ON THE WAY TO THE COUNCIL. 107
oner, and would not let me depart; until last night the runner came summoning them to the council. Now they go, taking me with them. I shall see the land of the bridge and perform the work the Great Spirit has given me to do."
The old grand enthusiasm shone in his look as he closed. The Shoshone regarded him with grave attention.
"What became of the book that told of God?" he asked earnestly.
"A chief took it from me and burned it j but its words were written on my heart, and they could not be destroyed."
They rode on for a time in silence. The way was rugged, the country a succession of canyons and ridges covered with green and waving grass but bare of trees. Behind them, the Blue Mountains were receding in the distance. To the west, Mt. Hood, the great white "Witch Mountain" of the Indians, towered over the prairie, streaking the sky with a long floating wreath of volcanic smoke. Before them, as they journeyed northward toward the Columbia, stretched out the endless prairie. Now they de scended into a deep ravine, now they toiled up a steep hillside. The country literally rolled, undulating in immense ridges around and over which the long file of squaws and warriors, herds and pack-horses, wound like a serpent. From the bands ahead came shouts and outcries, the sounds of rude merriment; and above all the long-drawn intonation so familiar to those who have been much with Indian horsemen, the endlessly repeated " ho-ha, ho-ha, ho -ha," a kind of crude riding-song.
