die.
The weather was very murky. It was one of the smoky summers of Oregon, like that of the mem orable year 1849, when the smoke of wide- spread forest fires hung dense and blinding over Western Oregon for days, and it seemed to the white settlers as if they were never to breathe the clear air or see the sky again. But even that, the historic "smoky time " of the white pioneers, was scarcely equal to the smoky period of more than a century and a half be fore. The forest fires were raging with unusual fury; Mount Hood was still in course of eruption j and all the valley was wrapped in settled cloud Through the thick atmosphere the tall firs loomed like spectres, while the far-off roar of flames in the forest and the in termittent sounds of the volcano came weirdly to the Indians as they passed on their mournful way. What wonder that the distant sounds seemed to them wild voices in the air, prophecying woe; and objects in the forest, half seen through the smoke, grotesque forms attending them as they marched! And when the bands had all gathered on the island, the shuddering Indians told of dim and shadowy phantoms that had followed and preceded them all the way; and of gigantic shapes in the likeness of men that had loomed through the smoke, warning them back with outstretched arms. Ominous and unknown cries had come to them through the gloom; and the spirits of the dead had seemed to marshal them on their way, or to oppose their coming, they knew not which.
So, all day long, troop after troop crossed the river to the island, emerging like shadows from the smoke that seemed to wrap the world, each with its sickly faces, showing the terrible spread of the pestilence;
each helping to swell the great horror that brooded over all, with its tale of the sick and dead at home, and the wild things seen on the way. Band after band the tribes gathered, and when the sun went down the war-chiefs obsequies took place.
It was a strange funeral that they gave Multnomah, yet it was in keeping with the dark, grand life he had lived.
