Page:Bridge of the Gods (Balch).djvu/257

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fallen, the strength was gone from Tohomish s heart, the music from his words.

"Tohomish has no voice now," he continued; " he is as one dead. He desires to say only this, then his words shall be heard no more among men. The fall of the Bridge is a sign that not only the Willa- mettes but all the tribes of the Wauna shall fall and pass away. Another people shall take our place, another race shall reign in our stead, and the Indian shall be forgotten, or remembered only as a dim memory of the past.

"And who are they who bring us our doom? Look on the face of the white wanderer there; listen to the story of your brethren slain at the sea-coast by the white men in the canoe, and you will know. They come; they that are stronger, and push us out into the dark. The white wanderer talks of peace; but the Great Spirit has put death between the Indian and the white man, and where he has put death there can be no peace.

"Slay the white man as the white race will slay your children in the time that is to come. Peace? love? There can be only war and hate. Striking back blow for blow like a wounded rattlesnake, shall the red man pass; and when the bones of the last Indian of the Wauna lie bleaching on the prairie far from the mimaluse island of his fathers, then there will be peace.

"Tohomish has spoken; his words are ended, and ended forever."

The harsh, disjointed tones ceased. All eyes fell again on Cecil, the representative of the race by which the Willamettes were doomed. The wrath of all those hundreds, the vengeance of all those gathered tribes