h the work was done. The
wail ceased; the gathering broke up, and the sachems and their bands
rode away, Snoqualmie and his troop departing with them.

Only the roar of the cascades broke the silence, as night fell on the
wild forest and the lonely river. The pine-tree beside the trail
swayed its branches in the wind with a low soft murmur, as if lulling
the sorrow-worn sleeper beneath it into still deeper repose. And she
lay very still in the great cairn,--the sweet and beautiful
dead,--with the grim warriors stretched at her feet, stern guardians
of a slumber never to be broken.

CHAPTER IV.

MULTNOMAH'S DEATH-CANOE.

Gazing alone
To him are wild shadows shown.
Deep under deep unknown.

DANTE ROSSETTI.

If Multnomah was grieved at his daughter's death, if his heart sunk at
the unforeseen and terrible blow that left his empire without an heir
and withered all his hopes, no one knew it; no eye beheld his woe.
Silent he had ever been, and he was silent to the last. The grand,
strong face only grew grander, stronger, as the shadows darkened
around him; the unconquerable will only grew the fiercer and the more
unflinching. But ere the moon that shone first on Wallulah's new-made
cairn had rounded to the full, there was that upon him before which
even his will bowed and gave way,--death, swift and mysterious. And it
came in this wise.

We have told how at the great _potlatch_ he gave away his all, even to
the bear-skins from his couch, reserving only those cases of Asiatic
textures never yet opened,--all that now remained of the richly laden
ship of the Orient wrecked long ago upon his coast. They were opened
now. His bed was covered with the magnificent fabrics; they were
thrown carelessly over the rude walls and seats, half-trailing on the
floor; exquisite folds of velvet and damask swept the leaves and
dust,--so that all men might see how rich the chief still was, though
he had given away so much. And with his ostentation was mixed a secret
pride and tenderness that his dead wife had indirectly given him this
wealth. The war-chief's woman had brought him these treasures out of
the sea; and now that he had given away his all, even to the bare
poles of his lodge, she filled it with fine things and made him rich
again,--she who had been sleeping for years in the death-hut on
_mimaluse_ island. Th