which he had held for half a
century. It was his cherished desire to see Benjamin made chief. His heart
had gone into the young heart of the boy, and he longed to see The Light
of the Eagle's Plume, sitting in his place amid the councilors of the
nation and so beginning a new history of the ancient people.

[Illustration: _At the Cascades of the Columbia_.]

The full moon of October is a night sun in the empires of the Columbia and
the Puget Sea. No nights in the world can be more clear, lustrous, and
splendid than those of the mellowing autumn in the valleys of Mount Saint
Helens, Mount Hood, and the Columbia. The moon rises over the crystal
peaks and domes like a living glory, and mounts the deep sky amid the pale
stars like a royal torch-bearer of the sun. The Columbia is a rolling
flood of silver, and the gigantic trees of the centuries become a ghostly
and shadowy splendor. There is a deep and reverent silence everywhere,
save the cry of the water-fowl in the high air and the plash of the
Cascades. Even the Chinook winds cease to blow, and the pine-tops to
murmur.

It was such a night that the Potlatch began. On an open plateau
overlooking the Columbia the old chief had caused a large platform to be
built, and on this were piled all his canoes, his stores of blankets, his
wampum, and his regal ornaments and implements of war. Around the plateau
were high heaps of pine-boughs to be lighted during the Spirit-dance so as
to roll a dark cloud of smoke under the bright light of the high moon, and
cause a weird and dusky atmosphere.

The sun set; the shadows of night began to fall, but the plateau was
silent. Not a human form was to be seen anywhere, not even on the river.
Stars came out like lamps set in celestial windows, and sprinkled their
rays on the crimson curtains of the evening.

The glaciers on Mount Hood began to kindle as with silver fires. The east
seemed like a lifting gate of light. The great moon was rising.

Hark! At the first ray of the moon there are heard low, mysterious sounds
everywhere. The forests are full of them--calls, like the coyote's bark,
or bird-calls, or secret signals. They are human voices. They answer each
other. There are thousands of voices calling and answering.

The full moon now hangs low over the forests, golden as the morning sun in
the mists of the calm sea. There is a piercing cry and a roll of
war-drums, and suddenly the edges of the forest are full of leaping and
dancing forms. The plateau is alive as with an army. Pipes play, shells
rattle, and drums roll, and the fantastic forms with grotesque motions
pass and repass each other.

Up the Columbia comes a fleet of canoes like a cloud passing over the
silvery ripples. The river is all alive with human forms, and airy paddles
and the prows of tilting boats.

The plateau swarms. It is covered with waving blankets and dancing plumes.
All is gayety and mirth.

There is another roll of drums, and then silence.

The circling blankets and plumes become motionless. The chief of the
Cascades is coming, and with him is Benjamin and his young bride, and
Gretchen.

The royal party mount the platform, and in honor of the event the
torch-dance begins. A single torch flashes upon the air; another is
lighted from it, another and another. A hundred are lighted--a thousand.
They begin to dance and to whirl; the plateau is a dazzling scene of
circling fire. Gretchen recalled the old _fкtes_ amid the vineyards of the
Rhine in her childhood.

Hither and thither the circles move--round and round. There is poetry in
this fire-motion; and the great army of fire-dancers become excited under
it, and prepared for the frenzy of the Spirit-dance that is to follow.

The torches go out. The moon turns the smoke into wannish clouds of white
and yellow, which slowly rise, break, and disappear.

There is another roll of drums. Wild cries are heard in the forests. The
"biters" are beginning