low tones sounding weird in
that house of the dead,--a strange place for words of love.

"My woman,--mine yet, for death itself cannot take from Multnomah that
which is his own; my bird that came from the sea and made its nest for
a little while in the heart of Multnomah and then flew away and left
it empty,--I have been hungry to see you, to touch your hair and look
upon your face again. Now I am here, and it is sweet to be with you,
but the heart of Multnomah listens to hear you speak."

He still went on stroking her hair softly, reverently. It seemed the
only caress of which he was capable, but it had in it a stern and
mournful tenderness.

"Speak to me! The dead talk to the _tomanowos_ men and the dreamers.
You are mine; talk to me; I am in need. The shadow of something
terrible to come is over the Willamette. The smoking mountains are
angry; the dreamers see only bad signs; there are black things before
Multnomah, and he cannot see what they are. Tell me,--the dead are
wise and know that which comes,--what is this unknown evil which
threatens me and mine?"

He looked down at her with intense craving, intense desire, as if his
imperious will could reanimate that silent clay and force to the mute
lips the words he so desired. But the still lips moved not, and the
face lay cold under his burning and commanding gaze. The chief leaned
closer over her; he called her name aloud,--something that the
Willamette Indians rarely did, for they believed that if the names of
the dead were spoken, even in conversation, it would bring them back;
so they alluded to their lost ones only indirectly, and always
reluctantly and with fear.

"Come back!" said he, repeating the name he had not spoken for six
years. "You are my own, you are my woman. Hear me, speak to me, you
whom I love; you who, living or dead, are still the wife of
Multnomah."

No expression flitted over the changeless calm of the face beneath
him: no sound came back to his straining ears except the low
intermittent roar of the far-off volcano.

A sorrowful look crossed his face. As has been said, there was an
indefinable something always between them, which perhaps must ever be
between those of diverse race. It had been the one mystery that
puzzled him while she was living, and it seemed to glide, viewless yet
impenetrable, between them now. He rose to his feet.

"It comes between us again," he thought, looking down at her
mournfully. "It pushed me back when