Some distance from the encampment he met an Indian funeral procession. The young Willamette runner had died that morning, and now they were bearing him to the river, down which a canoe was to waft the body and the mourners to the nearest _mimaluse_ island. The corpse was swathed in skins and tied around with thongs; the father bore it on his shoulder, for the dead had been but a slender lad. Behind them came the mother and a few Indian women. As they passed, the father chanted a rude lament. "Oh, Mox-mox, my son, why did you go away and leave our wigwam empty? You were not weak nor sickly, and your life was young. Why did you go? Oh, Mox-mox, dead, dead, dead!" Then the women took up the doleful refrain,-- "Oh, Mox-mox, dead, dead, dead!" Then the old man again,-- "Oh, Mox-mox, the sun was warm and food was plenty, yet you went away; and when we reach out for you, you are not there. Oh Mox-mox, dead, dead, dead!" Then the women again,-- "Oh, Mox-mox, dead, dead, dead!" And so it went on, till they were embarked and the canoe bore them from sight and hearing. Down on some _mimaluse_ island or rocky point, they would stretch the corpse out in a canoe, with the bow and arrows and fishing spear used in life beside it; then turn over it another canoe like a cover, and so leave the dead to his long sleep. The sight gave an added bitterness to Cecil's meditations. "After all," he thought, "life is so short,--a shadow fleeting onward to the night,--and love is so sweet! Why not open my heart to the bliss it brings? The black ending comes so soon! Why not fling all thought of consequences to the winds, and gather into my arms the love that is offered me? why not know its warmth and thrill for one golden moment, even though that moment ends in death?" The blood rushed wildly through his veins, but he resolutely put down the temptation. No, he would be faithful, he would not allow himself even to think of such a thing. Reluctantly, as before, the sentinels made way for him and he went on through the wood to the trysting-place, for such it had come to be. She was waiting. But there was no longer the glad illumination of face, the glad springing forward to meet him. She advanced shyly, a delicate color in her cheek, a tremulous grace in her manner, that he had not observed before; the consciousness of love had come to her and made her a woman. Never had she seemed so fair to Cecil; yet his resolution did not falter. "I have come, you see,--come to tell you that I can come no more, and to talk with you about your future." Her face grew very pale. "Are you going away?" she asked sorrowfully, "and shall I never see you again?" "I cannot come back," he replied gently. The sight of her suffering cut him to the heart. "It has been much to see you," he continued, while she stood before him, looking downward, without reply. "It has been like meeting one of my own people. I shall never forget you."