Company, and of Astoria; had seen the
sail of Gray as it entered the Columbia, and had heard the preaching of
Jason Lee. The murder of Whitman had caused him real sorrow. Umatilla was
a man of peace. He had loved to travel up and down the Columbia, and visit
the great bluffs of the Puget Sea. He lived for a generation at peace with
all the tribes, and now that he was old he was venerated by them all.

"You are a good old Injun," said Mrs. Woods, yielding to her better self
again. "I don't say it about many people. I do think you have done your
best--considering."

"I am not what I want to be," said Umatilla. "It is what we want to be
that we shall be one day; don't you think so? The Great Spirit is going to
make me what I want to be--he will make us all what we want to be. My
desires are better than I--I will be my desires by and by. My staff is in
my hand, and I am going home. The old warriors have gone home. They were
thick as the flowers of the field, thick as the stars of the night. My
boys are gone home--they were swift as the hawks in the air. Benjamin is
left to the Umatillas. He is no butcher-bird; no forked tongue--he will
remember the shade of his father. My heart is in his heart. I am going
home. I have _not_ spoken."

He puffed his pipe again, and watched an eagle skimming along on the great
over-sea of September gold. The Indian language is always picturesque, and
deals in symbols and figures of speech. It is picture-speaking. The
Indians are all poets in their imaginations, like children. This habit of
personification grows in the Indian mind with advancing years. Every old
Indian speaks in poetic figures. Umatilla had not yet "spoken," as he
said; he had been talking in figures, and merely approaching his subject.

There was a long pause. He then laid down his pipe. He was about to speak:

"Woman, open your ears. The Great Spirit lives in women, and old people,
and little children. He loves the smoke of the wigwam, and the green
fields of the flowers, and the blue gardens of stars. And he loves
music--it is his voice, the whisper of the soul.

"He spoke in the pine-tops, on the lips of the seas, in the shell, in the
reed and the war-drum. Then _she_ came. He speaks through _her_. I want
_her_ to speak for me. My people are angry. There are butcher-birds among
them. They hate you--they hate the cabin of the white man. The white men
take away their room, overthrow their forests, kill their deer. There i