“I will talk with Gretchen,” she said.  “You mean well.  I can trust you.  We will see.”

He rose slowly, leaning on his staff, and emptied his pipe.  It required a resolute will now to cause his withered limbs to move.  But his steps became free after a little walking, and he moved slowly away.  Poor old chief of the Cascades!  It was something like another Sermon on the Mount that he had spoken, but he knew not how closely his heart had caught the spirit of the Divine Teacher.

When Gretchen came home from school, Mrs. Woods told her what had happened, and what the old chief had asked.

Mr. Woods had returned from the block-houses.  He said:  “Gretchen, go!  Your Traumerei will save the colony.  Go!”

Gretchen sat in silence for a moment.  She then said:  “I can trust Umatilla.  I will go.  I want to go.  Something unseen is leading me—­I feel it.  I do not know the way, but I can trust my guide.  I have only one desire, if I am young, and that is to do right.  But is it right to leave you, mother?”

“Mother!” how sweet that word sounded to poor Mrs. Woods!  She had never been a mother.  Tears filled her eyes—­she forced them back.

“Yes, Gretchen—­go.  I’ve always had to fight my way through the world, and I can continue to do so.  I’ve had some things to harden my heart; but, no matter what you may do, Gretchen, I’ll always be a mother to you.  You’ll always find the latch-string on the outside.  You ain’t the wust girl that ever was, if I did have a hand in bringing you up.  Yes—­go.”

“Your heart is right now,” said Gretchen; “and I want to speak to you about Benjamin.  He told me a few days ago that he hated you, but that no one should ever harm you, because he loved the Master.”

“He did, did he?” said Mrs. Woods, starting up.  “Well, I hate him, and I’ll never forgive him for tellin’ you such a thing as that.”

“But, mother, don’t you love the Master, and won’t you be friendly and forgiving to Benjamin, for his sake?  I wish you would.  It would give you power; I want you to do so.”

“I’ll think about it, Gretchen.  I don’t feel quite right about these things, and I’m goin’ to have a good talk with Father Lee.  The boy has some good in him.”

“I wish you would tell him that.”

“Why?”

“Sympathy makes one grow so.”

“That’s so, Gretchen.  Only praise a dog for his one good quality, and it will make a good dog of him.  I ’spect ’tis the same with folks.  But my nature don’t break up easy.  I shall come out right some time.  I tell you I’m goin’ to have a talk with Father Lee.  It is his preachin’ that has made me what I am, and may be I’ll be better by and by.”

Mrs. Woods, with all her affected courage, had good reason to fear an Indian outbreak, and to use every influence to prevent it.  The very mention of the Potlatch filled her with recent terror.  She well knew the story of the destruction of Whitman and a part of his missionary colony.