The Bridge of the Gods Part 12

[6] See Townsend's Narrative, pages 137, 138. Both Lewis and Clark and Ross c.o.x substantiate his description; indeed, very much the same thing can be seen at the Tumwater Fishery to-day.

[7] See Bancroft's _Native Races_, article "Columbians." A bunch of arrows so poisoned is in the Museum of the Oregon State University at Eugene.

[8] Irving's "Astoria," chap. xli.

CHAPTER III.

THE GREAT CAMP ON THE ISLAND.

Of different language, form and face, A various race of men.

SCOTT.

"You say that we shall see the Bridge of the G.o.ds to-day?" asked Cecil of the young Willamette runner the next morning. "Tell me about it; is it high?"

The young Willamette rose to his full height, arched his right hand above his eyes, looked skyward with a strained expression as if gazing up at an immense height, and emitted a prolonged "ah-h-h!"

That was all, but it was enough to bring the light to Cecil's eyes and a sudden triumphant gladness to his heart. At last he approached the land of his vision, at last he should find the bridge whose wraith had faded before him into the west eight years before!

The Cayuse band had started early that morning. The chief Snoqualmie was impatient of delay, and wished to be one of the earliest at the council; he wanted to signalize himself in the approaching struggle by his loyalty to Multnomah, whose daughter he was to marry and whom he was to succeed as war-chief.

The women were in advance, driving the pack-horses; Cecil rode behind them with the Shoshone renegade and the young Willamette runner; while Snoqualmie brought up the rear, looking sharply after stragglers,--for some of his young men were very much inclined to linger at the rendezvous and indulge in a little gambling and horse-racing with the other bands, who were not to start till later in the day.

The young Willamette still rode the pretty little pony whose ears and tail he had so barbarously mutilated. It reeled under him from sheer weakness, so young was it and so worn by the journey of the day before. In vain did Cecil expostulate. With true Indian obtuseness and brutality, the Willamette refused to see why he should be merciful to a horse.

"Suppose he rode me, what would _he_ care? Now I ride him, what do I care? Suppose he die, plenty more _hiagua_ sh.e.l.ls, plenty more horses."

After which logical answer he plied the whip harder than ever, making the pony keep up with the stronger and abler horses of the other riders. The long train of squaws and warriors wound on down the trail by the river-side. In a little while Wishram and Tumwater pa.s.sed from sight. The wind began to blow; the ever drifting sand of the Columbia came sifting in their faces. They pa.s.sed the Dalles of the Columbia; and the river that, as seen from the heights the evening before, wound like a silver thread among the rocks, was found to be a compressed torrent that rushed foaming along the narrow pa.s.sage,--literally, as it has been described, "a river turned on edge."

There too they pa.s.sed the camp of the Wascos, who were preparing to start, but suspended their preparations at the approach of the cavalcade and stood along the path eager to see the white man. Cecil noticed that as they descended the river the language of the local tribes became more gutteral, and the custom of flattening the head prevailed more and more.[9]

Below, the scenery was less barren; the river entered the Cascade Range, and the steep banks, along which wound the trail, grew dark with pines, relieved here and there with brighter verdure. They saw bands of Indians on the opposite sh.o.r.e, descending the trail along that side on the way to the council. Many were on foot, though some horses were among them. They were Indians of the nine tribes of the Klickitat, and as yet had but few horses. A century later they owned thousands. Indian women never accompanied war-parties; and Cecil noticed that some of the bands were composed entirely of men, which gave them the appearance of going to war. It had an ominous and doubtful look.

At the Wau-coma (place of cottonwoods), the modern Hood River, they found the tribe that inhabited that beautiful valley already on the march, and the two bands mingled and went on together. The Wau-comas seemed to be peaceably inclined, for their women were with them.

A short distance below the Wau-coma, the young Willamette's horse, urged till it could go no farther, fell beneath him. The blood gushed from its nostrils; in a few moments it was dead. The Willamette extricated himself from it. "A bad horse, _cultus_ [no good]!" he said, beating it with his whip. After venting his anger on it in that way, he strode forward on foot.

And now Cecil was all expectation, on the alert for the first sight of the bridge.

"Shall we see it soon?" he asked the young Willamette.

"When the sun is there, we shall see it," replied the Indian, pointing to the zenith. The sun still lacked several hours of noon, and Cecil had to restrain his impatience as best he could.

Just then an incident occurred that for the time effectually obliterated all thought of the bridge, and made him a powerful enemy where he least desired one.

At a narrow place in the trail, the loose horses that were being driven at the head of the column became frightened and ran back upon their drivers. In a moment, squaws, pack-horses, and ponies were all mingled together. The squaws tried in vain to restore order; it seemed as if there was going to be a general stampede. The men dashed up from the rear, Snoqualmie and Cecil among them. Cecil's old nurse happened to be in Snoqualmie's way. The horse she rode was slow and obstinate; and when she attempted to turn aside to let Snoqualmie pa.s.s he would not obey the rein, and the chief's way was blocked. To Snoqualmie an old Indian woman was little more than a dog, and he raised his whip and struck her across the face.

Like a flash, Cecil caught the chief's rein and lifted his own whip.

An instant more, and the lash would have fallen across the Indian's face; but he remembered that he was a missionary, that he was violating his own precepts of forgiveness in the presence of those whom he hoped to convert.

The blow did not fall; he grappled with his anger and held it back; but Snoqualmie received from him a look of scorn so withering, that it seemed when Cecil's flashing eyes met his own as if he had been struck, and he grasped his tomahawk. Cecil released the rein and turned away without a word. Snoqualmie seemed for a moment to deliberate within himself; then he let go his weapon and pa.s.sed on.

Order was restored and the march resumed.

"You are strong," said the Shoshone renegade to Cecil. He had seen the whole of the little drama. "You are strong; you held your anger down, but your eyes struck him as if he were a dog."

Cecil made no reply, but rode on thinking that he had made an enemy.

He regretted what had happened; and yet, when he recalled the insult, his blood burned and he half regretted that the blow had not been given. So, absorbed in painful thought, he rode on, till a murmur pa.s.sing down the line roused him.

"The bridge! The bridge!"

He looked up hastily, his whole frame responding to the cry. There it was before him, and only a short distance away,--a great natural bridge, a rugged ridge of stone, pierced with a wide arched tunnel through which the waters flowed, extending across the river. It was covered with stunted pine and underbrush growing in every nook and crevice; and on it were Indian hors.e.m.e.n with plumed hair and rude lances. It was the bridge of the Wauna, the Bridge of the G.o.ds, the bridge he had seen in his vision eight years before.

For a moment his brain reeled, everything seemed shadowy and unreal, and he half expected to see the bridge melt, like the vision, into mist before his eyes.

Like one in a dream, he rode with the others to the place where the path turned abruptly and led over the bridge to the northern bank of the Columbia. Like one in a dream he listened, while the young Willamette told him in a low tone that this bridge had been built by the G.o.ds when the world was young, that it was the _tomanowos_ of the Willamettes, that while it stood they would be strongest of all the tribes, and that if it fell they would fall with it. As they crossed it, he noted how the great arch rung to his horse's hoofs; he noted the bushes growing low down to the tunnel's edge; he noted how majestic was the current as it swept into the vast dark opening below, how stately the trees on either bank. Then the trail turned down the river-bank again toward the Willamette, and the dense fir forest shut out the mysterious bridge from Cecil's backward gaze.

Solemnity and awe came to him. He had seen the bridge of his vision; he had in truth been divinely called to his work. He felt that the sight of the bridge was both the visible seal of G.o.d upon his mission and a sign that its accomplishment was close at hand. He bowed his head involuntarily, as in the presence of the Most High. He felt that he rode to his destiny, that for him all things converged and culminated at the great council.

They had not advanced far into the wood ere the whole train came to a sudden halt. Riding forward, Cecil found a band of hors.e.m.e.n awaiting them. They were Klickitats, mounted on good ponies; neither women nor pack-horses were with them; they were armed and painted, and their stern and menacing aspect was more like that of men who were on the war-trail than of men who were riding to a "peace-talk."

The Cayuses halted a short distance away. Snoqualmie rode forward and met the Klickitat chief in the s.p.a.ce between the two bands. A few words pa.s.sed, fierce and questioning on the part of the Klickitat, guarded and reserved on the part of the Cayuse. Then the Klickitat seemed to suggest something at which the Cayuse shook his head indignantly. The other instantly wheeled his horse, rode back to his band, and apparently reported what Snoqualmie had said; for they all set up a taunting shout, and after flinging derisive words and gestures at the Cayuses, turned around and dashed at full gallop down the trail, leaving the Cayuses covered with a cloud of dust.

And then Cecil knew that the spectacle meant war.

The air grew softer and more moist as they descended the western slope of the Cascade Range. The pines gave way to forests of fir, the underwood became denser, and ferns grew thick along the trail. It had rained the night before, and the boughs and bushes hung heavy with pendant drops. Now and then an Indian rider, brushing against some vine or maple or low swaying bough, brought down upon himself a drenching shower. The disgusted "ugh!" of the victim and the laughter of the others would bring a smile to even Cecil's lips.

And so approaching the sea, they entered the great, wooded, rainy valley of the lower Columbia. It was like a different world from the desert sands and prairies of the upper Columbia. It seemed as if they were entering a land of perpetual spring. They pa.s.sed through groves of spreading oaks; they skirted lowlands purple with blooming _camas_; they crossed prairies where the gra.s.s waved rank and high, and sunny banks where the strawberries were ripening in scarlet ma.s.ses. And ever and anon they caught sight of a far snow peak lifted above the endless reach of forest, and through openings in the trees caught glimpses of the Columbia spreading wide and beautiful between densely wooded sh.o.r.es whose bending foliage was literally washed by the waters.

At length, as the sun was setting, they emerged from the wood upon a wide and level beach. Before them swept the Columbia, broader and grander than at any previous view, steadily widening as it neared the sea. Opposite them, another river, not as large as the Columbia, but still a great river, flowed into it.

"Willamette," said the young runner, pointing to this new river.

"Wappatto Island," he added, indicating a magnificent prospect of wood and meadow that lay just below the mouth of the Willamette down along the Columbia. Cecil could not see the channel that separated it from the mainland on the other side, and to him it seemed, not an island, but a part of the opposite sh.o.r.e.

Around them on the beach were groups of Indians, representatives of various petty tribes who had not yet pa.s.sed to the island of council.

Horses were tethered to the driftwood strewed along the beach; packs and saddles were heaped on the banks awaiting the canoes that were to carry them over. Across the river, Cecil could see upon the island scattered bands of ponies feeding and many Indians pa.s.sing to and fro.

Innumerable lodges showed among the trees. The river was dotted with canoes. Never before had he beheld so large an encampment, not even among the Six Nations or the Sioux. It seemed as if all the tribes of Puget Sound and the Columbia were there.

As they halted on the bank, a little canoe came skimming over the water like a bird. It bore a messenger from Multnomah, who had seen the Cayuses as soon as they emerged on the beach.

"Send your packs over in canoes, swim your horses, camp on the island," was the laconic message. Evidently, in view of the coming struggle, Multnomah wanted the loyal Cayuses close at hand.

In a little while the horses were stripped of their packs, which were heaped in the canoes that had followed the messenger, and the crossing began. A hair rope was put around the neck of a horse, and the end given to a man in a canoe. The canoe was then paddled out into the stream, and the horse partly pulled, partly pushed into the river. The others after much beating followed their leader; and in a little while a long line of half submerged horses and riders was struggling across the river, while the loaded canoes brought up the rear. The rapid current swept them downward, and they landed on the opposite bank at a point far below that from which they started.

On the bank of the Columbia, near Morgan's Lake, an old gnarled cottonwood still marks the ancient landing-place; and traces remain of the historic trail which led up from the river-bank into the interior of the island,--a trail traversed perhaps for centuries,--the great Indian road from the upper Columbia to the Willamette valley.