hrilling
still more to a mighty and resistless love?

"I will come back," he said, and parted from her; he dared not trust
himself to say another word. But the parting was not so abrupt as to
prevent his seeing the swift breaking-forth of light upon the
melancholy face that was becoming so beautiful to him and so dear.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TWILIGHT TALE.

That eve I spoke those words again,
And then she hearkened what I said.

DANTE ROSSETTI.

The next day the Indians had a great hunt. A circle of men on foot and
on horseback was drawn around a large tract of forest on the western
side of the Willamette River. Gradually, with much shouting,
hallooing, and beating of bushes, the circle closed upon the game
within it, like the folds of a mighty serpent.

There was a prodigious slaughter, a mad scene of butchery, in which
the Indians exulted like fiends. Late in the afternoon they returned
to camp, stained with blood and loaded with the spoils of the chase.
Snoqualmie distinguished himself by killing a large bear, and its
claws, newly severed and bleeding, were added to his already ample
necklace of similar trophies.

Cecil remained in the almost deserted camp. He tried in vain to talk
with the few chiefs who had not gone out to join in the hunt.
Missionary work was utterly impossible that day. Wallulah and the
problem of his love filled his thoughts. His mind, aroused and
burning, searched and analyzed the question upon every side.

Should he tell Multnomah of Snoqualmie's cruelty, representing his
unfitness to be the husband of the gentle Wallulah?

To the stern war-chief that very cruelty would be an argument in
Snoqualmie's favor. Should he himself become a suitor for her hand? He
knew full well that Multnomah would reject him with disdain; or, were
he to consent, it would involve the Willamettes in a war with the
haughty and vindictive Cayuse. Finally, should he attempt to fly with
her to some other land? Impossible. All the tribes of the northwest
were held in the iron grip of Multnomah. They could never escape; and
even if they could, the good he had done among the Indians, the good
he hoped would grow from generation to generation, would be all
destroyed if it were told among them that he who claimed to come to
them with a message from God had ended by stealing the chief's
daughter. And had he a right to love any one?--had he a