All the Indian visitors who came to the place examined the violin cautiously, and the Indian hunters seemed to regard Gretchen with suspicion. When any asked her to play for them, the old chief would answer: "Not now, but at the Potlatch—then it speak and you will hear; you will hear what it says."
But, of all the people that came to the lodge, no one could have been more curious than Mrs. Woods. She had been living in terror of the threatened events of the October feast, and yet she wished to make the Indians believe that she was indifferent to their ill-will, and that she possessed some hidden power that gave her security.
She approached the lodge slowly on the occasion of her visit, picking red whortleberries by the way. Benjamin watched her nervous motions, and felt that they implied a want of respect, and he grew silent and looked stoical. Gretchen went out to meet her, and brought her to the old chief.
Afar loomed Mount Hood.
It was a beautiful day, one of those long dreams of golden splendor that glorify the banks of the Oregon. Eccentric Victor Trevette and his Indian wife were at the lodge, and the company were joined by the Rev. Jason Lee, who had come up the Columbia in the interests of the mission in the Willamette Valley. Seattle[B] was there, from the Willamette, then young, and not yet the titular chief of Governor Stevens.[C] It was a company of diverse spirits—Trevette, the reputed gambler, but the true friend of the Indian races; Lee, who had beheld Oregon in his early visions, and now saw the future of the mountain-domed country in dreams; sharp-tongued but industrious and warm-hearted Mrs. Woods; the musical German girl, with memories of the Rhine; and the Indian chief and his family. The Columbia rolled below the tall palisades, the opposite bank was full of cool shadows of overhanging rocks, sunless retreats, and dripping cascades of glacier-water. Afar loomed Mount Hood in grandeur unsurpassed, if we except Tacoma, inswathed in forests and covered with crystal crowns. The Chinook winds were blowing coolly, coming from the Kuro Siwo, or placid ocean-river from Japan; odoriferous, as though spice-laden from the flowery isles of the Yellow Sea. Warm in winter, cool in summer, like the Gulf winds of Floridian shores, the good angel of the Puget Sea territories is the Chinook wind from far Asia, a mysterious country, of which the old chief and his family knew no more than of the blessed isles.
"It is a day of the Great Manitou," said the old chief. "He lights the sun, and lifts his wings for a shadow, and breathes on the earth. He fills our hearts with peace. I am glad."
"I only wish my people in the East knew how wonderful this country is," said Jason Lee. "I am blamed and distrusted because I leave my mission work to see what great resources here await mankind. I do it only for the good of others—something within me impels me to do it, yet they say I neglect my work to become a political pioneer. As well might they censure Joshua."
"As a missionary," said the old hunter, "you would teach the Indians truth; as a pioneer, you would bring colonies here to rob them of their lands and rights. I can respect the missionary, but not the pioneer. See the happiness of all these tribal families. Benjamin is right—Mrs. Woods has no business here."