TRAUMEREI AGAIN.

An hour passed in this mysterious and strange tranquillity—the noon hour of night. The warriors seemed contented and satisfied. Many of them were old; some of them remembered the coming of the first ships to the Columbia, and a few of them the long visit of Vancouver. They knew the wisdom of Umatilla, and seemed proud that his will had been so readily obeyed.

But not so with the biters. They were young, and they had plotted on this night to begin hostilities against the settlers. Their plan had been to burn the log school-house and the house of the Woodses, and to make a captive of Mrs. Woods, whose hostile spirit they wished to break and punish. Soon after the quiet scene at midnight they began to be restless. Their cries arose here and there about the margin of the plateau and along the river.

The old chief knew their feelings, and saw the stormy ripples here and there. He arose slowly, and called:

"My people, draw near."

The tribe gathered about the platform. The young braves knew what the old chief was about to say, and their cries of discontent grew loud and multiplied.

"The log school-house!" shrieked one, in a voice of rage.

"Pil-pil!" cried another. "Pil-pil!" echoed many voices. A tumult followed, and Gretchen started up from her reverie, and heard among the restless murmurs the name of Mrs. Woods.

She felt a nervous terror for a moment, but her spiritual sense and faith, which had come to her like a new-born life, returned to her.

She arose on the platform and took her violin, and looked down upon the sea of dusky faces in the smoky moonlight. She drew her bow. The music quivered. There was a lull in the excited voices. She played low, and there followed a silence.

The old chief came heavily up on the platform with a troubled face and stood beside her.

"Play the beautiful air." She played the Traumerei again.

The chief arose, as the last strain died away, and said:

"My people, listen."

The plateau was silent. The Columbia could be heard flowing. The trees seemed listening. Benjamin came upon the platform, reeling, and seemed about to speak to his father, but the old chief did not heed.

"My people, listen," repeated the chief.

A wild shriek of pain rent the air, and Benjamin dropped at the feet of his father. It was his voice that uttered the cry of agony and despair as he fell.

What had happened?

The boy lay on the platform as one dead. The old chief bent over him and laid his hand on his face. He started back as he did so, for the face was cold. But the boy's eyes pitifully followed every movement of his father. Gretchen sunk down beside the body, and drew her hand across his forehead and asked for water. Benjamin knew her.

Soon his voice came again. He looked wistfully toward Gretchen and said:

"I shall never go to find the Black Eagle's nest again. It is the plague. My poor father!—my poor father!"

"Send for the medicine-man," said the chief. "Quick!"

Hopping-Bear, the old medicine-man, came, a dreadful figure in eagle's plumes and bear-skins. To affect the imagination of the people when he was going to visit the sick, he had been accustomed to walk upon his two hands and one foot, with the other foot moving up and down in the air. He believed that sickness was caused by obsession, or the influence of some evil spirit, and he endeavored, by howlings, jumpings, and rattling of snake-skins, to drive this imaginary spirit away. But he did not begin his incantations here; he looked upon Benjamin with staring eyes, and cried out:

"It is the plague!"

The old chief of the Cascades lifted his helpless face to the sky.

"The stars are gone out!" he said. "I care for nothing more."

The boy at times was convulsed, then lay for a time unconscious after the convulsions, then consciousness would return. In one of these moments of consciousness he asked of Gretchen:

"Where is Boston tilicum?"

"He is not here—he does not know that you are sick."

"Run for him; tell him I can't go to the Missouri with him. I can't find the Black Eagle's nest. Run!"

His mind was dreaming and wandering.

Gretchen sent a runner to bring the schoolmaster to the dreadful scene.

A convulsion passed over the boy, but he revived again.

"Have faith in Heaven," said Gretchen. "There is One above that will save you."

"One above that will save me! Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Gretchen.

She added:

"Mother is sorry for what she said to you."

"I am sorry," said the boy, pathetically.

He was lost again in spasms of pain. When he revived, Marlowe Mann had come. The boy lifted his eyes to his beloved teacher vacantly; then the light of intelligence came back to them, and he knew him.

"I can't go," he said. "We shall never go to the lakes of the honks together. Boston tilicum, I am going to die; I am going away like my brothers—where?"

It was near the gray light of the morning, and a flock of wild geese were heard trumpeting in the air. The boy heard the sound, and started.

"Boston tilicum!"

"What can I do for you?"

"Boston tilicum, listen. Do you hear? What taught the honks where to go?"

"The Great Father of all."

"He leads them?"

"Yes."

"He will lead me?"

"Yes."

"And teach me when I am gone away. I can trust him. But my father—my father! Boston tilicum, he loves me, and he is old."

Flock after flock of wild geese flew overhead in the dim light. The boy lay and listened. He seemed to have learned a lesson of faith from the instincts of these migratory birds. He once turned to the master and said, almost in Gretchen's words:

"There is One above that will save me."

As the morning drew nearer, the air seemed filled with a long procession of Canadian geese going toward the sea. The air rang with their calls. The poor boy seemed to think that somehow they were calling to him.

There was silence at last in the air, and he turned toward Gretchen his strangely quiet face, and said, "Play."

Gretchen raised her bow. As she did so a sharp spasm came over him. He lifted his hand and tried to feel of one of the feathers from the Black Eagle's nest. He was evidently wandering to the Falls of the Missouri. His hand fell. He passed into a stertorous sleep, and lay there, watched by the old chief and the silent tribe.

Just as the light of early morn was flaming through the tall, cool, dewy trees, the breathing became labored, and ceased.

There he lay in the rising sun, silent and dead, with the helpless chief standing statue-like above him, and the tribe, motionless as a picture, circled around him, and with Gretchen at his feet.

"Make way!" said the old chief, in a deep voice.

He stepped down from the platform, and walked in a kingly manner, yet with tottering steps, toward the forest. Gretchen followed him. He heard her step, but did not look around.

"White girl, go back," he said; "I want to be alone."

He entered the forest slowly and disappeared.

Just at night he was seen coming out of the forest again. He spoke to but a single warrior, and only said:

"Bury him as the white men bury; open the blanket of the earth; and command the tribe to be there—to-morrow at sundown. Take them all away—I will watch. Where is the white girl?"

"She has gone home," said the Indian.

"Then I will watch alone. Take them all away—I want to be alone. It is the last night of the chief of the Umatillas. It is the last watch of the stars. My blood is cold, my heart beats slow—it will not be long!"

The chief sat all night by the body. In the morning he went to his lodge, and the tribe made the preparations for the funeral, and opened a grave in the earth.



CHAPTER XVI.

A SILENT TRIBE.

It was sunset on the bluffs and valleys of the Columbia. Through the tall, dark pines and firs the red west glowed like the lights in an oriel or mullioned window. The air was voiceless. The Columbia rolled silently in the shadows with a shimmering of crimson on its deep middle tides. The long, brown boats of the salmon-fishers sat motionless on the tide. Among the craft of the fishermen glided a long, airy canoe, with swift paddles. It contained an old Umatilla Indian, his daughter, and a young warrior. The party were going to the young chief's funeral.



As the canoe glided on amid the still fishermen of other tribes, the Indian maiden began to sing. It was a strange song, of immortality, and of spiritual horizons beyond the visible life. The Umatillas have poetic minds. To them white Tacoma with her gushing streams means a mother's breast, and the streams themselves, like the Falls of the distant Shoshone, were "falling splendors."

She sang in Chinook, and the burden of her song was that horizons will lift forever in the unknown future. The Chinook word tamala means "to-morrow"; and to-morrow, to the Indian mind, was eternal life.

The young warrior joined in the refrain, and the old Indian listened. The thought of the song was something as follows:

"Aha! it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow— Tamala, tamala, sing as we row; Lift thine eye to the mount; to the wave give thy sorrow; The river is bright, and the rivulets flow; Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go— Tamala! tamala!

"Happy boat, it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow— Tamala, whisper the waves as they flow; The crags of the sunset the smiles of light borrow, And soft from the ocean the Chinook winds blow: Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go— Tamala! tamala!

"Aha! the night comes, but the light is to-morrow— Tamala, tamala, sing as we go; The waves ripple past, like the heart-beats of sorrow, And the oar beats the wave to our song as we row: Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go— Tamala! tamala!

"For ever and ever horizons are lifting— Tamala, tamala, sing as we row; And life toward the stars of the ocean is drifting, Through death will the morrow all endlessly glow— Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go, Tamala! tamala!"

The paddle dipped in the wave at the word tamala, and lifted high to mark the measure of the song, and strew in the warm, soft air the watery jewels colored by the far fires of the Sound. So the boat swept on, like a spirit bark, and the beautiful word of immortality was echoed from the darkening bluffs and the primitive pine cathedrals.

The place where the grave had been made was on the borders of the Oregon desert, a wild, open region, walled with tremendous forests, and spreading out in the red sunset like a sea. It had a scanty vegetation, but a slight rain would sometimes change it into a billowy plain of flowers.

The tribe had begun to assemble about the grave early in the long afternoon. They came one by one, solitary and silent, wrapped in blankets and ornamented with gray plumes. The warriors came in the same solitary way and met in silence, and stood in a long row like an army of shadows. Squaws came, leading children by the hand, and seated themselves on the soft earth in the same stoical silence that had marked the bearing of the braves.

A circle of lofty firs, some three hundred feet high, threw a slanting shadow over the open grave, the tops gleaming with sunset fire.

Afar, Mount Hood, the dead volcano, lifted its roof of glaciers twelve thousand feet high. Silver ice and black carbon it was now, although in the long ages gone it had had a history written in flame and smoke and thunder. Tradition says that it sometimes, even now, rumbles and flashes forth in the darkness of night, then sinks into rest again, under its lonely ice palaces so splendid in the sunset, so weird under the moon.

Just as the red disk of the sun sunk down behind this stupendous scenery, a low, guttural sound was uttered by Potlatch Hero, an old Indian brave, and it passed along the line of the shadowy braves. No one moved, but all eyes were turned toward the lodge of the old Umatilla chief.

He was coming—slowly, with measured step; naked, except the decent covering of a blanket and a heroic ornament of eagle-plumes, and all alone.

The whole tribe had now gathered, and a thousand dusky forms awaited him in the sunset.

There was another guttural sound. Another remarkable life-picture came into view. It was the school in a silent procession, following the tall masks, out of the forest trail on to the glimmering plain, the advent of that new civilization before which the forest lords, once the poetic bands of the old Umatillas, were to disappear. Over all a solitary eagle beat the luminous air, and flocks of wild geese made their way, like V-letters, toward the Puget Sea.

The school soon joined the dusky company, and the pupils stood with uncovered heads around their Yankee pedagogue. But the old chief came slowly. After each few steps he would stop, fold his arms, and seem lost in contemplation. These pauses were longer as he drew near the silent company.

Except the honks of the pilots of the flocks of wild geese, there was a dead silence everywhere. Only eyes moved, and then furtively, toward the advancing chief.



He reached the grave at last by these slow movements, and stepped upon the earth that had been thrown out of it, and folded his arms in view of all. A golden star, like a lamp in the windows of heaven, hung over Mount Hood in the fading splendors of the twilight, and the great chief bent his eye upon it.

Suddenly the air was rent by a wail, and a rattle of shells and drums. The body of Benjamin was being brought out of the lodge. It was borne on a bier made of poles, and covered with boughs of pine and fir and red mountain phlox. It was wrapped in a blanket, and strewn with odorous ferns. Four young braves bore it, besmeared with war-paint. They were followed by musicians, who beat their drums, and rattled shell instruments at irregular times, as they advanced. They came to the grave, lifted the body on its blanket from the bier of evergreens and flowers, and slowly lowered it. The old chief stood stoical and silent, his eye fixed on the star in the darkening shadows.

The face of Benjamin was noble and beautiful in its death-sleep. Over it were two black eagle's plumes. The deep black hair lay loosely about the high, bronze forehead; there was an expression of benevolence in the compressed lips, and the helpless hands seemed like a picture as they lay crossed on each other.

As soon as the body was laid in the earth, the old chief bent his face on the people. The mysterious dimness of death was in his features. His eyes gleamed, and his bronze lips were turning pale.

"My nation, listen; 'tis my last voice. I am a Umatilla. In my youth the birds in the free lakes of the air were not more free. I spoke, and you obeyed. I have but one more command to give. Will you obey me?

"You bow, and I am glad.

"Listen!

"My fathers were men of war. They rolled the battle-drums. I taught my warriors to play the pipes of peace, and sixty years have they played them under the great moons of the maize-fields. We were happy. I was happy.

"I had seven sons. The white man's plague came; the shadow fell on six of them, and they went away with the storm-birds. They entered the new canoe, and sailed beyond us on the sea of life. They came back no more at the sunrisings and sun settings, at the leaf-gatherings of the spring, or the leaf-fallings of the autumn. They are beyond.

"One son was left me—Benjamin. He was no common youth; the high spirits were with him, and he came to be like them, and he has gone to them now. I loved him. He was my eyes; he was my ears; he was my heart. When I saw his eyes in death, my eyes were dead; when he could hear me call his name no longer, my ears lost their hearing; when his young heart ceased to beat, my own heart was dead. All that I am lies in that grave, beside my dead boy.

"My nation, you have always obeyed me. I have but one more command to make. Will you obey me?

"You bow again. My life-blood is growing cold. I am about to go down into that grave.

"One step! The clouds fly and darken, and you will see them return again, but not I.

"Two steps! Farewell, sun and light of day. I shall see thee again, but not as now.

"Three steps! Downward to the grave I descend to meet thee, my own dear boy. Adieu, my people. Adieu, hearts of faith. Farewell, ye birds of the air, ye mighty forests, ye sun of night, and ye marches of stars. I am dying.

"Two steps more I will take. There he lies before me in the unfolded earth, the life of my life, the heart of my heart.

"You have promised to obey me. I repeat it—you have promised to obey me. You have always done so. You must do so now. My hands are cold, my feet are cold, and my heart beats very slow. Three steps more, and I shall lay myself on the body of my boy. Hear, then, my last command; you have promised to obey it like brave men.

"When I have taken my last three steps of life, and laid down beside the uncovered bed of earth beside my boy, fill up the grave forever; my breath will be gone; Umatilla will be no more. You must obey.

"One step—look! There is fire on the mountain under the curtains of the night. Look, the peak flashes; it is on fire.—O Spirit of All, I come! One step more! Farewell, earth. Warriors, fill the grave! The black eagle's plumes will now rest forever."

There was deep silence, broken only by the sobs of the little school. A warrior moved and passed round the grave, and uttered the word "Dead!" The braves followed him, and the whole tribe like shadows. "Dead!" "Dead!" passed from mouth to mouth. Then a warrior threw a handful of earth into the grave of the father and son. The braves followed his example, then all the tribe.

As they were so doing, like phantoms in the dim light, Mount Saint Helens[D] blazed again—one volcanic flash, then another; then all was darkness, and the moon arose in a broad sea of light like a spectral sun.

The grave was filled at last. Then they brought the Cayuse pony of Benjamin toward the grave, and a young brave raised the hatchet to kill it, that it might bear the dead boy into the unknown land.

There was a cry! It came from Gretchen. The girl rushed forward and stood before the hatchet. The pony seemed to know her, and he put his head over her shoulder.

"Spare him!" she said. "Benjamin gave him to me—the soul of Benjamin would wish it so."

"Let the girl have her way," said the old warriors.

The moon now moved free in the dark-blue sky, and sky, forest, and plain were a silver sea. The Indians began to move away like shadows, one by one, silent and slow. Gretchen was the last to go. She followed the school, leading the pony, her soul filled with that consciousness of a new life that had so wonderfully come to her. Her way in life now seemed clear: she must teach the Umatillas.

She left the pony in a grassy clearing, on the trail that led to her home, and hurried toward the cabin to describe all the events of the day to her foster-mother.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote D: See Notes.]



CHAPTER XVII.

A DESOLATE HOME AND A DESOLATE PEOPLE.

As Gretchen was hurrying home on the evening after these exciting scenes, she met Mrs. Woods in the trail, and she saw at a glance that her foster-mother was in great distress.

"O Gretchen," she said, "I am so glad that you have come—you are all that is left to me now! I am all alone in the world! Have you heard it, Gretchen?"

"What, mother?"

"Husband is drowned!"

Mrs. Woods seized the arm of the girl, and the two helpless women hurried toward their rude home, each to relate to the other a scene of distress, and each to wonder what the wide future had in store for them.

They held each other by the hand, and talked in the open door of the cabin. Then they went in and ate a simple meal of milk and berries, and lay down and slept the sleep of sorrow.

At the early light they awoke. Almost the first words that Gretchen spoke were: "Let us face life and be fearless. I have faith. My father had faith, and my mother lived by faith. It was faith that led them across the sea. Their faith seemed to be unfulfilled, but it will be fulfilled in me. I feel it. Mother, let trouble pass. We belong to the family of God."

"You are a comfort to me, Gretchen. I can not see my way—it is covered."

"But you can trust your Guide, mother, and the end of trust is peace."

"What are we to do, Gretchen?"

"I will go to Walla Walla and seek the advice of Mrs. Spaulding."

"Gretchen, don't you think that the schoolmaster is a good man?"

"Yes, I am sure that he is."

"I am. Let us go to him and follow his advice. We will go together."

They agreed to make the visit on the following day in the morning, before school.

Gretchen told her foster-mother the story of the Indian pony.

"Where is he now?" asked Mrs. Woods.

"I left him in the clearing. I will go and find him."

"I will go with you," said Mrs. Woods.

The two went out together. They came to the clearing—a place of waving grass, surrounded with gigantic trees, in whose tops were great nests of birds. The pony was not there.

"He has gone to the next clearing," said Gretchen.

They passed through a strip of wood to another clearing. But the pony was not there.

As they were returning, a little black animal crossed their path.

Mrs. Woods said, "Hold!" then called out in a kindly voice, "Roll over." The little animal rolled head over heels in a very comical way, then ran quickly into the thick bushes. It was the last time that Mrs. Woods ever saw little Roll Over, and Gretchen never saw the pony again. The latter probably found a herd of horses and wandered away with them. It was a time of such confusion and distress that the matter did not awaken the interest of the Indians at that time.

That evening they talked of plans for the future.

"Let us seek work in one of the missionary stations," said Gretchen, "or let us find a home among the Indians themselves. I want to become a teacher among them, and I know that they would treat you well."

Mrs. Woods's views on these matters were changing, but something of her old distrust and prejudice remained despite her good resolutions.

"Foxes and geese were never made to hold conference meetings together. You can't make one man out of another if you try."

"But, mother, your English ancestors once wandered about in sheep-skins, and worshiped the oaks; the whole English race, and the German race, were made what they are by teachers—teachers who gave themselves to a cause almost two thousand years ago."

"Yes, I suppose that is so. But, Gretchen, I want your heart; I never thought that you would give it to the Injuns. I ought not to be so ruled by my affections; but, if I do scold you, there is something in you that draws my heart toward you all the time. I believe in helping others; something good in the future always comes of it. If men would be good to each other, Heaven would be good to the world. It is the things done here in this world that are out of order, and I never was on very good terms with myself even, not to say much of the world. But you have helped me, Gretchen, and hymns have helped me. I want you to be charitable toward my feelins', Gretchen, when I grow old, and I pray that you will always be true to me."

"I shall always be true to you, whatever I may be called to do. I shall not leave you until you give your consent. One day you will wish me to do as I have planned—I feel it within me; something is leading me, and our hearts will soon be one in my plan of life."

"It may be so, Gretchen. I have had a hard time, goin' out to service when I was a girl. My only happy days were during the old Methody preaching of Jason Lee. I thought I owned the heavens then. It was then I married, and I said to husband: 'Here we must always be slaves, and life will be master of us; let us go West, and own a free farm, and be masters of life.' There is a great deal in being master of life. Well, we have had a hard time, but husband has been good to me, and you have made me happy, if I have scolded. Gretchen, some people kiss each other by scoldin'; I do—I scold to make the world better. I suppose everything is for the best, after all. There is no experience in life that does not teach us something, and there is a better world beyond that awaits all who desire a better life. Our desires are better than ourselves—mine are. Good desires are prayers, and I think that they will all be answered some day."

She sat in silence, thinking of her lonely situation, of her ignorance and imperfection, of her often baffled struggles to do well in this world and to overcome her poor, weak self, and she burst into tears.

"Play," she said. "Music is a kind of prayer." And Gretchen touched the musical glasses.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LIFTED CLOUD—THE INDIANS COME TO THE SCHOOLMASTER.

The next day witnessed a strange scene at the log school-house on the Columbia. It was a red October morning. Mrs. Woods accompanied Gretchen to the school, as she wished to have a talk with Mr. Mann.

As the two came in sight of the house, Mrs. Woods caught Gretchen by the arm and said:

"What's them?"

"Where?"

"Sittin' in the school-yard."

"They are Indians."

"Injuns? What are they there for?"

"I don't know, mother."

"Come for advice, like me, may be."

"Perhaps they are come to school. The old chief told them that I would teach them."

"You?"

"They have no father now."

"No father?"

"No chief."

Mrs. Woods had been so overwhelmed with her own grief that she had given little thought to the death of Benjamin and the chief of the Cascades. The unhappy condition of the little tribe now came to her as in a picture; and, as she saw before her some fifty Indians seated on the ground, her good heart came back to her, and she said, touched by a sense of her own widowhood, "Gretchen, I pity 'em."

Mrs. Woods was right. These Indians had come to seek the advice of Mr. Mann in regard to their tribal affairs. Gretchen also was right. They had come to ask Mr. Mann to teach their nation.

It was an unexpected assembly that Marlowe Mann faced as he came down the clearing, but it revealed to him, at a glance, his future work in life.

The first of the distressed people to meet him was Mrs. Woods.

"O Mr. Mann, I am all alone in the world, and what am I goin' to do? There's nothin' but hard days' work left to me now, and—hymns. Even Father Lee has gone, and I have no one to advise me. You will be a friend to me, won't you?"

"Yes," said Mr. Mann. "I need you, and the way is clear."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a letter from Boston."

"What is it, Marlowe Mann?"

"The Indian Educational Society have promised me a thousand dollars for my work another year. I must have a house. I would want you to take charge of it. But—your tongue?"

"O Master Mann, I'll give up my tongue! I'll just work, and be still. If an Injun will give up his revenge, an' it's his natur', ought not I to give up my tongue? When I can't help scoldin' I'll just sing hymns."

Mr. Mann gazed into the faces of the Indians. The warm sunlight fell upon them. There was a long silence, broken only by the scream of the eagles in the sky and the passing of flocks of wild geese. Then one of the Indians rose and said:

"Umatilla has gone to his fathers.

"Benjamin has gone to his fathers. We shall never see Young Eagle's plume again!

"Boston tilicum, be our chief. We have come to school."

Mr. Mann turned to Gretchen. Her young face was lovely that morning with sympathy. He said in a low voice:

"You see our work in life. Do you understand? Will you accept it?"

She understood his heart.

"I will do whatever you say."

* * * * *

In 1859 a great Indian Reservation was established in what is known in Oregon as the Inland Empire of the Northwest. It contained about two hundred and seventy thousand acres, agricultural land and timber-land. The beautiful Umatilla River flows through it. The agency now is near Pendleton, Oregon. Thither the Umatillas were removed.

Marlowe Mann went there, and Gretchen as his young wife, and in their home Mrs. Woods for many years could have been heard singing hymns.

Their home stood for the Indian race, and the schoolmaster and his wife devoted themselves to the cause of Indian education. Through the silent influence of Mr. Mann's correspondence with the East, Indian civilization was promoted, and the way prepared for the peaceful settlement of the great Northwest.

Gretchen taught the Indians as long as she lived. Often at evening, when the day's work had been hard, she would take her violin, and a dream of music would float upon the air. She played but one tune at last as she grew serenely old. That tune recalled her early German home, the Rhine, her good father and mother, and the scenes of the great Indian Potlatch on the Columbia. It was the Traumerei.

Her poetic imagination, which had been suppressed by her foster-mother in her girlhood, came back to her in her new home, and it was her delight to express in verse the inspirations of her life amid these new scenes, and to publish these poems in the papers of the East that most sympathized with the cause of Indian education.

The memory of Benjamin and the old chief of the Cascades never left her. It was a never-to-be-forgotten lesson of the nobility of all men whose souls have the birthright of heaven. Often, when the wild geese were flying overhead in the evening, she would recall Benjamin, and say, "He who guides led me here from the Rhine, and schooled me for my work in the log school-house on the Columbia."

Such is not an overdrawn picture of the early pioneers of the Columbia and the great Northwest.

Jason Lee was censured for leaving his mission for the sake of Oregon—for turning his face from the stars to the sun. Whitman, when he appeared ragged at Washington, was blamed for having left his post. The early pioneers of the great Northwest civilization lie in neglected graves. We are now beginning to see the hand of Providence, and to realize how great was the work that these people did for their own country and for the world.

And Marlowe Mann—whose name stands for the Christian schoolmaster—no one knows where he sleeps now; perhaps no one, surely but a few. He saw his college-mates rise to honor and fame. They offered him positions, but he knew his place in the world.

When his hair was turning gray, there came to him an offer of an opportunity for wealth, from his remaining relatives. At the same time the agency offered him the use of a farm. He accepted the latter for his work's sake, and returned to his old friends a loving letter and an old poem, and with the latter we will leave this picture of old times on the Oregon:

"Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound; Content to breathe his native air On his own ground.

"Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter, fire.

"Sound sleep by night, study and ease, Together mixed sweet recreation; And innocence, which most doth please, With meditation.

"Blessed who can unconcernedly find Hours, days, and years glide soft away, In health of body, peace of mind; Quiet by day.

"Thus let me live unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie."



HISTORICAL NOTES.



I.

VANCOUVER.

The remarkable progress of the Pacific port cities of Seattle and Tacoma make Washington an especially bright, new star on the national flag. Surrounded as these cities are with some of the grandest and most poetic scenery in the United States, with gigantic forests and rich farm-lands, with mountains of ores, with coal-mines, iron-mines, copper-mines, and mines of the more precious treasures; washed as they are by the water of noble harbors, and smiled upon by skies of almost continuous April weather—there must be a great future before the cities of Puget Sound.

The State of Washington is one of the youngest in the Union, and yet she is not too young to celebrate soon the one-hundredth anniversary of several interesting events.

It was on the 15th of December, 1790, that Captain George Vancouver received his commission as commander of his Majesty's sloop of war the Discovery. Three of his officers were Peter Puget, Joseph Baker, and Joseph Whidby, whose names now live in Puget Sound—Mount Baker, and Whidby Island.

The great island of British Columbia, and its energetic port city, received the name of Vancouver himself, and Vancouver named most of the places on Puget Sound in honor of his personal friends. He must have had a heart formed for friendship, thus to have immortalized those whom he esteemed and loved. It is the discovery and the naming of mountains, islands, and ports of the Puget Sound that suggest poetic and patriotic celebrations.

The old journals of Vancouver lie before us. In these we read:

"From this direction, round by the north and northwest, the high, distant land formed, like detached islands, among which the lofty mountains discovered in the afternoon by the third lieutenant, and in compliment to him called by me Mount Baker, rose to a very conspicuous object."

It was on Monday, April 30, 1792, that Mount Baker was thus discovered and named. In May, 1792, Vancouver states that he came to a "very safe" and "capatious" harbor, and that "to this port I gave the name of Port Townshend, in honor of the noble marquis of that name."

Again, on Thursday, May 29, 1792, Vancouver discovered another excellent port, and says:

"This harbor, after the gentleman who discovered it, obtained the name of Port Orchard."

In May, 1792, he makes the following very important historical note:

"Thus by our joint efforts we had completely explored every turning of this extensive inlet; and, to commemorate Mr. Puget's exertions, the fourth extremity of it I named Puget Sound."

A very interesting officer seems to have been this lieutenant, Peter Puget, whose soundings gave the name to the American Mediterranean. Once, after the firing of muskets to overawe hostile Indians, who merely pouted out their lips, and uttered, "Poo hoo! poo hoo!" he ordered the discharge of a heavy gun, and was amused to note the silence that followed. It was in April and May, 1792, that Puget explored the violet waters of the great inland sea, a work which he seems to have done with the enthusiasm of a romancer as well as of a naval officer.

Mount Hood was named for Lord Hood, and Mount Saint Helens was named in 1792, in the month of October, "in honor of his Britannic Majesty's ambassador at the court of Madrid." But one of the most interesting of all of Vancouver's notes is the following:

"The weather was serene and pleasant, and the country continued to exhibit the same luxuriant appearance. At its northern extremity Mount Baker bore compass; the round, snowy mountain, now forming its southern extremity, after my friend Rear-Admiral Ranier, I distinguished by the name of Mount Ranier, May, 1792." This mountain is now Mount Tacoma.

The spring of 1892 ought to be historically very interesting to the State of Washington, and it is likely to be so.



II.

THE OREGON TRAIL.

"There is the East. There lies the road to India."

Such was Senator Thomas H. Benton's view of the coast and harbors of Oregon. He saw the advantage of securing to the United States the Columbia River and its great basin, and the Puget Sea; and he made himself the champion of Oregon and Washington.

In Thomas Jefferson's administration far-seeing people began to talk of a road across the continent, and a port on the Pacific. The St. Louis fur-traders had been making a way to the Rockies for years, and in 1810 John Jacob Astor sent a ship around Cape Horn, to establish a post for the fur-trade on the Pacific Coast, and also sent an expedition of some sixty persons from St. Louis, overland, by the way of the Missouri and Yellowstone, to the Columbia River. The pioneer ship was called the Tonquin. She arrived at the mouth of the Columbia before the overland expedition. These traders came together at last, and founded Astoria, on the Columbia.

Ships now began to sail for Astoria, and the trading-post flourished in the beautiful climate and amid the majestic scenery. But the English claimed the country. In June, 1812, war broke out with England, and Astoria became threatened with capture by the English. It was decided by Astor's agent to abandon the post; but Astoria had taught the United States the value of Oregon.

The Oregon trail from St. Louis, by the way of the great rivers, the Missouri, the Yellowstone, and the Columbia, followed the fall of Astoria, and began the highway of emigration to the Pacific coast and to Asia. Over it the trapper and the missionary began to go. The Methodist missionaries, under the leadership of Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, were among the first in the field, and laid the foundations of the early cities of Oregon. One of their stations was at the Dalles of the Columbia. In 1835 the great missionary, Marcus Whitman, of the Congregationalist Board, established the mission at Walla Walla. Yet up to the year 1841, just fifty years ago, only about one hundred and fifty Americans, in all, had permanently settled in Oregon and Washington.

Senator Benton desired the survey of a route to Oregon, to aid emigration to the Columbia basin. He engaged for this service a young, handsome, gallant, and chivalrous officer, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who, with Nicollet, a French naturalist, had been surveying the upper Mississippi, and opening emigration to Minnesota.

Fremont espoused not only the cause of Oregon, but also Senator Benton's young daughter Jessie, who later rendered great personal services to her husband's expedition in the Northwest.

Kit Carson was the guide of this famous expedition. The South Pass was explored, and the flag planted on what is now known as Fremont's Peak, and the country was found to be not the Great American Desert of the maps, but a land of wonderful beauty and fertility. In 1843 Fremont made a second expedition; this time from the South Pass to the Columbia country. After he was well on his way, the War Department recalled him; but Mrs. Fremont suppressed the order, in the interest of the expedition, until it was too late to reach him.

Fremont went by the way of Salt Lake, struck the Oregon trail, and finally came to the mission that Dr. Whitman had founded among the Nez-Perces (pierced noses) at Walla Walla. This mission then consisted of a single adobe house.

The British claimants of the territory, finding that American immigration was increasing, began to bring settlers from the Red River of the North. A struggle now began to determine which country should possess this vast and most important territory. When Dr. Whitman learned of the new efforts of the English to settle the country, and the danger of losing Oregon by treaties pending at Washington, he started for St. Louis, by the way of Santa Fe. This ride, often called "Whitman's Ride for Oregon," is one of the poetical events of American history. He went to Washington, was treated cavalierly by the State Department, but secured a delay of the treaties, which proved the means of saving Oregon and Washington to the United States.

So his missionary efforts gave to our country an empire that seems destined to become ultimate America, and a power in the Asian world.



III.

GOVERNOR STEVENS.

In the long line of brave American soldiers, General Isaac Ingalls Stevens deserves a noble rank in the march of history. He was born at Andover, Mass., and was educated at West Point, where he was graduated from the Military Academy in 1839 with the highest honors. He was on the military staff of General Scott in Mexico, and held other honorable positions in the Government service in his early life.

But the great period of his life was his survey of the Northern route to the Pacific, since largely followed by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and his development of Washington Territory as a pioneer Governor. He saw the road to China by the way of the Puget Sea, and realized that Washington stood for the East of the Eastern Continent and the Western. He seems to have felt that here the flag would achieve her greatest destiny, and he entered upon his work like a knight who faced the future and not the past. His survey of the Northern Pacific route led the march of steam to the Puget Sea, and the great steamers have carried it forward to Japan, China, and India.

His first message to the Legislature at Olympia (1854) was a map of the future and a prophecy. It was a call for roads, schools, a university, and immigration. The seal of Washington was made to bear the Indian word Alke—"by and by"—or "in the future." It also was a prophecy.

He created the counties of Sawanish, Whatcom, Clallam, Chehalis, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, Skamania, and Walla Walla. Olympia was fixed upon as the seat of government, and measures were taken by the Government for the regulation of the Indian tribes.

Stevens was the military leader of the Indian war. He reduced the tribes to submission, and secured a permanent peace. He was elected to Congress as a Territorial delegate in 1857, and sought at Washington as earnestly as on the Puget Sea the interests of the rising State.

He was a man of great intellect, of a forceful and magnetic presence—a man born to lead in great emergencies. He carried New England ideas and traditions to the Pacific, and established them there for all time to come, creating there a greater New England which should gather to its harbors the commerce of the world.

Governor Stevens was a conservative in politics, but when the news of the fall of Sumter thrilled the country, he said to the people of Olympia, "I conceive it my duty to stop disunion." He went to Washington and entered the Union service.

He fell like a hero at Chantilly, and under the flag which he had taken from his color-bearer, who had received a mortal wound. His was a splendid career that the nation should honor. We recently saw his sword and historic pictures at the home of his widow and son at Dorchester, Mass., and were impressed with these relics of a spirit that had done so much for the progress of the country and mankind.

The State of Washington is his monument, and progressive thought his eulogy. His great mind and energy brought order out of chaos, and set the flag in whose folds he died forever under the gleaming dome of the Colossus of American mountains and over the celestial blue of the Pacific harbors of the Puget Sea.



IV.

SEATTLE THE CHIEF.

Seattle was a Dwamish chief, and a true friend of the white race, whom he seemed to follow on account of their superior intelligence. He gave the name to an early settlement, which is now a great city, and which seems destined to become one of the important port cities of the world; for when in 1852, some forty years ago, the pioneers of Alke Point left the town which they had laid out and called New York, and removed to the other side of the bay, they named the place Seattle, from the friendly chief, instead of New York. Alke means by and by and Seattle is likely to become the New York of the Pacific, and one of the great ports for Asiatic trade. With the immense agricultural and mineral resources with which it is surrounded, with its inexhaustible stores of timber, its sublime scenery and delightful climate, with its direct and natural water-road to Japan and China, and its opportunity of manufacturing for the Asiatic market the kind of goods that England has to carry to the same markets over an adventurous course of three times the distance, with the great demand for grain among the rice-eating countries of the East—the mind can not map the possibilities of this port city for the next hundred years or more. The prophecy of its enterprising citizens, that it will one day be one of the great cities in the world, is not unlikely to be realized; and it is interesting to ask what was the history of the chief who gave the name to this new Troy of the Puget Sea.

He was at this time somewhat advanced in life, a portly man, of benevolent face, recalling the picture of Senator Benton, of Missouri, whom he was said to resemble. He was the chief of the Dwamishes, a small tribe inhabiting the territory around what is now Elliott Bay. He became a friend of Dr. Maynard, one of the pioneers of the new town, and of General Stevens, the great Territorial Governor. He was well known to Foster, Denny, Bell, and Borden, who took claims where the city now stands. His last years were passed at Port Madison, where he died in 1866, at a great age.

Governor Stevens confirmed his sachemship, and Seattle became the protector and the good genius of the town. A curious legend, which seems to be well founded, is related of a tax which Seattle levied upon the new town, for the sake of the trouble that the name would give him in the spiritual world. When a Dwamish Indian lost a near relative of the same name by death, he changed his own name, because the name might attract the ghost of the deceased, and so cause him to be haunted. The tribe believed that departed spirits loved their old habitations, and the associations of their names and deeds, and so they changed their names and places on the death of relatives, that they might not be disturbed by ghostly apparitions.

"Why do you ask for a tax?" asked a pioneer of Seattle.

"The name of the town will call me back after I am dead, and make me unhappy. I want my pay for what I shall suffer then, now."

I hope that the rapid growth of the great city of the North does not disquiet the gentle and benevolent soul of Seattle. The city should raise a monument to him, that he may see that he is kindly remembered when he comes back to visit the associations of his name and life. Or, better for his shade, the city should kindly care for his daughter, poor old Angeline Seattle, who at the time of this writing (1890) is a beggar in the streets of uplifting commercial palaces and lovely homes!

We visited her in her hut outside of the city some months ago, to ask her if she saved Seattle in 1855, by giving information to the pioneers that the woods around it were full of lurking Indians, bent on a plot to destroy it; for there is a legend that on that shadowy December night, when Seattle was in peril, and the council of Indian warriors met and resolved to destroy the town before morning, Jim, a friendly Indian, was present at the conference as a spy. He found means to warn the pioneers of their immediate danger.

The ship of war Decatur, under Captain Gansevoort, lay in the harbor. Jim, who had acted in the Indian council, secretly, in the interest of the town, had advised the chiefs to defer the attack until early in the morning, when the officers of the Decatur would be off their guard.



Night fell on the Puget Sea. The people went into the block-house to sleep, and the men of the Decatur guarded the town, taking their stations on shore. As the night deepened, a thousand hostile Indians crept up to the place and awaited the morning, when the guard should go on board the ship for breakfast, and the people should come out of the block-house and go to their houses, and "set the gun behind the door."

It was on this night, according to the legend, that "Old Angeline," as she is now called, became the messenger that saved the inhabitants from destruction.

The legend has been doubted; and when we asked the short, flat-faced old woman, as she answered our knock, if she was the daughter of the chief who saved Seattle, she simply said, "Chief," grinned, and made a bow. She was ready to accept the traditional honors of the wild legend worthy of the pen of a Cooper.

On returning from our visit to old Angeline, we asked Hon. Henry Yesler, the now rich pioneer, why the princess was not better cared for by the people of the city. He himself had been generous to her. "Why," he said, "if you were to give her fifty dollars, she would give it all away before night!" Benevolent old Angeline! She ought to live in a palace instead of a hovel! Mr. Yesler doubted the local legend, but I still wished to believe it to be true.



V.

The story of "Whitman's Ride for Oregon" has been told in verse by the writer of this volume, as follows:

WHITMAN'S RIDE FOR OREGON.

I.

"An empire to be lost or won!" And who four thousand miles will ride And climb to heaven the Great Divide, And find the way to Washington, Through mountain canons, winter snows, O'er streams where free the north wind blows? Who, who will ride from Walla-Walla, Four thousand miles, for Oregon?

II.

"An empire to be lost or won? In youth to man I gave my all, And naught is yonder mountain wall; If but the will of Heaven be done, It is not mine to live or die, Or count the mountains low or high, Or count the miles from Walla-Walla. I, I will ride for Oregon!" 'Twas thus that Whitman made reply.

III.

"An empire to be lost or won? Bring me my Cayuse pony, then, And I will thread old ways again, Beneath the gray skies' crystal sun. 'Twas on those altars of the air I raised the flag, and saw below The measureless Columbia flow; The Bible oped, and bowed in prayer, And gave myself to God anew, And felt my spirit newly born; And to my mission I'll be true, And from the vale of Walla-Walla I'll ride again for Oregon.

IV.

"I'm not my own; myself I've given, To bear to savage hordes the Word; If on the altars of the heaven I'm called to die, it is the Lord. The herald may not wait or choose, 'Tis his the summons to obey; To do his best, or gain or lose, To seek the Guide and not the way. He must not miss the cross, and I Have ceased to think of life or death; My ark I've builded—heaven is nigh, And earth is but a morning's breath! Go, then, my Cayuse pony bring; The hopes that seek myself are gone, And from the vale of Walla-Walla I'll ride again for Oregon."

V.

He disappeared, as not his own, He heard the warning ice winds sigh; The smoky sun-flames o'er him shone, On whitened altars of the sky, As up the mountain-sides he rose; The wandering eagle round him wheeled, The partridge fled, the gentle roes, And oft his Cayuse pony reeled Upon some dizzy crag, and gazed Down cloudy chasms, falling storms, While higher yet the peaks upraised Against the winds their giant forms. On, on and on, past Idaho, On past the mighty Saline sea, His covering at night the snow, His only sentinel a tree. On, past Portneuf's basaltic heights, On where the San Juan Mountains lay, Through sunless days and starless nights, Toward Taos and far Sante Fe. O'er table-lands of sleet and hail, Through pine-roofed gorges, canons cold, Now fording streams incased in mail Of ice, like Alpine knights of old, Still on, and on, forgetful on, Till far behind lay Walla-Walla, And far the fields of Oregon.

VI.

The winter deepened, sharper grew The hail and sleet, the frost and snow; Not e'en the eagle o'er him new, And scarce the partridge's wing below. The land became a long white sea, And then a deep with scarce a coast; The stars refused their light, till he Was in the wildering mazes lost. He dropped rein, his stiffened hand Was like a statue's hand of clay! "My trusty beast, 'tis the command; Go on, I leave to thee the way. I must go on, I must go on, Whatever lot may fall to me, On, 'tis for others' sake I ride— For others I may never see, And dare thy clouds, O Great Divide, Not for myself, O Walla-Walla, Not for myself, O Washington, But for thy future, Oregon."

VII.

And on and on the dumb beast pressed Uncertain, and without a guide, And found the mountain's curves of rest And sheltered ways of the Divide. His feet grew firm, he found the way With storm-beat limbs and frozen breath, As keen his instincts to obey As was his master's eye of faith— Still on and on, still on and on, And far and far grew Walla-Walla, And far the fields of Oregon.

VIII.

That spring, a man with frozen feet Came to the marble halls of state, And told his mission but to meet The chill of scorn, the scoff of hate. "Is Oregon worth saving?" asked The treaty-makers from the coast; And him the Church with questions tasked, And said, "Why did you leave your post?" Was it for this that he had braved The warring storms of mount and sky? Yes!—yet that empire he had saved, And to his post went back to die— Went back to die for others' sake, Went back to die from Washington, Went back to die for Walla-Walla, For Idaho and Oregon.

IX.

At fair Walla-Walla one may see The city of the Western North, And near it graves unmarked there be That cover souls of royal worth; The flag waves o'er them in the sky Beneath whose stars are cities born, And round them mountain-castled lie The hundred states of Oregon.



VI.

MOUNT SAINT HELENS.

We refer to the snowy range to the west, which terminates in the great dome that now bears that name. There was once a great lava-flood in the Northwest, and Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Tacoma (Rainier) are but great ash-heaps that were left by the stupendous event.

THE END