“But our hearts burned within us and we replied, ‘Our hunting-grounds and our food you have taken; will you have our lives also? Go back and tell your chief that if we must fight, we will fight him and not the Bannocks.’ Then the Willamettes came upon us and we fought them, for their tyranny was so heavy that we could not breathe under it and death had become better than life. But they were the stronger, and when did the heart of a Willamette feel pity? To-day I only am left, to say these words for my race.
“Who made the Willamettes masters over us? The Great Spirit gave us freedom, and none may take it away. Was it not well to fight? Yes; free my hands and give me back my people from the cairns and the death-huts, and we will fight again! I go to my death, but the words I have spoken will live. The hearts of those listening here will treasure them up; they will be told around the lodge-fires and repeated in the war-dance. The words I speak will go out among the tribes, and no man can destroy them. Yes, they go out words, but they will come back arrows and war in the day of vengeance when the tribes shall rise against the oppressor.
“I have spoken, my words are done.”
He stood erect and motionless. The wrath and disdain passed from his features, and stoicism settled over them like a mask of stone. Multnomah’s cold regard had not faltered a moment under the chief’s invective. No denunciation could shake that iron self-control.
The rebellious chiefs interchanged meaning glances; the throng of malcontents outside the grove pressed closer upon the ring of Willamette warriors, who were still standing or squatting idly around it. More than one weapon could be seen among them in defiance of the war-chief’s prohibition; and the presage of a terrible storm darkened on those grim, wild faces. The more peaceably disposed bands began to draw themselves apart. An ominous silence crept through the crowd as they felt the crisis approaching.
But Multnomah saw nothing, and the circle of Willamette warriors were stolidly indifferent.
“Can they not see that the tribes are on the verge of revolt?” thought Cecil, anxiously, fearing a bloody massacre.
“You have heard the words of the rebel. What have you to say? Let the white man speak first, as he was the last to join us.”
Cecil rose and pictured in the common Willamette tongue, with which he had familiarized himself during his long stay with the Cayuses, the terrible results of disunion, the desolating consequences of war,—tribe clashing against tribe and their common enemies trampling on them all. Even those who were on the verge of insurrection listened reverently to the “white wizard,” who had drawn wisdom from the Great Spirit; but it did not shake their purpose. Their own dreamers had talked with the Great Spirit too, in trance and vision, and had promised them victory over the Willamettes.