lf-decayed pieces of salmon. Prevailing over everything
was the stench which is unique and unparalleled among the stenches of
the earth,--the stench of an Indian camp at a Columbia fishery.[6]

Perhaps ten of the petty inland tribes had assembled there as their
starting-point for the great council at Wappatto Island. All had heard
rumors of the white man who had appeared among the tribes to the south
saying that the Great Spirit had sent him to warn the Indians to
become better, and all were anxious to see him. They pointed him out
to one another as he rode up,--the man of graceful presence and
delicate build; they thronged around him, naked men and half-clad
women, squalid, fierce as wild beasts, and gazed wonderingly.

"It is he, the white man," they whispered among themselves. "See the
long beard." "See the white hands." "Stand back, the Great Spirit sent
him; he is strong _tomanowos_; beware his anger."

Now the horses were unpacked and the lodges pitched, under the eyes of
the larger part of the encampment, who watched everything with
insatiable curiosity, and stole all that they could lay their hands
on. Especially did they hang on every motion of Cecil; and he sank
very much in their estimation when they found that he helped his
servant, the old Indian woman, put up his lodge.

"Ugh, he does squaw's work," was the ungracious comment. After awhile,
when the lodge was up and Cecil lay weary and exhausted upon his mat
within it, a messenger entered and told him that the Indians were all
collected near the river bank and wished him to come and give them the
"talk" he had brought from the Great Spirit.

Worn as he was, Cecil arose and went. It was in the interval between
sunset and dark. The sun still shone on the cliffs above the great
canyon, but in the spaces below the shadows were deepening. On the
flat rocks near the bank of the river, and close by the falls of
Tumwater, the Indians were gathered to the number of several hundred,
awaiting him,--some squatting, Indian fashion, on the ground, others
standing upright, looking taller than human in the dusky light.
Mingled with the debased tribes that made up the larger part of the
gathering, Cecil saw here and there warriors of a bolder and superior
race,--Yakimas and Klickitats, clad in skins or wrapped in blankets
woven of the wool of the mountain sheep.

Cecil stood before them and spoke, using the Willamette tongue, the
language of common intercourse betwee