result of years of over-work upon a delicate
frame. With this feeling of physical weakness came always the fear
that his strength might give way ere his work was done. Nor was this
all. In these times of depression, the longing to see again the faces
of his friends, to have again the sweet graceful things of the life
that was forever closed to him, rushed over him in a bitter flood.

The trail led him to the bank of the Columbia, some distance below the
encampment. He looked out over the blue river sweeping majestically
on, the white snow-peaks, the canyons deep in the shadows of
afternoon, the dense forest beyond the river extending away to the
unknown and silent North as far as his eyes could reach.

"It is wonderful, wonderful!" he thought. "But I would give it all to
look upon one white face."

So musing, he passed on down the bank of the river. He was now perhaps
two miles from the camp and seemingly in complete solitude. After a
little the path turned away from the beach and led toward the
interior. As he entered the woodland he came upon several Indian
sentinels who lay, bow in hand, beside the path. They sprang up, as if
to intercept his passage; but seeing that it was the white _shaman_
whom Multnomah had honored, and who had sat at the council with the
great sachems, they let him go on. Cecil indistinctly remembered
having heard from some of the Indians that this part of the island was
strictly guarded; he had forgotten why. So absorbed was he in his
gloomy reflections that he did not stop to question the sentinels, but
went on, not thinking that he might be treading on forbidden ground.
By and by the path emerged from the wood upon a little prairie; the
cottonwoods shut out the Indians from him, and he was again alone. The
sunshine lay warm and golden on the little meadow, and he strolled
forward mechanically, thinking how like it was to some of the sylvan
lawns of his own New England forests. Again the shade of trees fell
over the path. He looked up, his mind full of New England memories,
and saw something that made his heart stand still. For there, not far
from him, stood a girl clad in soft flowing drapery, the dress of a
white woman. In Massachusetts a woman's dress would have been the last
thing Cecil would have noticed. Now, so long accustomed to the Indian
squaws' rough garments of skin or plaited bark, the sight of that
graceful woven cloth sent through him an indescribable thrill.

He went on, h