Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/136

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but remember Napoleon's motto, ' Be master.' In a subject country always expect an attack. Look for it. Prepare for it. Crush it. Trust nothing to chance." In these few words Dr. McLoughlin outlined his own life policy with the Indian.

David lingered at his sister's side, but to Eloise, today, more than father or mother or brother was the tall young Scot whose fortune henceforth was hers. The barque spread her wings, and with fluttering farewells, sped like a sea-gull out of sight.

During the winter there had been great excitement at old Wascopam, by the Dalles. Daniel Lee had preached to the fishing Indians until a thousand fell on their knees to Christ. Now, in early spring, Daniel Lee followed down along the Columbia to the sea, preaching as he went. He reached a Chinook village.

Naked little pot-bellied, bow-legged Chinook children, with wedge-shaped heads and goggle-eyes, were rolling in the sand. No white man ever looked upon the queer little Chinook children without a shudder there was something so elfish, so impish, so almost inhuman in the distorted little faces. As soon as a baby was born it was swaddled in moss, its poor little forehead was pressed down with cedar bark and tightly corded to a board. The child cried all the time presently it stopped; sensibility seemed deadened. The swelled cheeks and bulging black eyes reminded one of a mouse choked in a trap. The pitiful little attempts to smile under the frightful pressure resulted in grimaces, funnier than Palmer Cox's funniest brownies; but to the end of life, all subjected to this cruel practice had the most aristocratic and flattest of heads.

"Great canoe! Great canoe! "cried the Indians. The Chinook chief, his copper highness Chenamus,