_ BOOK II. THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA
CHAPTER IV. SENDING OUT THE RUNNERS
Speed, Malise, speed; the dun deer's hide
On fleeter foot was never tied;
Herald of battle, fate and fear
Stretch around thy fleet career.
SCOTT.
At early morning, the sachems had gathered in the council-grove, Multnomah on the seat of the war-chief, and twenty runners before him. They were the flower of the Willamette youth, every one of royal birth, handsome in shape and limb, fleet-footed as the deer. They were slender and sinewy in build, with aquiline features and sharp searching eyes.
Their garb was light. Leggins and moccasins had been laid aside; even the
hiagua shells were stripped from their ears. All stood nerved and eager for the race, waiting for the word that was to scatter them throughout the Indian empire, living thunderbolts bearing the summons of Multnomah.
The message had been given them, and they waited only to pledge themselves to its faithful delivery.
"You promise," said the chief, while his flashing glance read every messenger to the heart, "you promise that neither cougar nor cataract nor ambuscade shall deter you from the delivery of this summons; that you will not turn back, though the spears of the enemy are thicker in your path than ferns along the Santiam? You promise that though you fall in death, the summons shall go on?"
The spokesman of the runners, the runner to the Chopponish, stepped forward. With gestures of perfect grace, and in a voice that rang like a silver trumpet, he repeated the ancient oath of the Willamettes,--the oath used by the Shoshones to-day.
"The earth hears us, the sun sees us. Shall we fail in fidelity to our chief?"
There was a pause. The distant cry of swans came from the river; the great trees of council rustled in the breeze. Multnomah rose from his seat, gripping the bow on which he leaned. Into that one moment he seemed gathering yet repressing all the fierceness of his passion, all the grandeur of his will. Far in the shade he saw Tohomish raise his hand imploringly, but the eyes of the orator sank once more under the glance of the war-chief.
"Go!"
An electric shock passed through all who heard; and except for the chiefs standing on its outskirts like sombre shadows, the grove was empty in a moment.
Beyond the waters that girdled the island, one runner took the trail to Puyallup, one the trail to Umatilla, one the path to Chelon, and one the path to Shasta; another departed toward the volcano-rent desert of Klamath, and still another toward the sea-washed shores of Puget Sound.
The irrevocable summons had gone forth; the council was inevitable,--the crisis must come.
Long did Multnomah and his chiefs sit in council that day. Resolute were the speeches that came from all, though many secretly regretted that they had allowed Multnomah's oratory to persuade them into declaring for the council: but there was no retreat.
Across hills and canyons sped the fleet runners, on to the huge bark lodges of Puget Sound, the fisheries of the Columbia, and the crowded race-courses of the Yakima. Into camps of wandering prairie tribes, where the lodges stood like a city to-day and were rolled up and strapped on the backs of horses to-morrow; into councils where sinister chiefs were talking low of war against the Willamettes; into wild midnight dances of plotting dreamers and medicine-men,--they came with the brief stern summons, and passed on to speak it to the tribes beyond. _