She found Mrs. Woods very sad, and evidently troubled by some ominous experience. "So you saw me?" was her first salutation. "I didn't dare to come any further. They did not see me--did they?" "But, mother, why did you go away--why did you come to the lodge?" "O Gretchen, husband has been at home from the shingle-mill, and he has told me something dreadful!" "What, mother?" "There's a conspiracy!" "Where?" "Among the Injuns. A friendly Injun told husband in secret that there would be no more seen of the log school-house after the Potlatch." "Don't fear, mother; the chief and Benjamin will protect that." "But that isn't all, Gretchen. Oh, I am so glad that you have come home! There are dark shadows around us everywhere. I can feel 'em--can't you? The atmosphere is all full of dark faces and evil thoughts. I can't bear to sleep alone here now. Gretchen, there's a plot to capture the schoolmaster." "Don't fear, mother. I know Umatilla--he will never permit it." "But, Gretchen, the Injun told husband something awful." "What?" "That the schoolmaster would one day perish as Dr. Whitman did. Dr. Whitman was stricken down by the Injun whom he regarded as his best friend, and he never knew who dealt the blow. He went out of life like one smitten by lightning. O Gretchen!" "But, mother, I do not fear. The Indians thought that Dr. Whitman was a conjurer. We make people true, the master says, by putting confidence in them. I believe in the old chief and in Benjamin, and there will no evil ever come to the schoolmaster or the log school-house." "Gretchen, are you sure? Then I did not bring you away out here for nothing, did I? You may be the angel of deliverance of us all. Who knows? But, Gretchen, I haven't told you all yet." Mrs. Woods's face clouded again. "The Injun told husband that some of the warriors had formed a plot against _me_, and that, if they were to capture me, they would torture me. Gretchen, I am afraid. Don't you pity me?" "Mother, I know my power over the chief and Benjamin, and I know the power of a chief's sense of honor. I do pity you, you are so distressed. But, mother, no evil will ever come to you where I am, nor the school where I am. I am going to be a teacher among these Indians, if I live; I feel this calling, and my work will somehow begin here." "A teacher among the Injuns! You? You a teacher? Are anvils going to fly? Here I am, a poor lone woman, away out here three thousand miles from home, and tremblin' all over, at every sound that I hear at night, for fear I shall be attacked by Injuns, and you are dreamin', with your head all full of poetry, of goin' away and leavin' me, the best friend that you ever had on the earth, as good as a mother to you; of goin' away--of leavin' me, to teach a lot of savages! Gretchen, I knew that the world was full of empty heads, but I never realized how empty the human heart is until now! Been a mother to you, too!"