Except the honks of the pilots of the flocks of wild geese, there was a dead silence everywhere.  Only eyes moved, and then furtively, toward the advancing chief.

[Illustration:  The old chief stood stoical and silent.]

He reached the grave at last by these slow movements, and stepped upon the earth that had been thrown out of it, and folded his arms in view of all.  A golden star, like a lamp in the windows of heaven, hung over Mount Hood in the fading splendors of the twilight, and the great chief bent his eye upon it.

Suddenly the air was rent by a wail, and a rattle of shells and drums.  The body of Benjamin was being brought out of the lodge.  It was borne on a bier made of poles, and covered with boughs of pine and fir and red mountain phlox.  It was wrapped in a blanket, and strewn with odorous ferns.  Four young braves bore it, besmeared with war-paint.  They were followed by musicians, who beat their drums, and rattled shell instruments at irregular times, as they advanced.  They came to the grave, lifted the body on its blanket from the bier of evergreens and flowers, and slowly lowered it.  The old chief stood stoical and silent, his eye fixed on the star in the darkening shadows.

The face of Benjamin was noble and beautiful in its death-sleep.  Over it were two black eagle’s plumes.  The deep black hair lay loosely about the high, bronze forehead; there was an expression of benevolence in the compressed lips, and the helpless hands seemed like a picture as they lay crossed on each other.

As soon as the body was laid in the earth, the old chief bent his face on the people.  The mysterious dimness of death was in his features.  His eyes gleamed, and his bronze lips were turning pale.

“My nation, listen; ’tis my last voice.  I am a Umatilla.  In my youth the birds in the free lakes of the air were not more free.  I spoke, and you obeyed.  I have but one more command to give.  Will you obey me?

“You bow, and I am glad.

“Listen!

“My fathers were men of war.  They rolled the battle-drums.  I taught my warriors to play the pipes of peace, and sixty years have they played them under the great moons of the maize-fields.  We were happy.  I was happy.

“I had seven sons.  The white man’s plague came; the shadow fell on six of them, and they went away with the storm-birds.  They entered the new canoe, and sailed beyond us on the sea of life.  They came back no more at the sunrisings and sun settings, at the leaf-gatherings of the spring, or the leaf-fallings of the autumn.  They are beyond.

“One son was left me—­Benjamin.  He was no common youth; the high spirits were with him, and he came to be like them, and he has gone to them now.  I loved him.  He was my eyes; he was my ears; he was my heart.  When I saw his eyes in death, my eyes were dead; when he could hear me call his name no longer, my ears lost their hearing; when his young heart ceased to beat, my own heart was dead.  All that I am lies in that grave, beside my dead boy.