the
richest of all the Indians of the Wauna; and the gifts displayed were
the spoil of many wars, treasures garnered during forty years of
sovereignty.

And now they were all given away. The chief kept back nothing, except
some cases of oriental fabrics that had been saved from the wreck when
Wallulah's mother was cast upon the shore. Well would it have been for
him and his race had they been given too; for, little as they dreamed
it, the fate of the Willamettes lay sealed up in those unopened cases
of silk and damask.

Again and again the slaves of Multnomah added their burdens to the
heaps, and went back for more, till a murmur of wonder rose among the
crowd. His riches seemed exhaustless. At length, however, all was
brought. The chief stood up, and, opening his hands to them in the
Indian gesture for giving, said,--

"There is all that was Multnomah's; it is yours; your hands are full
now and mine are empty."

The chiefs and warriors rose up gravely and went among the heaps of
treasure; each selecting from furs and skins, arms and _hiagua_
shells, that which he desired. There was no unseemly haste or
snatching; a quiet decorum prevailed among them. The women and
children were excluded from sharing in these gifts, but
provisions--dried meats and berries, and bread of _camas_ or Wappatto
root--were thrown among them on the outskirts of the crowd where they
were gathered. And unlike the men, they scrambled for it like hungry
animals; save where here and there the wife or daughter of a chief
stood looking disdainfully on the food and those who snatched at it.

Such giving of gifts, or _potlatches_, are still known among the
Indians. On Puget Sound and the Okanogan, one occasionally hears of
some rich Indian making a great _potlatch_,--giving away all his
possessions, and gaining nothing but a reputation for disdain of
wealth, a reputation which only Indian stoicism would crave.
Multnomah's object was not that so much as to make, before the
dispersal of the tribes, a last and most favorable impression.

When the presents were all divided, the chiefs resumed their places to
hear the last speech of Multnomah,--the speech that closed the
council.

It was a masterpiece of dignity, subtility, and command. The prophecy
of Tohomish was evaded, the fall of the Bridge wrested into an omen
propitious to the Willamettes; and at last his hearers found
themselves believing as he wished them to believe, without knowing how