AN INDIAN TRIAL. 133
bent on him the glance which read men to the heart.
"The white stranger has been a chief among his own people," he said to Cecil, more in the manner of one asserting a fact than asking a question.
"I have often spoken to my people in the gather ings to hear the word of the Great Spirit."
Again the keen, inscrutable gaze of the great chief seemed to probe his being to its core; again the calm, grave stranger met it without shrinking. The instinct, so common among savage races, of in some way knowing what a man is, of intuitively grasping his true merit, was possessed by Multnomah in a large degree; and the royalty in his nature instinctively recognized the royalty in Cecil s.
"The white guest who comes into the land of Multnomah shall be to him as a guest; the chief should still be chief in any land. White stranger, Multnomah gives you welcome; sit down among the chiefs."
Cecil took his place among them with all the com posure he could command, well knowing that he who would be influential among the Indians must seem to be unmoved by any change of fortune. He felt, how ever, not only the joy of personal deliverance, but mingled with it came the glad, triumphant thought that he had now a voice in the deliberations of the chiefs; it was a grand door opened for Indian evan gelization. As for Snoqualmie, his face was as im passive as granite. One would have said that Cecil s victory was to him a matter of no moment at all. But under the guise of indifference his anger burned fierce and deadly, not against Multnomah but aga
