Mrs. Woods was secretly alarmed.  She felt that her assumed boldness was insincere, and that any insincerity is weakness.  She glanced up a long ladder of rods or poles which were hung with Potlatch masks—­fearful and merciless visages, fit to cover the faces of crime.  She had heard that Umatilla would never put on a mask himself, although he allowed the custom at the tribal dances.  Mrs. Woods dropped her black eyes from the ominous masks to the honest face of the chief.

“There,” said she, lifting her arm, “there sits an honest man.  He never covered his heart with a mask—­he never covered his face with a mask.  He has promised me protection.  He has promised to protect the school.  I can trust a man who never wears a mask.  Most people wear masks—­Death takes the masks away; when Death comes to Umatilla, he will find great Umatilla only, fearless and noble—­honest and true, but no mask.  He never wore a mask.”

“But, woman,” said Umatilla, “you are wearing a mask; you are afraid.”

“Yes, but I can trust your word.”

“You seek to please me for your own good.”

“Yes—­but, Umatilla, I can trust your word.”

“The word of Umatilla was never broken.  Death will come to Umatilla for his mask, and will go away with an empty hand.  I have tried to make my people better.—­Brother Lee, you have come here to instruct me—­I honor you.  Listen to an old Indian’s story.  Sit down all.  I have something that I would say to you.”

The company sat down and listened to the old chief.  They expected that he would speak in a parable, and he did.  He told them in Chinook the story of

THE WOLF BROTHER.

An old Indian hunter was dying in his lodge.  The barks were lifted to admit the air.  The winds of the seas came and revived him, and he called his three children to him and made his last bequests.

“My son,” he said, “I am going out into the unknown life whence I came.  Give yourself to those who need you most, and always be true to your younger brother.”

“My daughter,” he said, “be a mother to your younger brother.  Give him your love, or for want of it he may become lonely and as savage as the animals are.”

The two older children promised, and the father died at sunset, and went into the unknown life whence he came.

The old Indian had lived apart from the villages of men for the sake of peace; but now, after his death, the oldest son sought the villages and he desired to live in them.  “My sister,” he said, “can look out for my little brother.  I must look out for myself.”

But the sister tired of solitude, and longed to go to the villages.  So one day she said to her little brother:  “I am going away to find our brother who has taken up his abode in the villages.  I will come back in a few moons.  Stay you here.”

But she married in the villages, and did not return.

The little brother was left all alone, and lived on roots and berries.  He one day found a den of young wolves and fed them, and the mother-wolf seemed so friendly that he visited her daily.  So he made the acquaintance of the great wolf family, and came to like them, and roam about with them, and he no longer was lonesome or wished for the company of men.