rned a stronger head than Elijah's. He was at first
frightened, fearful lest his reception concealed some hidden irony,
or that, like the flower-crowned victim of ancient sacrifice, he was
exalted and sustained to give importance and majesty to some impending
martyrdom. Then he began to dread that his innocent deceit--if deceit it
was--should be discovered; at last, partly from meekness and partly from
the animal contentment of present security, he accepted the situation.
Fortunately for him it was purely passive. The Great Chief of the Minyo
tribe was simply an expressionless idol of flesh and blood. The previous
incumbent of that office had been an old man, impotent and senseless
of late years through age and disease. The chieftains and braves had
consulted in council before him, and perfunctorily submitted their
decisions, like offerings, to his unresponsive shrine. In the same way,
all material events--expeditions, trophies, industries--were supposed
to pass before the dull, impassive eyes of the great chief, for direct
acceptance. On the second day of Elijah's accession, two of the braves
brought a bleeding human scalp before him. Elijah turned pale, trembled,
and averted his head, and then, remembering the danger of giving way
to his weakness, grew still more ghastly. The warriors watched him with
impassioned faces. A grunt--but whether of astonishment, dissent, or
approval, he would not tell--went round the circle. But the scalp was
taken away and never again appeared in his presence.

An incident still more alarming quickly followed. Two captives, white
men, securely bound, were one day brought before him on their way to
the stake, followed by a crowd of old and young squaws and children. The
unhappy Elijah recognized in the prisoners two packers from a distant
settlement who sometimes passed through Redwood Camp. An agony of
terror, shame, and remorse shook the pseudo chief to his crest of high
feathers, and blanched his face beneath its paint and yellow ochre. To
interfere to save them from the torture they were evidently to receive
at the hands of those squaws and children, according to custom, would be
exposure and death to him as well as themselves; while to assist by his
passive presence at the horrible sacrifice of his countrymen was too
much for even his weak selfishness. Scarcely knowing what he did as the
lugubrious procession passed before him, he hurriedly hid his face
in his blanket and turned his ba