n!" He flung up his hand as if imposing
silence; and, taken by surprise, they listened eagerly, expecting to
hear some supernatural voice or message prophetic of the future. On
their strained hearing fell only the labored breathing of the sick
chiefs in the council, the ominous muttering of the far-off volcano,
and loud and shrill above all the desolate cry of the women wailing
their dead.

"You hear it? That death-wail tells all the future holds for you.
Before yonder red shadow of a sun"--pointing to the sun, which shone
dimly through the smoke--"shall set, the bravest of the Mollalies will
be dead. Before the moon wanes to its close, the Willamette race will
have passed away. Think you Multnomah's seat is empty? The Pestilence
sits in Multnomah's place, and you will all wither in his hot and
poisonous breath. Break up your council. Go to your lodges. The sun of
the Willamettes is set, and the night is upon us. Our wars are done;
our glory is ended. We are but a tale that old men tell around the
camp-fire, a handful of red dust gathered from _mimaluse_
island,--dust that once was man. Go, you that are as the dead leaves
of autumn; go, whirled into everlasting darkness before the wind of
the wrath of the Great Spirit!"

He flung out his arms with a wild gesture, as if he held all their
lives and threw them forth like dead leaves to be scattered upon the
winds. Then he turned away and left the grove. The crowd of warriors
who had been looking on broke up and went away, and the chiefs began
to leave the council, each muffled in his blanket. The grave and
stately sachem who had opened the council tried for a little while to
stay the fatal breaking up, but in vain. And when he saw that he could
do nothing, he too left the grove, wrapped in stoical pride, sullenly
resigned to whatever was to come.

And so the last council ended, in hopeless apathy, in stubborn
indecision,--indecision in everything save the recognition that a doom
was on them against which it was useless to struggle.

And Mishlah? He returned to his lodge, painted his face as if he were
going to battle, and then went out to a grove near the place where the
war-dances of the tribe were held. His braves followed him; others
joined them; all watched eagerly, knowing that the end was close at
hand, and wondering how he would die.

He laid aside his blanket, exposing his stripped body; and with his
eagle plume, in his hair and his stone tomahawk in his hand