"Yes, Umatilla, I believe an Indian's word—you may trust mine. I will be to your boy what you may have him become. The Indian is true to his friends. I believe in you. I will be true."
The old chief drew his blanket round him proudly.
"Boston tilicum," said he, "if ever the day of trouble comes, I will protect you and the log school-house. You may trust my word. Indian speak true."
The tall schoolmaster bowed.
"Nika atte cepa" (I like you much), said the chief. "Potlatch shall no harm you. Klahyam klahhye—am!" (Good-by).
Mrs. Woods hurried homeward and tried to calm her excited mind by singing a very heroic old hymn:
"Come on, my partners in distress,
My comrades in the wilderness,
Who still your bodies feel."
The blue skies gleamed before her, and overhead wheeled a golden eagle. To her it was an emblem, a good omen, and her spirit became quiet and happy amid all the contradictions of her rough life. She sat down at last on the log before her door, with the somewhat strange remark:
"I do hate Injuns; nevertheless—"
Mrs. Woods was accustomed to correct the wrong tendencies of her heart and tongue by this word "nevertheless," which she used as an incomplete sentence. This "nevertheless" seemed to express her better self; to correct the rude tendencies of her nature. Had she been educated in her early days, this tendency to self-correction would have made her an ideal woman, but she owed nearly all her intellectual training to the sermons of the Rev. Jason Lee, which she had heard in some obscure corner of a room, or in Methodist chapel, or under the trees.