t 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. Snoqual- mie seemed for a moment to deliberate within, him self; then he let go his weapon and passed 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 hap pened; 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 passing 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 horsemen with plumed hair and rude lances. It was the bridge of the Wauna, the Bridge of the Gods, 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 abruptl
