alf moon, more moons," that is,
sooner or later.

The missionary's face grew serious. The tall Indian saw the change of
expression.

"Braves sick." He spread out his blanket and folded it again like wings.
"Braves double up _so_"--he bent over, opening and folding his blanket.
"Braves conjured; melon conjured--white man conjure. Indian kill him."

There was a puzzled look on all faces.

"Braves get well again," said the missionary, incautiously.

"Then you _know_," said the Indian. "You know--you conjure. Make
sick--make well!"

He drew his blanket again around him and strode away with an injured look
in his face, and vanished into the forests.

"I am sorry for this joke," said the missionary; "it bodes no good."

November came. The nights were long, and there was a perceptible coolness
in the air, even in this climate of April days.

Joe Stanfield, a half-breed Canadian and a member of Whitman's family, was
observed to spend many of the lengthening evenings with the Cayuses in
their lodges. He had been given a home by Whitman, to whom he had seemed
for a time devoted.

Joe Lewis, an Indian who had come to Whitman sick and half-clad, and had
received shelter and work from him, seems to have been on intimate terms
with Stanfield, and the two became bitter enemies to the mission and
sought to turn the Cayuses against it, contrary to all the traditions of
Indian gratitude.

In these bright autumn days of 1847 a great calamity fell upon the Indians
of the Columbia. It was the plague. This disease was the terror of the
Northwestern tribes. The Cayuses caught the infection. Many sickened and
died, and Whitman was appealed to by the leading Indians to stay the
disease. He undertook the treatment of a number of cases, but his patients
died.

The hunter's moon was now burning low in the sky. The gathering of rich
harvests of furs had begun, and British and American fur-traders were
seeking these treasures on every hand. But at the beginning of these
harvests the Cayuses were sickening and dying, and the mission was
powerless to stay the pestilence.

A secret council of Cayuses and half-breeds was held one night under the
hunter's moon near Walla Walla, or else on the Umatilla. Five Crows, the
warrior, was there with Joe Lewis, of Whitman's household, and Joe
Stanfield, alike suspicious and treacherous, and old Mungo, the
interpreter. Sitkas, a leading Indian, may have been present, as the story
I am to give came