Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/213

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then to shoot a pony in his corral for horse-steak. The grouse and the gray hare looked in his face and laughed.

"Te-he-he-he! "laughed the Indians. "Doct' Whit'n, he put up he gun so shut he eye so go bang. Poolalik (the rabbit) nibble nibble nibble just 'e same."

"Dr. Whitman, you are too indulgent with your Indians," said McKinley at the fort. "Indians cannot be controlled except by fear. You must learn to use your gun."

"Doct' Whit'n," said Tiloukaikt, "I am mad at you. Before you came we fought each other, killed each other, enjoyed it. Before you came the spot where Walla Walla stands was red with blood. You have taught us that it is wrong, and we have in a great measure ceased. So I am mad at you, Doct' Whit 'n. I am mad at you."

The young chief Elijah had shot up into the teens straight as a fir and beautifully fashioned as the Apollo Belvedere of Canova. Those who remember him best say he had the face of a Roman, at times lively and laughing, at times solemn, even sad. When he looked upon the scrofula-smitten children of the Willamette his dark, luminous eyes spoke volumes. As a lad he played among them in his embroidered tunic of deerskin and his little band of eagle plumes. His small, swift feet outsped them in the race, his shapely hands outshot them with the bow. "He is very bright," they said at the mission. Sometimes the boy boasted: "My father and my father's father were chiefs. My mother is a sister of chiefs, and I am a chief."

At seventeen, in his war-cap of eagle feathers and his robe wrought in porcupine, the young chief Elijah was