The Indians remembered these words.  Somehow there seemed to be something prophetic in them.  Wherever, from that day, Umatilla or Young Eagle’s Plume was seen, each wore the black feather from the great eagle’s nest, amid the mists and rainbows or mist-bows of the Falls of the Missouri.

It was a touch of poetic sentiment, but these Indian races of the Columbia lived in a region that was itself a school of poetry.  The Potlatch was sentiment, and the Sun-dance was an actual poem.  Many of the tents of skin abounded with picture-writing, and the stories told by the night fires were full of picturesque figures.

Gretchen’s poetic eye found subjects for verse in all these things, and she often wrote down her impressions, and read them to practical Mrs. Woods, who affected to ignore such things, but yet seemed secretly delighted with them.

“You have talons” she used to say, “but they don’t amount to anything, anyway.  Nevertheless—­”

The expedition to the Falls of the Missouri, and the new and strange sights which Benjamin saw there, led him to desire to make other trips with the schoolmaster, to whom he became daily more and more attached.  In fact, the Indian boy came to follow his teacher about with a kind of jealous watchfulness.  He seemed to be perfectly happy when the latter was with him, and, when absent from him, he talked of him more than of any other person.

In the middle of autumn the sky was often clouded with wild geese, which in V-shaped flocks passed in long processions overhead, honking in a trumpet-like manner.  Sometimes a flock of snowy geese would be seen, and the laughing goose would be heard.

“Where do they go?” said Mr. Mann one day to Benjamin.

The boy told him of a wonderful island, now known as Whidby, where there were great gatherings of flocks of geese in the fall.

“Let’s go see,” said he.  “The geese are thicker than the bushes there—­the ponds are all alive with them there—­honk—­honk—­honk!  Let’s go see.”

“When the school is over for the fall we will go,” said Mr. Mann.

The Indian boy’s face beamed with delight.  He dreamed of another expedition like that to the wonderful Falls.  He would there show the master the great water cities of the wild geese, the emigrants of the air.  The thought of it made him dance with delight.

Often at nightfall great flocks of the Canada geese would follow the Columbia towards the sea.  Benjamin would watch them with a heart full of anticipation.  It made him supremely happy to show the master the wonderful things of the beautiful country, and the one ambition of his heart now was to go to the lakes of the honks.

CHAPTER IX.

GRETCHEN’S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF OF THE CASCADES.

“Go to the chief’s lodge, Gretchen, and stay until the Potlatch, and I will come to visit you.”  Such were the words of Mrs. Woods, as her final decision, after long considering the chief’s request.