The Bridge of the Gods. Frederic Homer Balch
of the Gods should stand. Have the stones of that bridge begun to crumble, that our hearts should grow weak?”
He then described the natural bridge which, as tradition and geology alike tell us, spanned at that time the Columbia at the Cascades. The Great Spirit, he declared, had spoken; and as he had said, so it would be. Dreams and omens were mist and shadow, but the bridge was rock, and the word of the Great Spirit stood forever. On this tradition the chief dwelt with tremendous force, setting against the superstition that Tohomish had roused the still more powerful superstition of the bridge, – a superstition so interwoven with every thought and hope of the Willamettes that it had become a part of their character as a tribe.
And now when their martial enthusiasm and fatalistic courage were all aglow, when the recital of their fathers’ deeds had stirred their blood and the portrayal of their own victories filled them again with the fierce joy of conflict, when the mountain of stone that arched the Columbia had risen before them in assurance of dominion as eternal as itself, – now, when in every eye gleamed desire of battle and every heart was aflame, the chief made (and it was characteristic of him) in one terse sentence his crowning appeal, —
“Chiefs, speak your heart. Shall the runners be sent out to call the council?”
There was a moment of intense silence. Then a low, deep murmur of consent came from the excited listeners: a half-smothered war-cry burst from the lips of Mishlah, and the victory was won.
One only sat silent and apart, his robe drawn close, his head bent down, seemingly oblivious of all around him, as if resigned to inevitable doom.
“To-morrow at dawn, while the light is yet young, the runners will go out. Let the chiefs meet here in the grove to hear the message given them to be carried to the tribes. The talk is ended.”
CHAPTER II
THE WAR-CHIEF AND THE SEER
Cassandra’s wild voice prophesying woe.
The war-chief left the grove as soon as he had dismissed the council. Tohomish went with him. For some distance they walked together, the one erect and majestic, the other gliding like a shadow by his side.
At length Multnomah stopped under a giant cottonwood and looked sternly at Tohomish.
“You frightened the council to-day with bad mimaluse [death] talk. Why did you do it? Why did you bring into a council of warriors dreams fit only for old men that lie sleeping in the sun by the door of the wigwam?”
“I said what my eyes saw and my ears heard, and it was true.”
“It cannot be true, for the Great Spirit has said that the Willamettes shall rule the tribes as long as the bridge shall stand; and how can it fall when it is a mountain of stone?”
A strange expression crossed Tohomish’s sullen face.
“Multnomah, beware how you rest on the prophecy of the bridge. Lean not your hand on it, for it is as if you put it forth to lean it on a coiled rattlesnake.”
“Your sayings are dark,” replied the chief impatiently. “Speak plainly.”
Tohomish shook his head, and the gloomy look habitual to him came back.
“I cannot. Dreams and omens I can tell, but the secret of the bridge is the secret of the Great Spirit; and I cannot tell it lest he become angry and take from me my power of moving men with burning words.”
“The secret of the Great Spirit! What black thing is it you are hiding and covering up with words? Bring it forth into the light, that I may see it.”
“No, it is my tomanowos. Were I to tell it the gift of eloquence would go from me, the fire would die from my heart and the words from my lips, and my life would wither up within me.”
Multnomah was silent. Massive and commanding as was his character he was still an Indian, and the words of the seer had touched the latent superstition in his nature. They referred to that strongest and most powerful of all the strange beliefs of the Oregon savages, – the spirit possession or devil worship of the tomanowos.
As soon as an Oregon Indian was old enough to aspire to a place among the braves, he was sent into the hills alone. There he fasted, prayed, and danced, chanted the medicine-chant, and cut himself with knife or thorn till he fell exhausted to the ground. Whatever he saw then, in waking delirium or feverish sleep, was the charm that was to control his future. Be it bird or beast, dream or mystic revelation, it was his totem or tomanowos, and gave him strength, cunning, or swiftness, sometimes knowledge of the future, imparting to him its own characteristics. But what it was, its name or nature, was the one secret that must go with him to his grave. Woe unto him if he told the name of his totem. In that moment it would desert him, taking from him all strength and power, leaving him a shattered wreck, an outcast from camp and war-party.
“Multnomah says well that it is a black secret, but it is my totem and may not be told. For many winters Tohomish has carried it in his breast, till its poisoned sap has filled his heart with bitterness, till for him gladness and warmth have gone out of the light, laughter has grown a sob of pain, and sorrow and death have become what the feast, the battle, and the chase are to other men. It is the black secret, the secret of the coming trouble, that makes Tohomish’s voice like the voice of a pine; so that men say it has in it sweetness and mystery and haunting woe, moving the heart as no other can. And if he tells the secret, eloquence and life go with it. Shall Tohomish tell it? Will Multnomah listen while Tohomish shows what is to befall the bridge and the Willamettes in the time that is to come?”
The war-chief gazed at him earnestly. In that troubled, determined look, superstition struggled for a moment and then gave way to the invincible obstinacy of his resolve.
“No. Multnomah knows that his own heart is strong and will not fail him, come what may; and that is all he cares to know. If you told me, the tomanowos would be angry, and drain your spirit from you and cast you aside as the serpent casts its skin. And you must be the most eloquent of all at the great council; for there the arm of Multnomah and the voice of Tohomish must bend the bad chiefs before them.”
His accents had the same undertone of arbitrary will, of inflexible determination, that had been in them when he spoke in the council. Though the shadows fell more and more ominous and threatening across his path, to turn back did not occur to him. The stubborn tenacity of the man could not let go his settled purpose.
“Tohomish will be at the council and speak for his chief and his tribe?” asked Multnomah, in a tone that was half inquiry, half command; for the seer whose mysterious power as an orator gave him so strong an influence over the Indians must be there.
Tohomish’s haggard and repulsive face had settled back into the look of mournful apathy habitual to him. He had not, since the council, attempted to change the chief’s decision by a single word, but seemed to have resigned himself with true Indian fatalism to that which was to come.
“Tohomish will go to the council,” he said in those soft and lingering accents, indescribably sweet and sad, with which his degraded face contrasted so strongly. “Yes, he will go to the council, and his voice shall bend and turn the hearts of men as never before. Strong will be the words that he shall say, for with him it will be sunset and his voice will be heard no more.”
“Where will you go when the council is ended, that we shall see you no more?” asked Multnomah.
“On the death-trail to the spirit-land, – nor will I go alone,” was the startling reply; and the seer glided noiselessly away and disappeared among the trees.
CHAPTER III
WALLULAH
Ne’er was seen
In art or nature, aught so passing sweet
As was the form that in its beauteous frame
Inclosed her, and is scattered now in dust.
Multnomah passed on to seek the lodge of his