The great war-chief had triumphed over every obstacle; and he waited now only for the last day of the council, when his daughter should be given to Snoqualmie and the chiefs should recognize him as the future head of the confederacy.
Knowing this, the sight of Snoqualmie's successful archery was almost intolerable to Cecil, and he turned away from the place where the games were held.
"I will seek the young Willamette who is sick," he said to himself. "Then this evening I will go and visit Wallulah."
The thought sent the blood coursing warmly through his veins, but he chided himself for it. "It is but duty, I go to her only as a missionary," he repeated to himself over and over again.
He went to the lodge of the young Willamette and asked for him.
"He is not here," the father of the youth told him. "He is in the sweat-house. He is sick this morning, _hieu_ sick."
And the old man emphasized the _hieu_ [much], with a prolonged intonation and a comprehensive gesture as if the young man were very sick indeed. To the sweat-house went Cecil forthwith. He found it to be a little arched hut, made by sticking the ends of bent willow-wands into the ground and covering them over with skins, leaving only a small opening for entrance. When a sick person wished to take one of those "sweat baths" so common among the Indians, stones were heated red hot and put within the hut, and water was poured on them. The invalid, stripped to the skin, entered, the opening was closed behind him, and he was left to steam in the vapors.
When Cecil came up, the steam was pouring between the overlapping edges of the skins, and he could hear the young Willamette inside, chanting a low monotonous song, an endlessly repeated invocation to his _totem_ to make him well. How he could sing or even breathe in that stifling atmosphere was a mystery to Cecil.
By and by the Willamette raised the flap that hung over the entrance and crawled out, hot, steaming, perspiring at every pore. He rushed with unsteady footsteps down to the river, only a few yards away, and plunged into the cold water. After repeatedly immersing himself, he waded back to the shore and lay down to dry in the sun. The shock to his nervous system of plunging from a hot steam-bath into ice-cold water fresh from the snow peaks of the north had roused all his latent vitality. He had recovered enough to be sullen and resentful to Cecil when he came up; and after vainly trying to talk with or help him, the missionary left him.