CECIL AND THE WAR-CHIEF.
Children of the sun, with whom revenge is virtue.
YOUNG.
On the next day came the races, the great diversion of the Indians.
Each tribe ran only one horse,--the best it had. There were thirty
tribes or bands, each with its choicest racer on the track. The Puget
Sound and lower Columbia Indians, being destitute of horses, were not
represented. There had been races every day on a small scale, but they
were only private trials of speed, while to-day was the great day of
racing for all the tribes, the day when the head chiefs ran their
horses.
The competition was close, but Snoqualmie the Cayuse won the day. He
rode the fine black horse he had taken from the Bannock he had
tortured to death. Multnomah and the chiefs were present, and the
victory was won under the eyes of all the tribes. The haughty,
insolent Cayuse felt that he had gained a splendid success. Only, as
in the elation of victory his glance swept over the crowd, he met the
sad, unapplauding gaze of Cecil, and it made his ever burning
resentment grow hotter still.
"I hate that man," he thought. "I tried to thrust him down into
slavery, and Multnomah made him a chief. My heart tells me that he is
an enemy. I hate him. I will kill him."
"Poor Wallulah!" Cecil was thinking. "What a terrible future is before
her as the wife of that inhuman torturer of men!"
And his sympathies went out to the lonely girl, the golden thread of
whose life was to be interwoven with the bloodstained warp and woof of
Snoqualmie's. But he tried hard not to think of her; he strove
resolutely that day to absorb himself in his work, and the effort was
not unsuccessful.
After the races were over, a solemn council was held in the grove and
some important questions discussed and decided. Cecil took part,
endeavoring in a quiet way to set before the chiefs a higher ideal of
justice and mercy than their own. He was heard with grave attention,
and saw that more than one chief seemed impressed by his words. Only
Snoqualmie was sullen and inattentive, and Mishlah the Cougar was
watchful and suspicious.
After the council was over Cecil went to his lodge. On the way he
found the young Willamette runner sitting on a log by the path,
looking even more woebegone than he had the day before. Cecil stopped
to inquire how he was.
"_Cultus_ [bad]," was grunted in response.
"Did you see the races?"
"Races bad. What do I care?"
"I hope you will be better soon."
"Yes, better or worse by and by. What do I care?"
"Can I do anything for you?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"Go."
And he dropped his hand upon his knees, doubled himself together, and
refused to say another word. As Cecil turned to go he found Multnomah
standing close by, watching him.
"Come," said the stern despot, briefly. "I want to talk with you."
He led the way back through the noisy encampment to the now deserted
grove of council. Everything there was quiet and solitary; the thick
circle of trees hid them from the camp, though its various sounds
floated faintly to them. They were quite alone. Multnomah seated
himself on the stone covered with furs, that was his place in the
council. Cecil remained standing before him, wondering what was on his
mind. Was the war-chief aware of his interview with Wallulah? If so,
what then? Multnomah fixed on him the gaze which few men met without
shrinking.
"Tell me," he said, while it seemed to Cecil as if that eagle glance
read every secret of his innermost heart, "tell me where your land is,
and why you left it, and the reason for your coming among us. Keep no
thought covered, for Multnomah will see it if you do."
Cecil's eye kindled, his cheek flushed. Wallulah was forgotten; his
mission, and his mission only, was remembered. He stood before one who
held over the many tribes of the Wauna the authority of a prince: if
_he_ could but be won for Christ, what vast results might follow!
He told it all,--the story of his home and his work, his call of God
to go to the Indians, his long wanderings, the message he had to
deliver, how it had been received by some and rejected by many; now
he was here, a messenger sent by the Great Spirit to tell the tribes
of the Wauna the true way of life. He told it all, and never had he
been so eloquent. It was a striking contrast, the grim Indian sitting
there leaning on his bow, his sharp, treacherous gaze bent like a bird
of prey on the delicately moulded man pleading before him.
He listened till Cecil began to talk of love and forgiveness as duties
enjoined by the Great Spirit. Then he spoke abruptly.
"When you stood up in the council the day the bad chief was tried, and
told of the weakness and the wars that would come if the confederacy
was broken up, you talked wisely and like a great chief and warrior;
now you talk like a woman. Love! forgiveness!" He repeated the words,
looking at Cecil with a kind of wondering scorn, as if he could not
comprehend such weakness in one who looked like a brave man. "War and
hate are the life of the Indian. They are the strength of his heart.
Take them away, and you drain the blood from his veins; you break his
spirit; he becomes a squaw."
"But my people love and forgive, yet they are not squaws. They are
brave and hardy in battle; their towns are great; their country is
like a garden."
And he told Multnomah of the laws, the towns, the schools, the settled
habits and industry of New England. The chief listened with growing
impatience. At length he threw his arm up with an indescribable
gesture of freedom, like a man rejecting a fetter.
"How can they breathe, shut in, bound down like that? How can they
live, so tied and burdened?"
"Is not that better than tribe forever warring against tribe? Is it
not better to live like men than to lurk in dens and feed on roots
like beasts? Yet we will fight, too; the white man does not love war,
but he will go to battle when his cause is just and war must be."
"So will the deer and the cayote fight when they can flee no longer.
The Indian loves battle. He loves to seek out his enemy, to grapple
with him, and to tread him down. That is a man's life!"
There was a wild grandeur in the chief's tone. All the tameless spirit
of his race seemed to speak through him, the spirit that has met
defeat and extermination rather than bow its neck to the yoke of
civilization. Cecil realized that on the iron fibre of the war-chief's
nature his pleading made no impression whatever, and his heart sank
within him.
Again he tried to speak of the ways of peace, but the chief checked
him impatiently.
"That is talk for squaws and old men. Multnomah does not understand
it. Talk like a man, if you wish him to listen. Multnomah does not
forgive; Multnomah wants no peace with his enemies. If they are weak
he tramples on them and makes them slaves; if they are strong he
fights them. When the Shoshones take from Multnomah, he takes from
them; if they give him war he gives them war; if they torture one
Willamette at the stake, Multnomah stretches two Shoshones upon
red-hot stones. Multnomah gives hate for hate and war for war. This is
the law the Great Spirit has given the Indian. What law he has given
the white man, Multnomah knows not nor cares!"
Baffled in his attempt, Cecil resorted to another line of persuasion.
He set before Multnomah the arts, the intelligence, the splendor of
the white race.
"The Indian has his laws and customs, and that is well; but why not
council with the white people, even as chiefs council together? Send
an embassy to ask that wise white men be sent you, so that you may
learn of their arts and laws; and what seems wise and good you can
accept, what seems not so can be set aside. I know the ways that lead
back to the land of the white man; I myself would lead the embassy."
It was a noble conception,--that of making a treaty between this
magnificent Indian confederacy and New England for the purpose of
introducing civilization and religion; and for a moment he lost sight
of the insurmountable obstacles in the way.
"No," replied the chief, "neither alone nor as leader of a peace party
will your feet ever tread again the path that leads back to the land
of the white man. We want not upon our shoulders the burden of his
arts and laws. We want not his teachers to tell us how to be women. If
the white man wants us, let him find his way over the desert and
through the mountains, and we will grapple with him and see which is
the strongest."
So saying, the war-chief rose and left him.
"He says that I shall never be allowed to go back," thought Cecil,
with a bitter consciousness of defeat. "Then my mission ends here in
the land of the Bridge, even as I have so often dreamed that it would.
So be it; I shall work the harder now that I see the end approaching.
I shall gather the chiefs in my own lodge this evening and preach to
them."
While he was forming his resolution, there came the recollection that
Wallulah would look for him, would be expecting him to come to her.
"I cannot," he thought, though he yearned to go to her. "I cannot go;
I must be faithful to my mission."
Many chiefs came that night to his lodge; among them, to his surprise,
Tohomish the seer. Long and animated was Cecil's talk; beautiful and
full of spiritual fervor were the words in which he pointed them to a
better life. Tohomish was impassive, listening in his usual brooding
way. The others seemed interested; but when he was done they all rose
up and went away without a word,--all except the Shoshone renegade who
had helped him bury the dead Bannock. He came to Cecil before leaving
the lodge.
"Sometime," he said, "when it will be easier for me to be good than it
is now, I will try to live the life you talked about to-night."
Then he turned and went out before Cecil could reply.
"There is one at least seeking to get nearer God," thought Cecil,
joyfully. After awhile his enthusiasm faded away, and he remembered
how anxiously Wallulah must have waited for him, and how bitterly she
must have been disappointed. Her face, pale and stained with tears,
rose plainly before him. A deep remorse filled his heart.
"Poor child! I am the first white person she has seen since her mother
died; no wonder she longs for my presence! I must go to her to-morrow.
After all, there is no danger of my caring for her. To me my work is
all in all."