Chapter 5
SENTENCED TO THE WOLF-DEATH.The other, great of soul, changed not
Countenance stern.
Dante.
In that momentary pause Multnomah did something that showed the
cold disdainfulness of his character as nothing else could have
done. He had given the death-sign; he had not yet told how or when
death was to be inflicted. He gave the sentence now, as if
in utter scorn of the battle-cloud that hung quivering, ready to
burst.
“He would have torn the confederacy to pieces; let him be left
bound in the wood of the wolves, and torn limb from limb by them as
he would have rent the tribes asunder.”
The two warriors who had brought the criminal into the council
came forward, flung a covering over his head and face, and led him
away. Perhaps no custom of the northwestern Indians was
