Your fathers watched the shadows of Alsea mountain moving slowly up its western front, making huge pictures on its sides, and gazed without fear on the sun dropping under the sea, wondering how it found its way under the great ocean and high mountains, to come again with so much regularity; or perhaps they believed, as others do, that the Great Spirit sent a new “fire-ball” each day, and nightly quenched it in the sea. You now see the shadows climb the mountain, fitting emblem of the white man’s presence in your land, and read in the setting sun the history of your race. Better that you had never heard the
sweet sounds of civilized life than that you, with feet untrained, should follow its allurements to your destruction.
You, that once gave to the beautiful mountain streams smile for smile, are now haggard and worn, giving only grim presages of your doom.
Others of your race have avenged their ill-fortunes with the tomahawk, and, in compliance with their religion, have rejected offers of a better life than they knew. But you—you have yielded without war, and, like helpless orphans thrown on the cold world, have accepted the mites given grudgingly by your masters, who treat with contempt and ridicule your cherished faith, who misconstrue your peaceful lives into cowardice. They have fixed their eyes on your home. They will make Alsea river transform the forest on its banks into houses, towns, and cities. They will make the valley where you now follow the government plough, to yield rich harvests of grain, and they will convert the ocean beach into a fountain of golden treasure. A few years more, and the noise of machinery will wake you early from your slumbers. The roar of ocean’s breakers will mingle with the hum of busy life in which you may have no part. The white man’s eyes will dance with gladness at the sight of your mountains dismantled of their forests, and the glimmer of coming sails to bear away the lofty pines. Yours will weep at the sacrilege done to your hunting grounds; theirs will gaze on the wide Pacific, and see there the channels that will bring compensation to them for the spoils of your home. Yours will recognize it only as the resting-place for the bones of your people. The white man says,
“Your fate is fixed,—your doom is sealed.” Few hearts beat with sympathy for you; you are unknown and unnoticed. You must pass away, unless, indeed, the white race shall, from the full surfeit of vengeance upon you and yours, at last return to you a measure of justice.
He who dares appeal in your behalf is derided by his fellows. A proud, boastful people, who claim that human actions should be directed by high motives and pure principles, treat with contempt every effort made to save you from destruction. Strong may be the heart of the Indian Chief to resist the encroachments on his people’s rights, but stronger still the arm of a Government that boasts rebellion against oppression as its foundation stone.
CHAPTER VII.
PHIL SHERIDAN’S OLD HOME—WHAT A CABIN COST.
GRAND ROUND INDIAN AGENCY.