Part 13 (1/2)
The bank was black with people crowding out to see the latest arrivals It was a thronging multitude of dusky faces and diverse costumes The Nootka with his tattooed face was there, clad in his woollen blanket, his gigantic for aside the short Chinook of the lower Colu with grease, his slit nose and ears loaded with _hiagua_ shells Choppunish woarments of buckskin carefully whitened with clay, looked with scorn on the women of the Cowlitz and Clatsop tribes, whose only dress was a fringe of cedar bark hanging froet Sound, attired in a scanty patch-work of rabbit and woodrat skin, stood beside the lordly Yaki them all, conscious of his supremacy, azed wonderingly at Cecil, ”the whitebeard,” the ” ic,”--for rumors of Cecil and his h accustoe of all Flat heads and round heads; faces scarred, tattooed, and painted; faces as wild as beasts'; faces proud and haughty, degraded and debased; hair cut close to the head, tangled, ed with filth, carefully smoothed and braided,--every phase of barbarism in its lance as he looked around hioria, soues, the confusion of dialects, co crowd they found their way to the place where their lodges were to be pitched
On the in,--the council that to the passions of that ht be as the torch to dry brushwood On the morrow Multnomah would try and would condemn to death a rebel chief in the presence of the very ones ere in secret league with hi sun would see the Willamette power supreme and undisputed, or the confederacy would be broken forever in the death-grapple of the tribes
[9] Lewis and Clark See also Irving's ”Astoria”
CHAPTER IV
AN INDIAN TRIAL
Like fla heart
DANTE ROSSETTI
Wappatto Island had seen s of the tribes, but never before had it seen so large an assereat cottonwoods of the council-grove waved over an audience of sache Indian could not remember
No weapons were to be seen, for Multnoes But the dissatisfied Indians had come eapons hidden under their robes of deer or wolf skin, which no one should have known better than Multnoainst surprise? Evidently not A large body of Willaed carelessly around the grove, with not a weapon visible aed the vast and e of doubtful allies; and back of them, on the outskirts of the croere the faithful Cayuses, unarmed like the Willamettes Had Multnomah's wonderful astuteness failed him nohen it was never needed more?
He was on the council-seat, a stone covered with furs; the Willa him; and mats were spread for the chiefs of the tributaries On a bearskin before the stern war-chief lay a peace-pipe and a tons and synificance
One by one the chiefs entered the circle and took their seats on the mats provided for them Those ere friendly to Multnomah first laid presents before hi hiift or salutation Multnolect
The chief of a Klamath tribe offered hied quiver, full of arrows; another, a long and ift before Multnomah and took his seat in silence
The chief of the Chopponish presented hi to his tribe Multnomah accepted it, and a slave led it away Then ca with hieance was at hand
”Behold the white man from the land where the sun rises, the white _shaman_ of whom all the tribes have heard He is thine Let him be the white slave of Multnomah All the chiefs have slaves, but ill have a white slave like Multno before hirew pale to the lips His heart sank within him; then the resolute purpose that never failed him in tiaze with dignity The war-chief bent on hilance which read er has been a chief a his own people,” he said to Cecil,a question
”I have often spoken to s to hear the word of the Great Spirit”
Again the keen, inscrutable gaze of the great chief seerave stranger e races, of in so his true ree; and the royalty in his nature instinctively recognized the royalty in Cecil's
”The white guest who couest; the chief should still be chief in any land White stranger, Multno the chiefs”
Cecil took his place a the that he ould be influential ae of fortune He felt, however, not only the joy of personal deliverance, but ht that he had now a voice in the deliberations of the chiefs; it was a grand door opened for Indian evangelization As for Snoqualranite One would have said that Cecil's victory was to hiuise of indifference his anger burned fierce and deadly,--not against Multnoainst Cecil
The last chief had taken his place in the council There was a long, ceremonious pause Then Multnomah arose He looked over the council, upon the stern faces of the Willamettes and the loyal tributaries, upon the sullen faces of thehe looked, and felt as one feels who stands on the brink of a volcano; yet his strong voice never rang stronger, the grand old chief never looked ht Cecil The chief spoke in the coe, at that time the medium of intercourse between the tribes as the Chinook is now The royal tongue was not used in a ives you welcoesture of welcoesture, as of one spreading a robe ”To the warriors Multnoreen for your horses; behold the wood, the water, the game; they are yours' To the chiefs he says, 'The e and the e not as the winters go by, and your welcome is the sary and had spoken bitter things against the Willaed for the confederacy to be broken and the old days to coainst tribe and the Shoshones and Spokanes trampled upon you all But Multnomah trusted his allies; for had they not sone with him on the war-trail? So he stopped his ears and would not listen, but let those ruo past him like thistle-down upon the wind