A Drift from Redwood Camp | Page 5

memory
of past success. This was his first effort; he forgot he had not earned it,
even as he now ignored the danger of earning it. The few words of
unconscious praise had fallen like the blade of knighthood on his
cowering shoulders; he had risen ennobled from the contact. Though
his face was still muffled in his blanket, he stood erect and seemed to
have gained in stature.
The braves had remained standing irresolute, and yet watchful, a few
paces from their captives. Suddenly, Elijah, still keeping his back to the
prisoners, turned upon the braves, with blazing eyes, violently throwing
out his hands with the gesture of breaking bonds. Like all sudden
demonstrations of undemonstrative men, it was extravagant, weird, and
theatrical. But it was more potent than speech--the speech that, even if
effective, would still have betrayed him to his countrymen. The braves
hurriedly cut the thongs of the prisoners; another impulsive gesture
from Elijah, and they, too, fled. When he lifted his eyes cautiously from
his blanket, captors and captives had dispersed in opposite directions,
and he was alone--and triumphant!
From that moment Elijah Martin was another man. He went to bed that
night in an intoxicating dream of power; he arose a man of will, of
strength. He read it in the eyes of the braves, albeit at times averted in
wonder. He understood, now, that although peace had been their habit
and custom, they had nevertheless sought to test his theories of
administration with the offering of the scalps and the captives, and in

this detection of their common weakness he forgot his own. Most
heroes require the contrast of the unheroic to set them off; and Elijah
actually found himself devising means for strengthening the defensive
and offensive character of the tribe, and was himself strengthened by it.
Meanwhile the escaped packers did not fail to heighten the importance
of their adventure by elevating the character and achievements of their
deliverer; and it was presently announced throughout the frontier
settlements that the hitherto insignificant and peaceful tribe of Minyos,
who inhabited a large territory bordering on the Pacific Ocean, had
developed into a powerful nation, only kept from the war-path by a
more powerful but mysterious chief. The Government sent an Indian
agent to treat with them, in its usual half-paternal, half- aggressive, and
wholly inconsistent policy. Elijah, who still retained the imitative sense
and adaptability to surroundings which belong to most lazy,
impressible natures, and in striped yellow and vermilion features
looked the chief he personated, met the agent with silent and becoming
gravity. The council was carried on by signs. Never before had an
Indian treaty been entered into with such perfect knowledge of the
intentions and designs of the whites by the Indians, and such profound
ignorance of the qualities of the Indians by the whites. It need scarcely
be said that the treaty was an unquestionable Indian success. They did
not give up their arable lands; what they did sell to the agent they
refused to exchange for extravagant-priced shoddy blankets, worthless
guns, damp powder, and mouldy meal. They took pay in dollars, and
were thus enabled to open more profitable commerce with the traders at
the settlements for better goods and better bargains; they simply
declined beads, whiskey, and Bibles at any price. The result was that
the traders found it profitable to protect them from their countrymen,
and the chances of wantonly shooting down a possible valuable
customer stopped the old indiscriminate rifle-practice. The Indians
were allowed to cultivate their fields in peace. Elijah purchased for
them a few agricultural implements. The catching, curing, and smoking
of salmon became an important branch of trade. They waxed
prosperous and rich; they lost their nomadic habits--a centralized
settlement bearing the external signs of an Indian village took the place
of their old temporary encampments, but the huts were internally an
improvement on the old wigwams. The dried fish were banished from

the tent-poles to long sheds especially constructed for that purpose. The
sweat-house was no longer utilized for worldly purposes. The wise and
mighty Elijah did not attempt to reform their religion, but to preserve it
in its integrity.
That these improvements and changes were due to the influence of one
man was undoubtedly true, but that he was necessarily a superior man
did not follow. Elijah's success was due partly to the fact that he had
been enabled to impress certain negative virtues, which were part of his
own nature, upon a community equally constituted to receive them.
Each was strengthened by the recognition in each other of the
unexpected value of those qualities; each acquired a confidence
begotten of their success. "He-hides-his-face," as Elijah Martin was
known to the tribe after the episode of the released captives, was really