Chapter 320

Chapter 5 AS WAS WRIT IN THE BOOK OF FATE.

A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again,
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt.

Tennyson.

And now our tale draws to a close. There remains but to tell how the last council was held on Wappatto Island; how Mishlah the Cougar, chief of the Mollalies, died; and how the prophecy of the Bridge was fulfilled.

The morning after the obsequies of Multnomah, the chiefs met in the grove where the great council of the tribes had been held only a few weeks before. The leaves, which had been green and glossy then, were turning yellow and sickly now in the close hot weather. All Nature seemed full of decay.

The chiefs were grouped before the vacant seat of Multnomah; and the Willamette tribe, gathered fro……