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It was a masterpiece of dignity, subtility, and com mand. The prophecy of Tohomish was evaded, the fall of the Bridge wrested into an omen propitious to the Willamettes; and at last his hearers found them selves believing as he wished them to believe, without knowing how or why, so strongly did the overmaster ing personality of Multnomah penetrate and sway their lesser natures. He particularly dwelt on the idea that they were all knit together now and were as one race. Yet through the smooth words ran a latent threat, a covert warning of the result of any revolt against his authority based on what plotting dreamers might say of the fall of the Bridge, a half-expressed menace, like the gleam of a sword half drawn from the scabbard. And he closed by announcing that ere another spring the young men of all the tribes would go on the war-path against the Shoshones and come back loaded with spoil. And so, kindling the hatred of the chiefs against the common enemy, Multnomah closed the great council.

In a little while the camp was all astir with prepa ration for departure. Lodges were being taken down, the mats that covered them rolled up and packed on the backs of horses; all was bustle and tumult. Troop after troop crossed the river and took the trail toward the upper Columbia.

But when the bands passed from under the personal influence of Multnomah, they talked of the ominous things that had just happened; they said to each other that the Great Spirit had forsaken the Wil lamettes, and that when they came into the valley again it would be to plunder and to slay. Multnomah had stayed the tide but for a moment. The fall of