peace or for war?

He threw back the tangled locks that hung over his face, and spoke.

"Chiefs and warriors, who dwell in lodges and talk with men, Tohomish,
who dwells in caves and talks with the dead, says greeting, and by him
the dead send greeting also."

His voice was wonderfully musical, thrilling, and pathetic; and as he
spoke the salutation from the dead, a shudder went through the wild
audience before him,--through all but Multnomah, who did not shrink
nor drop his searching eyes from the speaker's face. What cared he for
the salutation of the living or the dead? Would this man whose
influence was so powerful declare for action or delay?

"It has been long since Tohomish has stood in the light of the sun and
looked on the faces of his brothers or heard their voices. Other faces
has he looked upon and other voices has he heard. He has learned the
language of the birds and the trees, and has talked with the People of
Old who dwell in the serpent and the cayote; and they have taught him
their secrets. But of late terrible things have come to Tohomish."

He paused, and the silence was breathless, for the Indians looked on
this man as a seer to whom the future was as luminous as the past. But
Multnomah's brow darkened; he felt that Tohomish also was against
him, and the soul of the warrior rose up stern and resentful against
the prophet.

"A few suns ago, as I wandered in the forest by the Santiam, I heard
the death-wail in the distance. I said, 'Some one is dead, and that is
the cry of the mourners. I will go and lift up my voice with them.'
But as I sought them up the hill and through the thickets the cry grew
fainter and farther, till at last it died out amid distant rocks and
crags. And then I knew that I had heard no human voice lamenting the
dead, but that it was the Spirit Indian-of-the-Wood wailing for the
living whose feet go down to the darkness and whose faces the sun
shall soon see no more. Then my heart grew heavy and bitter, for I
knew that woe had come to the Willamettes.

"I went to my den in the mountains, and sought to know of those that
dwell in the night the meaning of this. I built the medicine-fire, I
fasted, I refused to sleep. Day and night I kept the fire burning; day
and night I danced the _tomanowos_ dance around the flames, or leaped
through them, singing the song that brings the _Spee-ough_, till at
last the life went from my limbs and my head grew sick and everything
was a whir