, the assembled tribe watched it in
silence, mute, dejected, as they saw their great chief borne from them
forever. Promontory and dusky fir, gleaming water and level beach,
were brought into startling relief against the background of night, as
the burning vessel neared them; then sank into shadow as it passed
onward. Overhead, the playing tongues of fire reddened the smoke that
hung dense over the water, and made it assume distorted and fantastic
shapes, which moved and writhed in the wavering light, and to the
Indians seemed spectres of the dead, hovering over the canoe, reaching
out their arms to receive the soul of Multnomah.

"It is the dead people come for him," the Willamettes whispered to one
another, as they stood upon the bank, watching the canoe drift farther
and farther from them, with the wild play of light and shadow over it.
Down the river, like some giant torch that was to light the war-chief
along the shadowy ways of death, passed the burning canoe. Rounding a
wooded point, it blazed a moment brilliantly beside it, and as it
drifted to the farther side, outlined the intervening trees with fire,
till every branch was clearly relieved against a flaming background;
then, passing slowly on beyond the point, the light waned gradually,
and at last faded quite away.

And not till then was a sound heard among the silent and impassive
throng on the river-bank. But when the burning canoe had vanished
utterly, when black and starless night fell again on wood and water,
the death-wail burst from the Indians with one impulse and one
voice,--a people's cry for its lost chief, a great tribe's lament for
the strength and glory that had drifted from it, never to return.

* * * * *

Among a superstitious race, every fact becomes mingled more or less
with fable; every occurrence, charged with fantastic meanings. And
there sprang up among the Indians, no one could tell how, a prophecy
that some night when the Willamettes were in their direst need, a
great light would be seen moving on the waters of the Columbia, and
the war-chief would come back in a canoe of fire to lead them to
victory as of old.

Dire and awful grew their need as the days went on; swift and sweeping
was the end. Long did the few survivors of his race watch and wait for
his return,--but never more came back Multnomah to his own.

CHAPTER V.

AS WAS WRIT IN THE BOOK OF FATE.

A land of