“Yes, that’s what I want to know,” chimed in Blaikie and Lieutenant Gardiner.
“I have heard tell of him, though I never met him,” replied Glyndon. “He’s a great gun among the Injuns hereabouts. He’s a kind of red Brigham Young—calls himself a Prophet, and has started a new religion among the red-skins.”
“What is this religion like?”
“That’s more than I can say; though, from what I’ve heard, there appears to be a deal of trickery about it. He’s a great Medicine-man, and can raise the Old Boy, generally. He has his familiar fiends, and makes ’em appear to his followers whenever he likes. He works miracles, and all that sort of thing. And when he predicts the death of any one, they just go, sure pop, at the time mentioned.”
“A singular man, this,” remarked Lieutenant Gardiner, thoughtfully.
“He’s more smart than sing’lar; he just keeps these benighted heathen right under his thumb. They don’t dare to say their souls are their own when he’s around.”
“Where did he come from?”
“He is said to be a Snake Indian of the Walla Walla tribe. He started a village on the river, above here, at a place they call Priest’s Rapids, and his followers increased like magic. He is said, by the Nez Perces, to have a couple of thousand of believers, renegades from all the other tribes in this region, and he can put three hundred fighting men in the field, and then the Cayuses, Yakimas and Umatillas all stand in dread of him, and wouldn’t dare to do any thing else but join him in a war against the whites if he called on ’em. I believe he’s got a reg’lar stronghold at Priest’s Rapids.”
“Is it named so on his account?” asked Robbins.
Glyndon shook his head dubiously.