or why, so strongly did the overmastering personality of Multnomah
penetrate and sway their lesser natures. He particularly dwelt on the
idea that they were all knit together now and were as one race. Yet
through the smooth words ran a latent threat, a covert warning of the
result of any revolt against his authority based on what plotting
dreamers might say of the fall of the Bridge,--a half-expressed
menace, like the gleam of a sword half drawn from the scabbard. And he
closed by announcing that ere another spring the young men of all the
tribes would go on the war-path against the Shoshones and come back
loaded with spoil. And so, kindling the hatred of the chiefs against
the common enemy, Multnomah closed the great council.

In a little while the camp was all astir with preparation for
departure. Lodges were being taken down, the mats that covered them
rolled up and packed on the backs of horses; all was bustle and
tumult. Troop after troop crossed the river and took the trail toward
the upper Columbia.

But when the bands passed from under the personal influence of
Multnomah, they talked of the ominous things that had just happened;
they said to each other that the Great Spirit had forsaken the
Willamettes, and that when they came into the valley again it would be
to plunder and to slay. Multnomah had stayed the tide but for a
moment. The fall of the ancient _tomanowos_ of the Willamettes had a
tremendous significance to the restless tributaries, and already the
confederacy of the Wauna was crumbling like a rope of sand. Those
tribes would meet no more in peace on the island of council.

CHAPTER III.

AT THE CASCADES.

Wails on the wind, fades out the sunset quite,
And in my heart and on the earth is night.

PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.

The main body of Snoqualmie's followers crossed to the north bank of
the Columbia and took the trail leading up the river toward the inland
prairies. But Snoqualmie and Wallulah went by canoe as far as the now
ruined Bridge of the Gods. There were three canoes in their train.
Snoqualmie and Wallulah occupied the first; the other two were laden
with the rich things that had once made her lodge so beautiful. It
stood all bare and deserted now, the splendor stripped from its rough
bark walls even as love and hope had been reft from the heart of its
mistress. Tapestries, divans, carpets, mirrors, were heaped in the
c