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Whitman to come down to the Dalles, so, when the Montreal express came singing by, she- embarked with a heavy heart, full of foreboding.
The weather-beaten voyageurs recognized the prima donna of Fort Vancouver. They heard the story of her flight. Was it the delicate sympathy of those brawny Canadians that prompted the thought? The song she taught them six years ago thrilled with pathetic melody the evening air:
"Watchman, tell us of the night,
What its signs of promise are, Traveller, on yon mountain height,
See that glory-beaming star. Watchman, does its beauteous ray
Aught of joy or hope foretell? Travaller, yes, it brings the day,
Promised day of Israel."
A solitary star twinkled above the cliffs that rose perpendicularly on either hand. The music reverberated from wall to wall of the narrow gorge. Never in arched cathedral or gilded choir rang out that old hymn as on that night in the Dalles of the Columbia.
The mission at the Dalles received Mrs. Whitman as a sister. After the solitary life at Waiilatpu, it was like a home-coming to see again white men, white women, white children. She noted not the tall Indians passing and repassing and peering in at the windows; her soul was with the rider on the plains.
The flight of Mrs. Whitman, and a rumor that the Indians were coming down "to kill off the Bostons," created a panic in the Willamette valley. The handful of settlers loaded their guns and barricaded their doors.
Scarcely a month had Dr. Whitman been on his way when an Indian subagent, who had come with the im
