Multnomah Falls in earlier years.
Redrawn by Walter C. Greenough

The old chief stood stoical and silent. E. J. Austen

Middle block-house at the Cascades




CHAPTER I.

GRETCHEN'S VIOLIN.


An elderly woman and a German girl were walking along the old Indian trail
that led from the northern mountains to the Columbia River. The river was
at this time commonly called the Oregon, as in Bryant's poem:

"Where rolls the Oregon,
And no sound is heard save its own dashings."

The girl had a light figure, a fair, open face, and a high forehead with
width in the region of ideality, and she carried under her arm a long
black case in which was a violin. The woman had lived in one of the
valleys of the Oregon for several years, but the German girl had recently
arrived in one of the colonies that had lately come to the territory
under the missionary agency of the Rev. Jason Lee.