Further on, among the rocks and remote from the camp, he saw a great light and heard a loud hallooing. He went cautiously toward it. He found a large fire in an open space, and perhaps thirty savages, stripped and painted, dancing around it, brandishing their weapons and chanting a kind of war-chant. On every face, as the firelight fell on it, was mad ferocity and lust of war. Near them lay the freshly killed body of a horse whose blood they had been drinking. Drunk with frenzy, drunk with blood, they danced and whirled in that wild saturnalia till Cecil grew dizzy with the sight.[8] He made his way back to the camp and sought his lodge. He heard the wolves howling on the hills, and a dark presentiment of evil crept over him. "It is not to council that these men are going, but to war," he murmured, as he threw himself on his couch. "God help me to be faithful, whatever comes! God help me to keep my life and my words filled with his spirit, so that these savage men may be drawn to him and made better, and my mission be fulfilled! I can never hope to see the face of white man again, but I can live and die faithful to the last." So thinking, a sweet and restful peace came to him, and he fell asleep. And even while he thought how impossible it was for him ever to reach the land of the white man again, an English exploring-ship lay at anchor at Yaquina Bay, only two days' ride distant; and on it were some who had known and loved him in times gone by, but who had long since thought him lost in the wilderness forever. ----- [5] See Bonneville's Adventures, chapters xiii, and xlviii. [6] See Townsend's Narrative, pages 137, 138. Both Lewis and Clark and Ross Cox substantiate his description; indeed, very much the same thing can be seen at the Tumwater Fishery to-day. [7] See Bancroft's _Native Races_, article "Columbians." A bunch of arrows so poisoned is in the Museum of the Oregon State University at Eugene. [8] Irving's "Astoria," chap. xli. CHAPTER III. THE GREAT CAMP ON THE ISLAND. Of different language, form and face, A various race of men. SCOTT. "You say that we shall see the Bridge of the Gods to-day?" asked Cecil of the young Willamette runner the next morning. "Tell me about it; is it high?" The young Willamette rose to his full height, arched his right hand above his eyes, looked skyward with a strained expression as if gazing up at an immense height, and emitted a prolonged "ah-h-h!" That was all, but it was enough to bring the light to Cecil's eyes and a sudden triumphant gladness to his heart. At last he approached the land of his vision, at last he should find the bridge whose wraith had faded before him into the west eight years before!