Page:Bridge of the Gods (Balch).djvu/159



"You have chosen the tomahawk instead of the peace-pipe. Shall Multnomah choose the tomahawk also? Know you not that Multnomah holds your lives in his hand, and that he can crush you like an egg shell if he chooses?"

The war-chief lifted his arm as he spoke, and slowly closed his fingers till his hand was clinched. The eyes of Willamette and tributary alike hung on those slowly closing fingers, with their own strained on their tomahawks. That was half the death-signal! Would he give the other half, the downward gesture? The baffled rebels tasted all the bitterness of death in that agonizing suspense. They felt that their lives were literally in his grasp; and so the stern autocrat wished them to feel, for he knew it was a lesson they would never forget.

At length he spoke.

"Drop your weapons and Multnomah will forget what he has seen, and all will be well. Strike but a blow, and not one of you will ever go back over the trail to his home."

Then he turned to the chiefs, and there was that in his tones which told them to expect no mercy.

"How comes it that your braves lift their toma hawks against Multnomah in his own council and on his own land? Speak! chiefs must answer for their people."

There was sullen silence for a little time; then one of them muttered that it was the young men; their blood was hot, they were rash, and the chiefs could not control them.

"Can you not control your young men? Then you are not fit to be chiefs, and are chiefs n