e this land; let us take our women and children, and fly.
Let us seek a new home beyond the Klamath and the Shasta, in the South
Land, where the sun is always warm, and the grass is always green, and
the cold never comes. The spirits are against us here, and to stay is
to perish. Let us seek a new home, where the spirits are not angry;
even as our fathers in the time that is far back left their old home
in the ice country of the Nootkas and came hither. I have spoken."

His daring words kindled a moment's animation in the despondent
audience; then the ceaseless wailing of the women and the panting of
the sick chiefs in the council filled the silence, and their hearts
sank within them again.

"My brother is brave," said the grave chief who had opened the
council, "but are his words wise? Many of our warriors are dead, many
are sick, and Multnomah is gone. The Willamettes are weak; it is
bitter to the lips to say it, but it is true. Our enemies are strong.
All the tribes who were once with us are against us. The passes are
kept by many warriors; and could we fight our way through them to
another land, the sickness would go with us. Why fly from the disease
here, to die with it in some far-off land?"

"We cannot leave our own land," said a dreamer, or medicine-man. "The
Great Spirit gave it to us, the bones of our fathers are in it. It is
_our_ land," he repeated with touching emphasis. "The Willamette
cannot leave his old home, though the world is breaking up all around
him. The bones of our people are here. Our brothers lie in the
death-huts on _mimaluse_ island;--how can we leave them? Here is the
place where we must live; here, if death comes, must we die!"

A murmur of assent came from the listeners. It voiced the decision of
the council. With stubborn Indian fatalism, they would await the end;
fighting the rebels if attacked, and sullenly facing the disease if
unmolested. Now a voice was heard that never had been heard in accents
of despair,--a voice that was still fierce and warlike in its
resentment of the course the council was taking. It was the voice of
Mishlah the Cougar, chief of the Mollalies. He, too, had the plague,
and had just reached the grove, walking with slow and tottering steps,
unlike the Mishlah of other days. But his eyes glittered with all the
old ferocity that had given him the name of Cougar. Alas, he was but a
dying cougar now.

"Shall we stay here to die?" thundered the wild chief, as he