came to tell Multnomah that a
runner from a tribe beyond the mountains had come to see him. Then her
father left her; but Wallulah still sat on the mossy log, while all
the woodland was golden in the glory of sunset.

Her beloved flute was pressed close to her cheek, and her face was
bright and joyous; she was thinking of Snoqualmie, the handsome
stately chief whom she had seen but once, but whose appearance, as
she saw him then, had filled her girlish heart.

And all the time she knew not that this Snoqualmie, to whom she was to
be given, was one of the most cruel and inhuman of men, terrible even
to the grim warriors of the Wauna for his deeds of blood.

-----

[1] Shipwrecks of Asiatic vessels are not uncommon on the
Pacific Coast, several having occurred during the present
century,--notably that of a Japanese junk in 1833, from which
three passengers were saved at the hands of the Indians; while
the cases of beeswax that have been disinterred on the sea-coast,
the oriental words that are found ingrafted in the native
languages, and the Asiatic type of countenance shown by many of
the natives, prove such wrecks to have been frequent in
prehistoric times. One of the most romantic stories of the Oregon
coast is that which the Indians tell of a buried treasure at
Mount Nehalem, left there generations ago by shipwrecked men of
strange garb and curious arms,--treasure which, like that of
Captain Kidd, has been often sought but never found. There is
also an Indian legend of a shipwrecked white man named Soto, and
his comrades (See Mrs. Victor's "Oregon and Washington"), who
lived long with the mid-Columbia Indians and then left them to
seek some settlement of their own people in the south. All of
these legends point to the not infrequent occurrence of such a
wreck as our story describes.

[2] Indian name of the Nez Perces.

CHAPTER IV.

SENDING OUT THE RUNNERS.

Speed, Malise, speed; the dun deer's hide
On fleeter foot was never tied;
Herald of battle, fate and fear
Stretch around thy fleet career.

SCOTT.

At early morning, the sachems had gathered in the council-grove,
Multnomah on the seat of the war-chief, and twenty runners before him.
They were the flower of the Willamette youth, every one of royal