pt
the situation, and no further indications of revolt were seen that
day.

Popular young men, the bravest of their several tribes, were appointed
by Multnomah to fill the vacant chieftainships; and that did much
toward allaying the discontent. Moreover, some troubles between
different tribes of the confederacy, which had been referred to him
for arbitration, were decided with rare sagacity. At length the
council ended for the day, the star of the Willamettes still in the
ascendant, the revolt seemingly subdued.

So the first great crisis passed.

* * * * *

That evening a little band of Willamette warriors led the rebel
sachem, still bound and blindfolded, down to the river's bank, where a
canoe lay waiting them. His wife followed and tried to enter it with
him, as if determined to share his fortunes to the very last; but the
guard thrust her rudely away, and started the canoe. As it moved away
she caught the prow wildly, despairingly, as if she could not let her
warrior go. One of the guards struck her hands brutally with his
paddle, and she released her hold. The boat glided out into the river.
Not a word of farewell had passed between the condemned man and his
wife, for each disdained to show emotion in the presence of the enemy.
She remained on the bank looking after him, mute and despondent,--a
forlorn creature clothed in rags and emaciated with hunger, an outcast
from all the tribes. She might have been regarded as a symbolic figure
representing woman among the Indians, as she stood there with her
bruised hands, throbbing with pain where the cruel blow had fallen,
hanging, in sullen scorn of pain, uncared for by her side. So she
stood watching the canoe glide down the river, till it was swallowed
up in the gathering shadows of evening.

The canoe dropped down the river to a lonely point on the northern
shore, a place much frequented by wolves. There, many miles below the
encampment on the island, they disembarked and took the captive into
the wood. He walked among them with a firm and even tread; there was
no sign of flinching, though he must have known that his hour was
close at hand. They bound him prostrate at the foot of an oak, tying
him to the hard, tough roots that ran over the ground like a network,
and from which the earth had been washed away, so that thongs could be
passed around them.

Head and foot they bound him, drawing the rawhide thongs so tight t