How strange was the scene to Gretchen!  She remembered the winding Rhine, with its green hills and terraced vineyards and broken-walled castles; Basel and the singing of the student clubs in the gardens on summer evenings; the mountain-like church at Strasburg; and the old streets of Mayence.  She recalled the legends and music of the river of song—­a river that she had once thought to be the most beautiful on earth.  But what were the hills of the Rhine to the scenery that pierced the blue sky around her, and how light seemed the river itself to the majestic flow of the Columbia!  Yet the home-land haunted her.  Would she go back again?  How would her real parents have felt had they known that she would have found a home here in the wilderness?  Why had Providence led her steps here?  Her mother had been a pious Lutheran.  Had she been led here to help in some future mission to the Indian race?

“Dreaming?” said Mrs. Woods.  “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped.  If a body has the misfortune to be kiting off to the clouds, going up like an eagle and coming down like a goose, it can’t be helped.  There are a great many things that can’t be helped in this world, and all we can do is to make the best of them.  Some people were born to live in the skies, and it makes it hard for those who have to try to live with them.  Job suffered some things, but—­I won’t scold out here—­I have my trials; but it may be they are all for the best, as the Scripture says.”

These forbearing remarks were not wholly meant for Gretchen’s reproval.  Mrs. Woods liked to have the world know that she had her trials, and she was pleased to find so many ears on this bright morning open to her experiences.

She liked to say to Gretchen things that were meant for other ears; there was novelty in the indirection.  She also was accustomed to quote freely from the Scriptures and from the Methodist hymnbook, which was almost her only accomplishment.  She had led a simple, hard-working life in her girlhood; had become a follower of Jason Lee during one of the old-time revivals of religion; had heard of the Methodist emigration to Oregon, and wished to follow it.  She hardly knew why.  Though rough in speech and somewhat peculiar, she was a kind-hearted and an honest woman, and very industrious and resolute.  Mr. Lee saw in her the spirit of a pioneer, and advised her to join his colony.  She married Mr. Woods, went to the Dalles of the Columbia, and afterward to her present home upon a donation claim.

CHAPTER II.

The chief of the cascades.

Marlowe Mann was a graduate of Harvard in the classic period of the college.  He had many scholarly gifts, and as many noble qualities of soul as mental endowments.  He was used to the oratory of Henry Ware and young Edward Everett, and had known Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips at college, when the Greek mind and models led the young student in his fine development, and made him a Pericles in his dreams.