his words, the grand devotion that had inspired him
so long failed him at last. He was no longer a saintly
apostle to the Indians; he was only a human lover,
torn by stormy human doubts and fears.
Even the Indians felt that some intangible change had come over him, and as they listened their hearts no longer responded to his eloquence; they felt some how that the life was gone from his words. He saw it too, and it gave him a keen pang.
He realized that the energy and concentration of his character was gone, that a girl s beauty had drawn him aside from the mission on which God had sent him.
"I will go and see her. I will, without letting her know that I love her, give her to understand my position and her own. She shall see how impossible it is for us ever to be aught to each other. And I shall urge her to cling to God and walk in the path he has appointed for her, while I go on in mine."
So thinking, he left his lodge that evening and took the path to Wallulah s home.
Some distance from the encampment he met an Indian funeral procession. The young Willamette runner had died that morning, and now they were bearing him to the river, down which a canoe was to waft the body and the mourners to the nearest mim- aluse island. The corpse was swathed in skins and tied around with thongs; the father bore it on his shoulder, for the dead had been but a slender lad. Behind them came the mother and a few Indian women. As they passed, the father chanted a rude lament.
"Oh, Mox-mox, my son, why did you go away and
