The Log School-House on the Columbia

THE SMOKE-TALK.

One day in September Mrs. Woods was at work in her cabin, and Gretchen was at school. Mrs. Woods was trying to sing. She had a hard, harsh voice always, and the tune was a battle-cry. The hymn on which she was exercising her limited gifts was not one of the happy tunes of Methodism, which early settlers on the Columbia loved to sing. It was a very censorious rhyme and took a very despondent view of the human heart:

She made the word "hypocrites" ring through the solitary log-cabin—she seemed to have the view that a large population of the world were of this class of people. She paused in her singing and looked out of the door.

"There's one honest woman alive," she remarked to herself. "Thank Heaven, I never yet feared the face of clay!"

A tall, dark form met her eye—a great shadow in the scintillant sunlight. It was an aged Indian, walking with a staff. He was coming toward the cabin.

"Umatilla!" she said. "What can he want of me?"

The old chief approached, and bowed and sat down on a log that answered for a door-step.

"I walk with a staff now," he said. "My bow has drifted away on the tide of years—it will never come back again. I am old."

"You have been a good man," said Mrs. Woods, yielding to an impulse of her better nature. She presently added, as though she had been too generous, "And there aren't many good Injuns—nor white folks either for that matter."

"I have come to have a smoke-talk with you," said the old chief, taking out his pipe and asking Mrs. Woods to light it. "Listen! I want to go home. When a child is weary, I take him by the hand and point him to the smoke of his wigwam. He goes home and sleeps. I am weary. The Great Spirit has taken me by the hand; he points to the smoke of the wigwam. There comes a time when all want to go home. I want to go home. Umatilla is going home. I have not spoken."

The smoke from his pipe curled over his white head in the pure, clear September air. He was eighty or more years of age. He had heard the traditions of Juan de Fuca, the Greek pilot, who left his name on the straits of the Puget Sea. He had heard of the coming of Vancouver in his boyhood, the English explorer who named the seas and mountains for his lieutenants and friends, Puget, Baker, Ranier, and Townsend. He had known the forest lords of the Hudson Bay Company, and of Astoria; had seen the sail of Gray as it entered the Columbia, and had heard the preaching of Jason Lee. The murder of Whitman had caused him real sorrow. Umatilla was a man of peace. He had loved to travel up and down the Columbia, and visit the great bluffs of the Puget Sea. He lived for a generation at peace with all the tribes, and now that he was old he was venerated by them all.

"You are a good old Injun," said Mrs. Woods, yielding to her better self again. "I don't say it about many people. I do think you have done your best—considering."

"I am not what I want to be," said Umatilla. "It is what we want to be that we shall be one day; don't you think so? The Great Spirit is going to make me what I want to be—he will make us all what we want to be. My desires are better than I—I will be my desires by and by. My staff is in my hand, and I am going home. The old warriors have gone home. They were thick as the flowers of the field, thick as the stars of the night. My boys are gone home—they were swift as the hawks in the air. Benjamin is left to the Umatillas. He is no butcher-bird; no forked tongue—he will remember the shade of his father. My heart is in his heart. I am going home. I have not spoken."

He puffed his pipe again, and watched an eagle skimming along on the great over-sea of September gold. The Indian language is always picturesque, and deals in symbols and figures of speech. It is picture-speaking. The Indians are all poets in their imaginations, like children. This habit of personification grows in the Indian mind with advancing years. Every old Indian speaks in poetic figures. Umatilla had not yet "spoken," as he said; he had been talking in figures, and merely approaching his subject.

There was a long pause. He then laid down his pipe. He was about to speak:

"Woman, open your ears. The Great Spirit lives in women, and old people, and little children. He loves the smoke of the wigwam, and the green fields of the flowers, and the blue gardens of stars. And he loves music—it is his voice, the whisper of the soul.

"He spoke in the pine-tops, on the lips of the seas, in the shell, in the reed and the war-drum. Then she came. He speaks through her. I want her to speak for me. My people are angry. There are butcher-birds among them. They hate you—they hate the cabin of the white man. The white men take away their room, overthrow their forests, kill their deer. There is danger in the air.

"The October moon will come. It will grow. It will turn into a sun on the border of the night. Then come Potlatch. My people ask for the Dance of the Evil One. I no consent—it means graves.

"Let me have her a moon—she play on the air. She play at the Potlatch for me. She stand by my side. The Great Spirit speak through her. Indians listen. They will think of little ones, they will think of departed ones, they will think of the hunt—they will see graves. Then the night will pass. Then the smoke will rise again from white man's cabin. Then I die in peace, and go home to the Great Spirit and rest. Will you let me have her? I have spoken."

Mrs. Woods comprehended the figurative speech. The old chief wished to take Gretchen to his wigwam for a month, and have her play the violin on the great night of the Potlatch. He hoped that the influence of the music would aid him in preventing the Dance of the Evil Spirits, and a massacre of the white settlers. What should she say?

"I will talk with Gretchen," she said. "You mean well. I can trust you. We will see."

He rose slowly, leaning on his staff, and emptied his pipe. It required a resolute will now to cause his withered limbs to move. But his steps became free after a little walking, and he moved slowly away. Poor old chief of the Cascades! It was something like another Sermon on the Mount that he had spoken, but he knew not how closely his heart had caught the spirit of the Divine Teacher.

When Gretchen came home from school, Mrs. Woods told her what had happened, and what the old chief had asked.

Mr. Woods had returned from the block-houses. He said: "Gretchen, go! Your Traumerei will save the colony. Go!"

Gretchen sat in silence for a moment. She then said: "I can trust Umatilla. I will go. I want to go. Something unseen is leading me—I feel it. I do not know the way, but I can trust my guide. I have only one desire, if I am young, and that is to do right. But is it right to leave you, mother?"

"Mother!" how sweet that word sounded to poor Mrs. Woods! She had never been a mother. Tears filled her eyes—she forced them back.

"Yes, Gretchen—go. I've always had to fight my way through the world, and I can continue to do so. I've had some things to harden my heart; but, no matter what you may do, Gretchen, I'll always be a mother to you. You'll always find the latch-string on the outside. You ain't the wust girl that ever was, if I did have a hand in bringing you up. Yes—go."

"Your heart is right now," said Gretchen; "and I want to speak to you about Benjamin. He told me a few days ago that he hated you, but that no one should ever harm you, because he loved the Master."

"He did, did he?" said Mrs. Woods, starting up. "Well, I hate him, and I'll never forgive him for tellin' you such a thing as that."

"But, mother, don't you love the Master, and won't you be friendly and forgiving to Benjamin, for his sake? I wish you would. It would give you power; I want you to do so."

"I'll think about it, Gretchen. I don't feel quite right about these things, and I'm goin' to have a good talk with Father Lee. The boy has some good in him."

"I wish you would tell him that."

"Why?"

"Sympathy makes one grow so."

"That's so, Gretchen. Only praise a dog for his one good quality, and it will make a good dog of him. I 'spect 'tis the same with folks. But my nature don't break up easy. I shall come out right some time. I tell you I'm goin' to have a talk with Father Lee. It is his preachin' that has made me what I am, and may be I'll be better by and by."

Mrs. Woods, with all her affected courage, had good reason to fear an Indian outbreak, and to use every influence to prevent it. The very mention of the Potlatch filled her with recent terror. She well knew the story of the destruction of Whitman and a part of his missionary colony.

That was a terrible event, and it was a scene like that that the new settlers feared, at the approaching Potlatch; and the thought of that dreadful day almost weakened the faith of Mr. Mann in the Indians.

We must tell you the old-time history of the tragedy which was now revived in the new settlement.

THE CONJURED MELONS.

THE BLACK EAGLE'S NEST.

In the log school-house, Lewis and Clarke's Expedition was used as a reading-book. Master Mann had adopted it because it was easy to obtain, and served as a sort of local geography and history.

In this book is an account of a great black eagle's nest, on the Falls of the Missouri; and the incident seemed intensely to interest the picturesque mind of Benjamin.

"Let us go see," said Benjamin, one day after this poetic part of Lewis and Clarke's narrative had been read.

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Mann.

"I carry canoe, and we go and find him!"

"What?"

"The black eagle's nest."

"Why?"

"I'll get a plume—wear it here. Please father. I love to please father."

There was to be a few weeks' vacation in a part of September and October, and Benjamin's suggestion led Mr. Mann to plan an excursion to the Falls of the Missouri at that time. The old chief would be glad to have Benjamin go with him and help hunt, and carry the canoe. They would follow the Salmon River out of the Columbia, to a point near the then called Jefferson River, and so pass the mountains, and launch themselves on the Missouri, whence the way would be easy to the Falls.

The dream of this expedition seemed to make Benjamin perfectly happy. He had already been over a part of this territory, with his father, on a visit to the friendly tribes.

The mid-autumn in the valleys of the Columbia and Missouri Rivers is serene, and yet kindles, with a sort of fiery splendor. The perfect days of America are here.

Master Mann and Benjamin started on their expedition with a few Indians, who were to see them to the Jefferson River and there leave them.

The Yankee schoolmaster had a prophetic soul, and he felt that he was treading the territory of future empires.

Launched on the Missouri, the thought of what the vast plains might become overwhelmed him at times, and he would lie silent in his boat, and pray and dream.

The soul of the Indian boy seemed as bright as the golden air of the cloudless days, during most of the time on the Salmon River, and while passing through the mountains. But he would sometimes start up suddenly, and a shade would settle on his face.

Master Mann noticed these sudden changes of mood, and he once said to him:

"What makes you turn sad, Benjamin?"

"Potlatch."

"But that is a dance."

"Hawks."

"I think not, Benjamin!"

"You do not know. They have a bitter heart. My father does not sleep. It is you that keeps him awake. He loves you; you love me and treat me well; he loves you, and want to treat you well—see. She make trouble. Indians meet at night—talk bitter. They own the land. They have rights. They threaten. Father no sleep. Sorry."

THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI.

The Falls of the Missouri are not only wonderful and beautiful, but they abound with grand traditions. Before we follow our young explorer to the place, let us give you, good reader, some views of this part of Montana as it was and as it now appears.

We recently looked out on the island that once lifted the great black eagle's nest over the plunging torrent of water—the nest famous, doubtless, among the Indians, long before the days of Lewis and Clarke.

We were shown, in the city of Great Falls, a mounted eagle, which, it was claimed, came from this nest amid the mists and rainbows. The fall near this island, in the surges, is now known as the Black Eagle's Fall.

This waterfall has not the beauty or the grandeur of the other cataracts—the Rainbow Falls and the Great Falls—a few miles distant. But it gathers the spell of poetic tradition about it, and strongly appeals to the sense of the artist and the poet. The romancer would choose it for his work, as the black eagles chose it for their home.

Near it is one of the most lovely fountains in the world, called the Giant Spring.

The spring pours out of the earth near the fall in a great natural fountain, emerald-green, clear as crystal, bordered with water-cresses, and mingles its waters with the clouded surges of the Missouri. If a person looks down into this fountain from a point near enough for him to touch his nose to the water, all the fairy-like scenes of the Silver Springs and the Waukulla Spring in Florida appear. The royal halls and chambers of Undine meet the view, with gardens of emeralds and gem-bearing ferns. It kindles one's fancy to gaze long into these crystal caverns, and a practical mind could hardly resist here the poetic sense of Fouqué that created Undine.

The Black Eagle Falls, with its great nest and marvelous fountains, was a favorite resort of the Blackfeet Indians and other Indian tribes. It is related in the old traditions that the Piegans, on one of their expeditions against the Crows, rested here, and became enchanted with the fountain:

The Piegans were filled with awe that the fountain rose and fell and gurgled, as if in spasms of pain. They sent for a native medicine-man.

"Why is the fountain troubled?" they asked.

"This," said the Indian prophet, "is the pure stream that flows through the earth to the sun. It asks for offerings. We cast the spoils of war into it, and it carries them away to the Sun's tepee, and the Sun is glad, and so shines for us all."

The Blackfeet worshiped the Sun. The Sun River, a few miles above this cataract, was a medicine or sacred river in the tribal days, and it was in this region of gleaming streams and thundering waterfalls that the once famous Sun-dances were held.

There was a barbarous splendor about these Sun-dances. The tribes gathered for the festival in the long, bright days of the year. They wore ornaments of crystal, quartz, and mica, such as would attract and reflect the rays of the sun. The dance was a glimmering maze of reflections. As it reached its height, gleaming arrows were shot into the air. Above them, in their poetic vision, sat the Sun in his tepee. They held that the thunder was caused by the wings of a great invisible bird. Often, at the close of the Sun-dance on the sultry days, the clouds would gather, and the thunder-bird would shake its wings above them and cool the air. Delightful times were these old festivals on the Missouri. At evening, in the long Northern twilights, they would recount the traditions of the past. Some of the old tales of the Blackfeet, Piegans, and Chippewas, are as charming as those of La Fontaine.

The Rainbow Falls are far more beautiful than those of the Black Eagle. They are some six miles from the new city of Great Falls. A long stairway of two hundred or more steps conducts the tourist into their very mist-land of rocks and surges. Here one is almost deafened by the thunder. When the sun is shining, the air is glorious with rainbows, that haunt the mists like a poet's dream.

The Great Fall, some twelve miles from the city, plunges nearly a hundred feet, and has a roar like that of Niagara. It is one of the greatest water-powers of the continent.

The city of Great Falls is leaping into life in a legend-haunted region. Its horizon is a borderland of wonders. Afar off gleam the Highwood Mountains, with roofs of glistening snow. Buttes (hills with level tops) rise like giant pyramids here and there, and one may almost imagine that he is in the land of the Pharaohs. Bench lands diversify the wide plains. Ranches and great flocks are everywhere; armies of cattle; creeks shaded with cottonwood and box-elder; birds and flowers; and golden eagles gleaming in the air. The Rockies wall the northern plains.

The Belt Mountain region near Great Falls is a wonder-land, like the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, or the Goblin Land near the Yellowstone. It would seem that it ought to be made a State park. Here one fancies one's self to be amid the ruins of castles, cathedrals, and fortresses, so fantastic are the shapes of the broken mountain-walls. It is a land of birds and flowers; of rock roses, wild sunflowers, golden-rods; of wax-wings, orioles, sparrows, and eagles. Here roams the stealthy mountain lion.

This region, too, has its delightful legends.

One of these legends will awaken great curiosity as the State of Montana grows, and she seems destined to become the monarch of States.

In 1742 Sieur de la Verendrye, the French Governor of Quebec, sent out an expedition, under his sons and brother, that discovered the Rocky Mountains, which were named La Montana Roches. On the 12th of May, 1744, this expedition visited the upper Missouri, and planted on an eminence, probably in the near region of Great Falls, a leaden plate bearing the arms of France, and raised a monument above it, which the Verendryes named Beauharnois. It is stated that this monument was erected on a river-bluff, between bowlders, and that it was twenty feet in diameter.

There are people who claim to have discovered this monument, but they fail to produce the leaden plate with the arms of France that the explorers buried. The search for this hidden plate will one day begin, and the subject is likely greatly to interest historical societies in Montana, and to become a very poetic mystery.

Into this wonder-land of waterfalls, sun-dances, and legends, our young explorers came, now paddling in their airy canoe, now bearing the canoe on their backs around the falls.

Mr. Mann's white face was a surprise to the native tribes that they met on the way, but Benjamin's brightness and friendly ways made the journey of both easy.

They came to the Black Eagle Falls. The great nest still was there. It was as is described in the book of the early explorers.

It hung over the mists of the rapids, and, strangely enough, there were revealed three black plumes in the nest.

Benjamin beheld these plumes with a kind of religious awe. His eyes dilated as he pointed to them.

"They are for me," he said. "One for me, one for father, and one for you. I'll get them all."

He glided along a shelf of rocks toward the little island, and mounted the tree. The black eagles were yet there, though their nest was empty. He passed up the tree under the wings of the eagles, and came down with a handful of feathers.

"The book was true," said he.

They went to Medicine River, now called the Sun River, and there witnessed a Sun-dance.

It was a scene to tempt a brilliant painter or poet. The chiefs and warriors were arrayed in crystals, quartz, and every bright product of the earth and river that would reflect the glory of the sun.

They returned from where the city of Great Falls is now, back to the mountains and to the tributaries of the Columbia. Benjamin appeared before his father, on his return, with a crest of black eagle's plumes, and this crest the young Indian knight wore until the day of his death.

"I shall wear mine always," he said to his father. "You wear yours."

"Yes," said his father, with a face that showed a full heart.

"Both together," said Benjamin.

"Both together," replied Umatilla.

"Always?" said Benjamin.

"Always," answered the chief.

The Indians remembered these words. Somehow there seemed to be something prophetic in them. Wherever, from that day, Umatilla or Young Eagle's Plume was seen, each wore the black feather from the great eagle's nest, amid the mists and rainbows or mist-bows of the Falls of the Missouri.

It was a touch of poetic sentiment, but these Indian races of the Columbia lived in a region that was itself a school of poetry. The Potlatch was sentiment, and the Sun-dance was an actual poem. Many of the tents of skin abounded with picture-writing, and the stories told by the night fires were full of picturesque figures.

Gretchen's poetic eye found subjects for verse in all these things, and she often wrote down her impressions, and read them to practical Mrs. Woods, who affected to ignore such things, but yet seemed secretly delighted with them.

"You have talons" she used to say, "but they don't amount to anything, anyway. Nevertheless—"

The expedition to the Falls of the Missouri, and the new and strange sights which Benjamin saw there, led him to desire to make other trips with the schoolmaster, to whom he became daily more and more attached. In fact, the Indian boy came to follow his teacher about with a kind of jealous watchfulness. He seemed to be perfectly happy when the latter was with him, and, when absent from him, he talked of him more than of any other person.

In the middle of autumn the sky was often clouded with wild geese, which in V-shaped flocks passed in long processions overhead, honking in a trumpet-like manner. Sometimes a flock of snowy geese would be seen, and the laughing goose would be heard.

"Where do they go?" said Mr. Mann one day to Benjamin.

The boy told him of a wonderful island, now known as Whidby, where there were great gatherings of flocks of geese in the fall.

"Let's go see," said he. "The geese are thicker than the bushes there—the ponds are all alive with them there—honk—honk—honk! Let's go see."

"When the school is over for the fall we will go," said Mr. Mann.

The Indian boy's face beamed with delight. He dreamed of another expedition like that to the wonderful Falls. He would there show the master the great water cities of the wild geese, the emigrants of the air. The thought of it made him dance with delight.

Often at nightfall great flocks of the Canada geese would follow the Columbia towards the sea. Benjamin would watch them with a heart full of anticipation. It made him supremely happy to show the master the wonderful things of the beautiful country, and the one ambition of his heart now was to go to the lakes of the honks.

GRETCHEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF OF THE CASCADES.

"Go to the chief's lodge, Gretchen, and stay until the Potlatch, and I will come to visit you." Such were the words of Mrs. Woods, as her final decision, after long considering the chief's request.

The forest lodge of the old chief of the Cascades was picturesque without and within. Outwardly, it was a mere tent of skins and curious pictography, under the shadows of gigantic trees, looking down on the glistening waters of the Columbia; inwardly, it was a museum of relics of the supposed era of the giant-killers, and of the deep regions of the tooth and claw; of Potlatches, masques and charms of medas and wabenoes; of curious pipes; of odd, curious feathers, and beautiful shells and feather-work and pearls. But, though all things here were rude and primitive, the old chief had a strong poetic sense, and the place and the arrangement of everything in it were very picturesque in its effect, and would have delighted an artist. On a hill near were grave-posts, and a sacred grove, in which were bark coffins in trees. Near by was an open field where the Indian hunters were accustomed to gather their peltries, and where visiting bands of Indians came to be hospitably entertained, and feasts were given à la mode de sauvage. From the plateau of the royal lodge ran long forest trails and pathways of blazed trees; and near the opening to the tent rose two poles, to indicate the royal rank of the occupant. These were ornamented with ideographic devices of a historical and religious character.

The family of Umatilla consisted of his squaw, an old woman partly demented, and Benjamin, who was now much of the time away with the schoolmaster.

The old chief was very kind to his unfortunate wife, and treated her like a child or a doll. Benjamin was about to take as his bride an Indian girl whom the English called Fair Cloud, and she was a frequent visitor at the tent.

To this patriarchal family Gretchen came one day, bringing her violin. Fair Cloud was there to receive her, and the crazy old squaw seemed to be made happy by the sight of her white face, and she did all that she could in her simple way to make her welcome. She gave her ornaments of shells, and pointed out to her a wabeno-tree, in whose tops spirits were supposed to whisper, and around which Indian visitors sometimes danced in the summer evenings.

The Indian maid was eager to hear the violin, but the old chief said: "It is the voice of the Merciful; let it be still—the god should not speak much."

He seemed to wish to reserve the influence of the instrument for the Potlatch, to make it an object of wonder and veneration for a time, that its voice might be more magical when it should be heard.

There was a kind of tambourine, ornamented with fan-like feathers, in the lodge. Fair Cloud used to play upon it, or rather shake it in a rhythmic way. There was also a war-drum in the lodge, and an Indian called Blackhoof used to beat it, and say:

The tribes of the Oregon at this time were numerous but small. They consisted chiefly of the Chinooks, Vancouvers, the Walla Wallas, the Yacomars, the Spokans, the Cayuses, the Nez-Percés, the Skagits, the Cascades, and many tribes that were scarcely more than families. They were for the most part friendly with each other, and they found in the Oregon or Columbia a common fishing-ground, and a water-way to all their territories. They lived easily. The woods were full of game, and the river of salmon, and berries loaded the plateaus. Red whortleberries filled the woodland pastures and blackberries the margins of the woods.

The climate was an almost continuous April; there was a cloudy season in winter with rainy nights, but the Japanese winds ate up the snows, and the ponies grazed out of doors in mid-winter, and spring came in February. It was almost an ideal existence that these old tribes or families of Indians lived.