Part 11 (2/2)

They were now approaching the caer braves at the head of the Cayuse train dashed toward it, yelling and whooping in the wildestshout

”The Cayuses! the Cayuses! and the white medicine-man!”

The news spread like wildfire, and reet the latest arrivals It was a scene of abject squalor that met Cecil's eyes as he rode with the others into the caraded as those Colu fish; the very skins and e-poles were black with rancid salmon and filth Many of the ar scarcely to the knees The heads of many had been artificially flattened; their faces were brutal; their teeth worn to the gu sanded salhtly eyes showed the terrible prevalence of ophthal in the sun on platfors Half-starved horses whose raw and bleeding mouths showed the effect of the hair-rope bridles, and whose projecting ribs showed their principal nutri the lodges Cayote-like dogs and unclad children, shrill and iether for half-dried, half-decayed pieces of sal was the stench which is unique and unparalleled a the stenches of the earth,--the stench of an Indian camp at a Columbia fishery[6]

Perhaps ten of the petty inland tribes had assereat council at Wappatto Island All had heard ru the tribes to the south saying that the Great Spirit had sent him to warn the Indians to become better, and all were anxious to see him They pointed hiraceful presence and delicate build; they thronged around him, naked azed wonderingly

”It is he, the whitebeard” ”See the white hands” ”Stand back, the Great Spirit sent hier”

Now the horses were unpacked and the lodges pitched, under the eyes of the larger part of the enca with insatiable curiosity, and stole all that they could lay their hands on Especially did they hang on every motion of Cecil; and he sank very much in their estimation when they found that he helped his servant, the old Indian woh, he does squaork,” was the ungracious coe was up and Cecil lay weary and exhausted upon his er entered and told him that the Indians were all collected near the river bank and wished hiht from the Great Spirit

Worn as he was, Cecil arose and went It was in the interval between sunset and dark The sun still shone on the cliffs above the great canyon, but in the spaces below the shadoere deepening On the flat rocks near the bank of the river, and close by the falls of Tuathered to the nu, Indian fashi+on, on the ground, others standing upright, looking taller than huled with the debased tribes that , Cecil saw here and there warriors of a bolder and superior race,--Yakimas and Klickitats, clad in skins or wrapped in blankets woven of the wool of thethe Willae of common intercourse between the tribes, all of whom had different dialects The audience listened in silence while he told theoodness and corieved hi themselves, and how he, Cecil, had been sent to warn the familiarity with the Indians had i and speaking; his language had becoery, and his style of oratory had acquired a tinge of Indian gravity But the intense and vivid spirituality that had ever been the char in his words that for the her plane When he closed there was upon theue remorse, that dim desire to be better, that indefinable wistfulness, which his earnest, tender words never failed to arouse in his hearers

When he lifted his hands at the close of his ”talk,” and prayed that the Great Spirit ht take away froive them the new heart of peace and love, the silence was al roar of the falls and the sole of the h the deepening shadows to his lodge

There he flung himself on the couch of furs the old Indian wo ride of the day and the heavy draught his address had made on an overtaxed fras of the town of Wishras of the white man, had awakened a thousand land and in the cloisters of Magdalen ca for the refined and pleasant things that had filled his life rose strong and irrepressible within hihts were never entirely absent from his mind, but at ti hi for hours on his couch, he arose and went out into the open air

The stars were bright; thewalls rose dileaht; the soleht

Around him was the barbarian encaroup of warriors talking beside it He walked forth aes So of the sleepers; others were lighted up within, and he could hear the e fire a croere feasting, late as was the hour, and boasting of their exploits He stood in the shadow a ing to his feet, advancing a few paces fro a fierce speech to invisible foes Looking toward the land of the Shoshones, he denounced them with the utmost fury, dared them to face him, scorned the his tomahawk in their direction, amid the applause of his comrades

Cecil passed on and reached the outer lie bowlders, he alrisly ceremony He saw them, however, in time to escape observation and screen himself behind one of the rocks

One of the Indians held a rattlesnake pinned to the ground with a forked stick Another held out a piece of liver to the snake and was provoking hi with fury and rattling savagely, plunged his fangs into the liver Several Indians stood looking on, with arrows in their hands At length, when the nated with the virus, the snake was released and allowed to craay Then they all dipped the points of their arrows in the poisoned liver,[7] carefully uish it from those not poisoned None of the discovered

Why did they wish to go to the council with poisoned arrows?

Further on, aht and heard a loud hallooing He went cautiously toward it He found a large fire in an open space, and perhaps thirty savages, stripped and painted, dancing around it, brandishi+ng their weapons and chanting a kind of war-chant On every face, as the firelight fell on it, was mad ferocity and lust of war Near them lay the freshly killed body of a horse whose blood they had been drinking Drunk with frenzy, drunk with blood, they danced and whirled in that wild saturnalia till Cecil grew dizzy with the sight[8]

He e He heard the wolves howling on the hills, and a dark presentiment of evil crept over hi, but to war,” he murmured, as he threw himself on his couch ”God help me to be faithful, whatever comes! God help me to keep my life and e men may be drawn to him and made better, and my mission be fulfilled! I can never hope to see the face of white ain, but I can live and die faithful to the last”

So thinking, a sweet and restful peace caht how impossible it was for hilish exploring-shi+p lay at anchor at Yaquina Bay, only two days' ride distant; and on it were soone by, but who had long since thought him lost in the wilderness forever

[5] See Bonneville's Adventures, chapters xiii, and xlviii