The Bridge of the Gods

“They are kind to women, instead of making them mere burden-bearers; they have pleasant homes; they dwell in cities? Then they are like my mother’s people.”

“They are gentle, kind, humane. They have all the arts that light up life and make it beautiful, – not like the tribes of this grim, bloodstained land.”

“This land!” Her face darkened and she lifted her hand in a quick, repelling gesture. “This land is a grave. The clouds lie black and heavy on the spirit that longs for the sunlight and cannot reach it.” She turned to him again. “Go on, your words are music.”

He continued, and she listened till the story of his country and his wanderings was done. When he ended, she drew a glad, deep breath; her eyes were sparkling with joy.

“I am content,” she said, in a voice in which there was a deep heart-thrill of happiness. “Since my mother died I have been alone, all alone; and I longed, oh so often, for some one who talked and felt as she did to come to me, and now you have come. I sat cold and shivering in the night a long time, but the light and warmth have come at last. Truly, Allah is good!”

“Allah!”

“Yes; he was my mother’s God, as the Great Spirit is my father’s.”

“They are both names for the same All Father,” replied Cecil. “They mean the same thing, even as the sun is called by many names by many tribes, yet there is but the one sun.”

“Then I am glad. It is good to learn that both prayed to the one God, though they did not know it. But my mother taught me to use the name of Allah, and not the other. And while my father and the tribes call me by my Indian name, ‘Wallulah,’ she gave me another, a secret name, that I was never to forget.”

“What is it?”

“I have never told it, but I will tell you, for you can understand.”

And she gave him a singularly melodious name, of a character entirely different from any he had ever heard, but which he guessed to be Arabic or Hindu.

“It means, ‘She who watches for the morning.’ My mother told me never to forget it, and to remember that I was not to let myself grow to be like the Indians, but to pray to Allah, and to watch and hope, and that sometime the morning would come and I would be saved from the things around me. And now you have come and the dawn comes with you.”

Her glad, thankful glance met his; the latent grace and mobility of her nature, all roused and vivid under his influence, transfigured her face, making it delicately lovely. A great pang of longing surged through him.

“Oh,” he thought, “had I not become a missionary, I might have met and loved some one like her! I might have filled my life with much that is now gone from it forever!”

For eight years he had seen only the faces of savage women and still more savage men; for eight years his life had been steeped in bitterness, and all that was tender or romantic in his nature had been cramped, as in iron fetters, by the coarseness and stolidity around him. Now, after all that dreary time, he met one who had the beauty and the refinement of his own race. Was it any wonder that her glance, the touch of her dress or hair, the soft tones of her voice, had for him an indescribable charm? Was it any wonder that his heart went out to her in a yearning tenderness that although not love was dangerously akin to it?

He was startled at the sweet and burning tumult of emotion she was kindling within him. What was he thinking of? He must shake these feelings off, or leave her. Leave her! The gloom of the savagery that awaited him at the camp grew tenfold blacker than ever. All the light earth held for him seemed gathered into the presence of this dark-eyed girl who sat talking so musically, so happily, by his side.

“I must go,” he forced himself to say at length, “The sun is almost down.”

“Must you go so soon?”

“I will come again if you wish.”

“But you must not go yet; wait till the sun reaches the mountain-tops yonder. I want you to tell me more about your own land.”

So he lingered and talked while the sun sank lower and lower in the west. It seemed to him that it had never gone down so fast before.

“I must go now,” he said, rising as the sun’s red disk sank behind the mountains.

“It is not late; see, the sun is shining yet on the brow of the snow mountains.”

Both looked at the peaks that towered grandly in the light of the sunken sun while all the world below lay in shadow. Together they watched the mighty miracle of the afterglow on Mount Tacoma, the soft rose-flush that transfigured the mountain till it grew transparent, delicate, wonderful.

“That is what my life is now, – since you have brought the light to the ‘watcher for the morning;’” and she looked up at him with a bright, trustful smile.

“Alas?” thought Cecil, “it is not the light of morning but of sunset.”

Slowly the radiance faded, the rose tint passed; the mountain grew white and cold under their gaze, like the face of death. Wallulah shuddered as if it were a prophecy.

“You will come back to-morrow?” she said, looking at him with her large, appealing eyes.

“I will come,” he said.

“It will seem long till your return, yet I have lived so many years waiting for that which has come at last that I have learned to be patient.”

“Ask God to help you in your hours of loneliness and they will not seem so long and dark,” said Cecil, whose soul was one tumultuous self-reproach that he had let the time go by without telling her more of God.

“Ah!” she said in a strange, wistful way, “I have prayed to him so much, but he could not fill all my heart. I wanted so to touch a hand and look on a face like my mother’s. But God has sent you, and so I know he must be good.”

They parted, and he went back to the camp.

“Is my mission a failure?” he thought, as he walked along, clinching his hands in furious anger with himself. “Why do I let a girl’s beauty move me thus, and she the promised wife of another? How dare I think of aught beside the work God has sent me here to do? Oh, the shame and guilt of such weakness! I will be faithful. I will never look upon her face again!”

He emerged from the wood into the camp; its multitudinous sounds were all around him, and never had the coarseness and savagery of Indian life seemed so repellent as now, when he came back to it with his mind full of Wallulah’s grace and loveliness. It was harsh discord after music.

Stripped and painted barbarians were hallooing, feasting, dancing; the whole camp was alive with boisterous hilarity, the result of a day of good fellowship. Mothers were calling their children in the dusk and young men were sportively answering, “Here I am, mother.” Here and there, Indians who had been feasting all day lay like gorged anacondas beside the remnant of their meal; others, who had been gambling, were talking loudly of the results of the game.

Through it all the white man walked with swift footsteps, looking neither to the right nor the left, till he gained his lodge. He flung himself on his bed and lay there, his fingers strained together convulsively, his nerves throbbing with pain; vainly struggling with regret, vainly repeating to himself that he cared nothing for love and home, that he had put all those things from him, that he was engrossed now only in his work.

“Never, never! It can never be.”

And the English exploring-ship in Yaquina Bay was to weigh anchor on the morrow, and sail up nearer along the unknown coast. The Indians had all deserted the sea-board for the council. Would Cecil hear? Would any one see the sail and bring the news?

CHAPTER III

CECIL AND THE WAR-CHIEF

Children of the sun, with whom revenge is virtue.

Young.

On the next day came the races, the great diversion of the Indians. Each tribe ran only one horse, – the best it had. There were thirty tribes or bands, each with its choicest racer on the track. The Puget Sound and lower Columbia Indians, being destitute of horses, were not represented. There had been races every day on a small scale, but they were only private trials of speed, while to-day was the great day of racing for all the tribes, the day when the head chiefs ran their horses.

The competition was close, but Snoqualmie the Cayuse won the day. He rode the fine black horse he had taken from the Bannock he had tortured to death. Multnomah and the chiefs were present, and the victory was won under the eyes of all the tribes. The haughty, insolent Cayuse felt that he had gained a splendid success. Only, as in the elation of victory his glance swept over the crowd, he met the sad, unapplauding gaze of Cecil, and it made his ever burning resentment grow hotter still.

“I hate that man,” he thought. “I tried to thrust him down into slavery, and Multnomah made him a chief. My heart tells me that he is an enemy. I hate him. I will kill him.”

“Poor Wallulah!” Cecil was thinking. “What a terrible future is before her as the wife of that inhuman torturer of men!”

And his sympathies went out to the lonely girl, the golden thread of whose life was to be interwoven with the bloodstained warp and woof of Snoqualmie’s. But he tried hard not to think of her; he strove resolutely that day to absorb himself in his work, and the effort was not unsuccessful.

After the races were over, a solemn council was held in the grove and some important questions discussed and decided. Cecil took part, endeavoring in a quiet way to set before the chiefs a higher ideal of justice and mercy than their own. He was heard with grave attention, and saw that more than one chief seemed impressed by his words. Only Snoqualmie was sullen and inattentive, and Mishlah the Cougar was watchful and suspicious.

After the council was over Cecil went to his lodge. On the way he found the young Willamette runner sitting on a log by the path, looking even more woebegone than he had the day before. Cecil stopped to inquire how he was.

“Cultus [bad],” was grunted in response.

“Did you see the races?”

“Races bad. What do I care?”

“I hope you will be better soon.”

“Yes, better or worse by and by. What do I care?”

“Can I do anything for you?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Go.”

And he dropped his hand upon his knees, doubled himself together, and refused to say another word. As Cecil turned to go he found Multnomah standing close by, watching him.

“Come,” said the stern despot, briefly. “I want to talk with you.”

He led the way back through the noisy encampment to the now deserted grove of council. Everything there was quiet and solitary; the thick circle of trees hid them from the camp, though its various sounds floated faintly to them. They were quite alone. Multnomah seated himself on the stone covered with furs, that was his place in the council. Cecil remained standing before him, wondering what was on his mind. Was the war-chief aware of his interview with Wallulah? If so, what then? Multnomah fixed on him the gaze which few men met without shrinking.

“Tell me,” he said, while it seemed to Cecil as if that eagle glance read every secret of his innermost heart, “tell me where your land is, and why you left it, and the reason for your coming among us. Keep no thought covered, for Multnomah will see it if you do.”

Cecil’s eye kindled, his cheek flushed. Wallulah was forgotten; his mission, and his mission only, was remembered. He stood before one who held over the many tribes of the Wauna the authority of a prince: if he could but be won for Christ, what vast results might follow!

He told it all, – the story of his home and his work, his call of God to go to the Indians, his long wanderings, the message he had to deliver, how it had been received by some and rejected by many; now he was here, a messenger sent by the Great Spirit to tell the tribes of the Wauna the true way of life. He told it all, and never had he been so eloquent. It was a striking contrast, the grim Indian sitting there leaning on his bow, his sharp, treacherous gaze bent like a bird of prey on the delicately moulded man pleading before him.

He listened till Cecil began to talk of love and forgiveness as duties enjoined by the Great Spirit. Then he spoke abruptly.

“When you stood up in the council the day the bad chief was tried, and told of the weakness and the wars that would come if the confederacy was broken up, you talked wisely and like a great chief and warrior; now you talk like a woman. Love! forgiveness!” He repeated the words, looking at Cecil with a kind of wondering scorn, as if he could not comprehend such weakness in one who looked like a brave man. “War and hate are the life of the Indian. They are the strength of his heart. Take them away, and you drain the blood from his veins; you break his spirit; he becomes a squaw.”

“But my people love and forgive, yet they are not squaws. They are brave and hardy in battle; their towns are great; their country is like a garden.”

And he told Multnomah of the laws, the towns, the schools, the settled habits and industry of New England. The chief listened with growing impatience. At length he threw his arm up with an indescribable gesture of freedom, like a man rejecting a fetter.

“How can they breathe, shut in, bound down like that? How can they live, so tied and burdened?”

“Is not that better than tribe forever warring against tribe? Is it not better to live like men than to lurk in dens and feed on roots like beasts? Yet we will fight, too; the white man does not love war, but he will go to battle when his cause is just and war must be.”

“So will the deer and the cayote fight when they can flee no longer. The Indian loves battle. He loves to seek out his enemy, to grapple with him, and to tread him down. That is a man’s life!”

There was a wild grandeur in the chief’s tone. All the tameless spirit of his race seemed to speak through him, the spirit that has met defeat and extermination rather than bow its neck to the yoke of civilization. Cecil realized that on the iron fibre of the war-chief’s nature his pleading made no impression whatever, and his heart sank within him.

Again he tried to speak of the ways of peace, but the chief checked him impatiently.

“That is talk for squaws and old men. Multnomah does not understand it. Talk like a man, if you wish him to listen. Multnomah does not forgive; Multnomah wants no peace with his enemies. If they are weak he tramples on them and makes them slaves; if they are strong he fights them. When the Shoshones take from Multnomah, he takes from them; if they give him war he gives them war; if they torture one Willamette at the stake, Multnomah stretches two Shoshones upon red-hot stones. Multnomah gives hate for hate and war for war. This is the law the Great Spirit has given the Indian. What law he has given the white man, Multnomah knows not nor cares!”

Baffled in his attempt, Cecil resorted to another line of persuasion. He set before Multnomah the arts, the intelligence, the splendor of the white race.

“The Indian has his laws and customs, and that is well; but why not council with the white people, even as chiefs council together? Send an embassy to ask that wise white men be sent you, so that you may learn of their arts and laws; and what seems wise and good you can accept, what seems not so can be set aside. I know the ways that lead back to the land of the white man; I myself would lead the embassy.”

It was a noble conception, – that of making a treaty between this magnificent Indian confederacy and New England for the purpose of introducing civilization and religion; and for a moment he lost sight of the insurmountable obstacles in the way.

“No,” replied the chief, “neither alone nor as leader of a peace party will your feet ever tread again the path that leads back to the land of the white man. We want not upon our shoulders the burden of his arts and laws. We want not his teachers to tell us how to be women. If the white man wants us, let him find his way over the desert and through the mountains, and we will grapple with him and see which is the strongest.”

So saying, the war-chief rose and left him.

“He says that I shall never be allowed to go back,” thought Cecil, with a bitter consciousness of defeat. “Then my mission ends here in the land of the Bridge, even as I have so often dreamed that it would. So be it; I shall work the harder now that I see the end approaching. I shall gather the chiefs in my own lodge this evening and preach to them.”

While he was forming his resolution, there came the recollection that Wallulah would look for him, would be expecting him to come to her.

“I cannot,” he thought, though he yearned to go to her. “I cannot go; I must be faithful to my mission.”

Many chiefs came that night to his lodge; among them, to his surprise, Tohomish the seer. Long and animated was Cecil’s talk; beautiful and full of spiritual fervor were the words in which he pointed them to a better life. Tohomish was impassive, listening in his usual brooding way. The others seemed interested; but when he was done they all rose up and went away without a word, – all except the Shoshone renegade who had helped him bury the dead Bannock. He came to Cecil before leaving the lodge.

“Sometime,” he said, “when it will be easier for me to be good than it is now, I will try to live the life you talked about to-night.”

Then he turned and went out before Cecil could reply.

“There is one at least seeking to get nearer God,” thought Cecil, joyfully. After awhile his enthusiasm faded away, and he remembered how anxiously Wallulah must have waited for him, and how bitterly she must have been disappointed. Her face, pale and stained with tears, rose plainly before him. A deep remorse filled his heart.

“Poor child! I am the first white person she has seen since her mother died; no wonder she longs for my presence! I must go to her to-morrow. After all, there is no danger of my caring for her. To me my work is all in all.”

CHAPTER IV

ARCHERY AND GAMBLING

To gambling they are no less passionately addicted in the interior than on the coast. – Bancroft: Native Races.

The next morning came the archery games. The best marksmen of each tribe contended together under the eyes of Multnomah, and Snoqualmie the Cayuse won the day.

These diversions were beginning to produce the result that the politic chief had intended they should. Better feeling was springing up. The spirit of discontent that had been rife was disappearing. Every day good-fellowship grew more and more between the Willamettes and their allies. Every day Snoqualmie the Cayuse became more popular among the tribes, and already he was second in influence to none but Multnomah himself.

The great war-chief had triumphed over every obstacle; and he waited now only for the last day of the council, when his daughter should be given to Snoqualmie and the chiefs should recognize him as the future head of the confederacy.

Knowing this, the sight of Snoqualmie’s successful archery was almost intolerable to Cecil, and he turned away from the place where the games were held.

“I will seek the young Willamette who is sick,” he said to himself. “Then this evening I will go and visit Wallulah.”

The thought sent the blood coursing warmly through his veins, but he chided himself for it. “It is but duty, I go to her only as a missionary,” he repeated to himself over and over again.

He went to the lodge of the young Willamette and asked for him.

“He is not here,” the father of the youth told him. “He is in the sweat-house. He is sick this morning, hieu sick.”

And the old man emphasized the hieu [much], with a prolonged intonation and a comprehensive gesture as if the young man were very sick indeed. To the sweat-house went Cecil forthwith. He found it to be a little arched hut, made by sticking the ends of bent willow-wands into the ground and covering them over with skins, leaving only a small opening for entrance. When a sick person wished to take one of those “sweat baths” so common among the Indians, stones were heated red hot and put within the hut, and water was poured on them. The invalid, stripped to the skin, entered, the opening was closed behind him, and he was left to steam in the vapors.

When Cecil came up, the steam was pouring between the overlapping edges of the skins, and he could hear the young Willamette inside, chanting a low monotonous song, an endlessly repeated invocation to his totem to make him well. How he could sing or even breathe in that stifling atmosphere was a mystery to Cecil.

By and by the Willamette raised the flap that hung over the entrance and crawled out, hot, steaming, perspiring at every pore. He rushed with unsteady footsteps down to the river, only a few yards away, and plunged into the cold water. After repeatedly immersing himself, he waded back to the shore and lay down to dry in the sun. The shock to his nervous system of plunging from a hot steam-bath into ice-cold water fresh from the snow peaks of the north had roused all his latent vitality. He had recovered enough to be sullen and resentful to Cecil when he came up; and after vainly trying to talk with or help him, the missionary left him.

It is characteristic of the Indian, perhaps of most half-animal races, that their moral conduct depends on physical feeling. Like the animal, they are good-humored, even sportive, when all is well; like the animal, they are sluggish and unreasoning in time of sickness.

Cecil went back to the camp. He found that the archery games were over, and that a great day of gambling had begun. He was astonished at the eagerness with which all the Indians flung themselves into it. Multnomah alone took no part, and Tohomish, visible only at the council, was not there. But with those two exceptions, chiefs, warriors, all flung themselves headlong into the game.

First, some of the leading chiefs played at “hand,” and each tribe backed its chief. Furs, skins, weapons, all manner of Indian wealth was heaped in piles behind the gamblers, constituting the stakes; and they were divided among the tribes of the winners, – each player representing a tribe, and his winnings going, not to himself, but to his people. This rule applied, of course, only to the great public games; in private games of “hand” each successful player kept his own spoils.

Amid the monotonous chant that always accompanied gambling, the two polished bits of bone (the winning one marked, the other not) were passed secretly from hand to hand. The bets were made as to who held the marked stick and in which hand, then a show of hands was made and the game was lost and won.

From “hand” they passed to ahikia, a game like that of dice, played with figured beaver teeth or disks of ivory, which were tossed up, everything depending on the combination of figures presented in their fall. It was played recklessly. The Indians were carried away by excitement. They bet anything and everything they had. Wealthy chiefs staked their all on the turn of the ivory disks, and some were beggared, some enriched. Cecil noticed in particular Mishlah the Cougar, chief of the Molallies. He was like a man intoxicated. His huge bestial face was all ablaze with excitement, his eyes were glowing like coals. He had scarcely enough intellect to understand the game, but enough combativeness to fling himself into it body and soul. He bet his horses and lost them; he bet his slaves and lost again; he bet his lodges, with their rude furnishings of mat and fur, and lost once more. Maddened, furious, like a lion in the toils, the desperate savage staked his wives and children on the throw of the ahikia, and they were swept from him into perpetual slavery.

Then he rose up and glared upon his opponents, with his tomahawk clinched in his hand, – as if feeling dimly that he had been wronged, thirsting for vengeance, ready to strike, yet not knowing upon whom the blow should fall. There was death in his look, and the chiefs shrunk from him, when his eyes met Multnomah’s, who was looking on; and the war-chief checked and awed him with his cold glance, as a tamer of beasts might subdue a rebellious tiger. Then the Molallie turned and went away, raging, desperate, a chief still, but a chief without lodge or wife or slave.

The sight was painful to Cecil, and he too went away while the game was at its height. Drawn by an influence that he could not resist, he took the trail that led down the bank of the river to the retreat of Wallulah.