warriors, and their blood kindled and their pulses
throbbed to the words of their invincible leader. He
saw it, and began to speak of the battles they them
selves had fought and the victories they had gained.
More than one dark cheek flushed darker and more
than one hand moved unconsciously to the knife. He
alluded to the recent war and to the rebellious tribe
that had been destroyed.
"That" said he, "was the people Tohomish saw passing over the death-trail in his dream. What wonder that the thought of death should fill the air, when we have slain a whole people at a single blow! Do we not know too that their spirits would try to frighten our dreamers with omens and bad tomano- wos? Was it not bad tomanowos that Tohomish saw? It could not have come from the Great Spirit, for he spoke to our fathers and said that we should be strongest of all the tribes as long as the Bridge of the Gods should stand. Have the stones of that bridge begun to crumble, that our hearts should grow weak?"
He then described the natural bridge which, as tra dition and geology alike tell us, spanned at that time the Columbia at the Cascades. The Great Spirit, he declared, had spoken; and as he had said, so it would be. Dreams and omens were mist and shadow, but the bridge was rock, and the word of the Great Spirit stood forever. On this tradition the chief dwelt with tremendous force, setting against the superstition that Tohomish had roused the still more powerful super stition of the bridge, a superstition so interwoven with every thought and hope of the Willamettes that it had become a part of their character as
