“When forked lightnings flash,
      My war-drum ’tis you hear. 
     I walk upon the sky,
     And call the clouds; be still,
      My war-drum ’tis you hear!”

The tribes of the Oregon at this time were numerous but small.  They consisted chiefly of the Chinooks, Vancouvers, the Walla Wallas, the Yacomars, the Spokans, the Cayuses, the Nez-Perces, the Skagits, the Cascades, and many tribes that were scarcely more than families.  They were for the most part friendly with each other, and they found in the Oregon or Columbia a common fishing-ground, and a water-way to all their territories.  They lived easily.  The woods were full of game, and the river of salmon, and berries loaded the plateaus.  Red whortleberries filled the woodland pastures and blackberries the margins of the woods.

The climate was an almost continuous April; there was a cloudy season in winter with rainy nights, but the Japanese winds ate up the snows, and the ponies grazed out of doors in mid-winter, and spring came in February.  It was almost an ideal existence that these old tribes or families of Indians lived.

[Illustration:  An Indian village on the Columbia.]

Among the early friends of these people was Dick Trevette, whose tomb startles the tourist on the Columbia as he passes Mamaloose, or the Island of the Dead.  He died in California, and his last request was that he might be buried in the Indian graveyard on the Columbia River, among a race whose hearts had always been true to him.

The old chief taught Gretchen to fish in the Columbia, and the withered crone cooked the fish that she caught.

Strange visitors came to the lodge, among them an Indian girl who brought her old, withered father strapped upon her back.  The aged Indian wished to pay his last respects to Umatilla.

Indians of other tribes came, and they were usually entertained at a feast, and in the evening were invited to dance about the whispering tree.

The song for the reception of strangers, which was sung at the dance, was curious, and it was accompanied by striking the hand upon the breast over the heart at the words “Here, here, here”: 

    “You resemble a friend of mine,
     A friend I would have in my heart—­
          Here, here, here.

    “My heart is linked to thine;
     You are like a friend of mine—­
          Here, here, here.

    “Are we not brothers, then;
     Shall we not meet again—­
          Here, here, here?

    “Mi, yes, we brothers be,
     So my fond heart sings to thee—­
          Here, here, here.

    “Ah! yes, we brothers be;
     Will you not answer me—­
          Here, here, here?”

Gretchen was happy in the new kind of life.  She did not fear the Indians; in fact, the thing that she feared most was the promised visit of Mrs. Woods.  She was sure that her foster-mother’s spirit would change toward the Indians, but the change had not yet come.