eyes upon him and reach out its emaciated arms as if
appealing for help. 1
Out in the wood he came across an Indian sitting on a log, his face buried in his hands, his attitude in dicating sickness or despondency. He looked up as Cecil approached. It was the young Willamette run ner who had been his companion on the journey down the Columbia. His face was haggard; he was evi dently very sick. The missionary stopped and tried to talk with him, but could evoke little response, ex cept that he did not want to talk, and that he wanted to be left alone. He seemed so moody and irritable that Cecil thought it best to leave him. His experi ence was that talking with a sick Indian was very much like stirring up a wounded rattlesnake. So he left the runner and went on into the forest, seeking the soli tude without which he could scarcely have lived amid the degrading barbarism around him. His spirit re quired frequent communion with God and Nature, else he would have died of weariness and sickness of heart.
Wandering listlessly, he went on further and further from the camp, never dreaming of what lay before him, or of the wild sweet destiny to which that dim Indian trail was leading him through the shadowy wood.
1 See Townsend s Narrative, pages 1
