“Why, Father Lee, what has changed your mind?  You surely can not think it your duty to leave this great country in the Oregon!  You are needed here if anywhere in this world.”

“Yes, but it is on account of this country on the Oregon being great, as you call it, that I must go away.  It was once my calling in life to become a missionary to the Indians of Oregon, and to see this wonderful land.  The same Voice that called me to that work calls me again to go back to tell the people of the East of their great opportunity here.  I owe it to my country’s future to do this.  I have eaten the grapes of a promised land, and I must return to my own people with the good report.  I believe that the best life of America will yet be here—­it seems to be so revealed to me.  My mission was to the Indians; it is now to induce colonies to come to the Oregon.”

“Well, each heart knows its own calling and duty, and none of us are led alike.  Father Lee, Gretchen has been reprovin’ me, though she shouldn’t, perhaps, being a girl.  She was sassy to me, but she meant well.  She is a well-meanin’ girl, though I have to be hard on her sometimes—­it is my duty to be, you know.

“Well, some months ago, more than a year, an Injun ran away with my best saw, and that gave me a prejudice against the Injuns, I suppose.  Afterward, Young Eagle’s Plume—­Benjamin, the chief’s boy—­insulted me before the school by takin’ a stick out of my hand, and I came to dislike him, and he hates me.  There are many Injuns in the timber now, and they all cast evil looks at me whenever I meet them, and these things hint that they are goin’ to capture me at the Potlatch and carry me away.  I hate Injuns.

“But Gretchen has told me a thing that touches my feelin’s.  She says that Benjamin he says that he will protect me on account of his love for the master; and that, on account of my love for the good Master of us all and his cause, I ought to show a different spirit toward the Injuns.  What do you think?”

“Gretchen is right, although a girl should be modest with her elders.  Hatred only multiplies itself; when one overcomes his evil passions he gains others, and loses nothing.  Do you see?”

“But I am always good to those I like and those who treat me well.  Think how I used to take care of the sick folk on our way out here, and what I have tried to do for Gretchen!”

“‘If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye?’ All people love those who love them—­the savages do.  To give up one’s evil desires, and to help others by returning love for hate, is the true life.  The best friends in the world that we can have are those that we have drawn to our hearts by forgiveness.  Do something good to every Indian that hates you, and you will never be carried away captive.”

“But Whitman, remember Whitman:  he showed the right spirit, and the Injuns killed him!”

“His death was caused by a misapprehension, and it made him a martyr.  His work lives.  Men live in their work.”