urmur like the rush of the
sea came back the voice of the multitude.

"Tohomish! Tohomish! he is greatest!"

"He is greatest," said Multnomah. But Tohomish, sitting there
dejectedly, seemed neither to see nor hear.

"To-morrow," said the war-chief, "while the sun is new, the chiefs
will meet in council and the great talk shall be ended. And after it
ends, Multnomah's daughter will be given to Snoqualmie, and Multnomah
will bestow a rich _potlatch_ [a giving of gifts] on the people. And
then all will be done."

The gathering broke up. Gradually, as the Indians gazed on the smoking
mountains, the excitement produced by the oratory they had just heard
wore off. Only Tohomish's sombre eloquence, so darkly in unison with
the menacing aspect of Nature, yet lingered in every mind. They were
frightened and startled, apprehensive of something to come. Legends,
superstitious lore of by-gone time connected with the "smoking
mountains," were repeated that afternoon wherever little groups of
Indians had met together. Through all these gathered tribes ran a
dread yet indefinable whisper of apprehension, like the first low
rustle of the leaves that foreruns the coming storm.

Over the valley Mount Adams towered, wrapped in dusky cloud; and from
Mount Hood streamed intermittent bursts of smoke and gleams of fire
that grew plainer as the twilight fell. Louder, as the hush of evening
deepened, came the sullen roar from the crater of Mount Hood. Below
the crater, the ice-fields that had glistened in unbroken whiteness
the previous day were now furrowed with wide black streaks, from which
the vapor of melting snow and burning lava ascended in dense wreaths.
Men wiser than these ignorant savages would have said that some
terrible convulsion was at hand.

Multnomah's announcement in the council was a dreadful blow to Cecil,
though he had expected it. His first thought was of a personal appeal
to the chief, but one glance at the iron features of the autocrat told
him that it would be a hopeless undertaking. No appeal could turn
Multnomah from his purpose. For Cecil, such an undertaking might be
death; it certainly would be contemptuous refusal, and would call down
on Wallulah the terrible wrath before which the bravest sachem
quailed.

Cecil left the grove with the other chiefs and found his way to his
lodge. There he flung himself down on his face upon his couch of furs.
The Indian woman, his old nurse, who still clung to him, was a