The laborers laughed again.

“Half moon, more moons, he shall suffer—­half moon, more moons,” that is, sooner or later.

The missionary’s face grew serious.  The tall Indian saw the change of expression.

“Braves sick.”  He spread out his blanket and folded it again like wings.  “Braves double up so”—­he bent over, opening and folding his blanket.  “Braves conjured; melon conjured—­white man conjure.  Indian kill him.”

There was a puzzled look on all faces.

“Braves get well again,” said the missionary, incautiously.

“Then you know,” said the Indian.  “You know—­you conjure.  Make sick—­make well!”

He drew his blanket again around him and strode away with an injured look in his face, and vanished into the forests.

“I am sorry for this joke,” said the missionary; “it bodes no good.”

November came.  The nights were long, and there was a perceptible coolness in the air, even in this climate of April days.

Joe Stanfield, a half-breed Canadian and a member of Whitman’s family, was observed to spend many of the lengthening evenings with the Cayuses in their lodges.  He had been given a home by Whitman, to whom he had seemed for a time devoted.

Joe Lewis, an Indian who had come to Whitman sick and half-clad, and had received shelter and work from him, seems to have been on intimate terms with Stanfield, and the two became bitter enemies to the mission and sought to turn the Cayuses against it, contrary to all the traditions of Indian gratitude.

In these bright autumn days of 1847 a great calamity fell upon the Indians of the Columbia.  It was the plague.  This disease was the terror of the Northwestern tribes.  The Cayuses caught the infection.  Many sickened and died, and Whitman was appealed to by the leading Indians to stay the disease.  He undertook the treatment of a number of cases, but his patients died.

The hunter’s moon was now burning low in the sky.  The gathering of rich harvests of furs had begun, and British and American fur-traders were seeking these treasures on every hand.  But at the beginning of these harvests the Cayuses were sickening and dying, and the mission was powerless to stay the pestilence.

A secret council of Cayuses and half-breeds was held one night under the hunter’s moon near Walla Walla, or else on the Umatilla.  Five Crows, the warrior, was there with Joe Lewis, of Whitman’s household, and Joe Stanfield, alike suspicious and treacherous, and old Mungo, the interpreter.  Sitkas, a leading Indian, may have been present, as the story I am to give came in part from him.

Joe Lewis was the principal speaker.  Addressing the Cayuses, he said: 

“The moon brightens; your tents fill with furs.  But Death, the robber, is among you.  Who sends Death among you?  The White Chief (Whitman).  And why does the White Chief send among you Death, the robber, with his poison?  That he may possess your furs.”