ip with a gift-feast.
He loved his people, and there seemed to him something noble in giving
away all his private possessions to them, and trusting the care of his old
age to their hearts. His chief men had done this, and had gained by it an
influence which neither power nor riches can attain. This supreme
influence over the hearts of his people he desired to possess. The
gift-feast was held to be the noblest service that an Indian could render
his race.

At the great Potlatch he would not only give away his private goods, but
would take leave of the chieftainship which he had held for half a
century. It was his cherished desire to see Benjamin made chief. His heart
had gone into the young heart of the boy, and he longed to see The Light
of the Eagle's Plume, sitting in his place amid the councilors of the
nation and so beginning a new history of the ancient people.

[Illustration: _At the Cascades of the Columbia_.]

The full moon of October is a night sun in the empires of the Columbia and
the Puget Sea. No nights in the world can be more clear, lustrous, and
splendid than those of the mellowing autumn in the valleys of Mount Saint
Helens, Mount Hood, and the Columbia. The moon rises over the crystal
peaks and domes like a living glory, and mounts the deep sky amid the pale
stars like a royal torch-bearer of the sun. The Columbia is a rolling
flood of silver, and the gigantic trees of the centuries become a ghostly
and shadowy splendor. There is a deep and reverent silence everywhere,
save the cry of the water-fowl in the high air and the plash of the
Cascades. Even the Chinook winds cease to blow, and the pine-tops to
murmur.

It was such a night that the Potlatch began. On an open plateau
overlooking the Columbia the old chief had caused a large platform to be
built, and on this were piled all his canoes, his stores of blankets, his
wampum, and his regal ornaments and implements of war. Around the plateau
were high heaps of pine-boughs to be lighted during the Spirit-dance so as
to roll a dark cloud of smoke under the bright light of the high moon, and
cause a weird and dusky atmosphere.

The sun set; the shadows of night began to fall, but the plateau was
silent. Not a human form was to be seen anywhere, not even on the river.
Stars came out like lamps set in celestial windows, and sprinkled their
rays on the crimson curtains of the evening.

The glaciers on Mount Hood began to kindle as with silver fires. Th