{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42527/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42527","id":"gutenberg_42527","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42527","summary":null,"tags":["American bison","Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: History - Other","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Catholic Church -- Missions","Dakota Indians","Missions -- Montana","Montana -- Description and travel","Salish Indians"],"text":"TRAILS THROUGH\n    WESTERN WOODS\n\n\n[Illustration: LAKE ANGUS McDONALD]\n\n\n\n\n    TRAILS THROUGH\n    WESTERN WOODS\n\n    By\n\n    HELEN FITZGERALD SANDERS\n\n    _Illustrations from Photographs\n    by the Author_\n\n    NEW YORK & SEATTLE\n    THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY\n    1910\n\n\n\n\n    COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY\n    THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY\n\n    _Published, July 1, 1910_\n\n    THE PREMIER PRESS\n    NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\n_DEDICATION_\n\n\n    _To the West that is passing; to the days\n    that are no more and to the brave,\n    free life of the Wilderness that\n    lives only in the memory of\n    those who mourn its loss_\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe writing of this book has been primarily a labour of love, undertaken\nin the hope that through the harmonious mingling of Indian tradition and\ndescriptions of the region--too little known--where the lessening tribes\nstill dwell, there may be a fuller understanding both of the Indians and\nof the poetical West.\n\nA wealth of folk-lore will pass with the passing of the Flathead\nReservation, therefore it is well to stop and listen before the light\nis quite vanished from the hill-tops, while still the streams sing the\nsongs of old and the trees murmur regretfully of things lost forever and\na time that will come no more. We of the workaday world are too prone\nto believe that our own country is lacking in myth and tradition, in\nhero-tale and romance; yet here in our midst is a legended region where\nevery landmark is a symbol in the great, natural record book of a folk\nwhose day is done and whose song is but an echo.\n\nIt would not be fitting to close these few introductory words without\ngrateful acknowledgment to those who have aided me toward the\naccomplishment of my purpose. Indeed, every page brings a pleasant\nrecollection of a friendly spirit and a helping hand. Mr. Duncan\nMcDonald, son of Angus, and Mr. Henri Matt, my Indian friends, have\ntold me by word of mouth, many of the myths and chronicles set forth\nin the following chapters. Mr. Edward Morgan, the faithful and just\nagent at the Flathead Reservation, has given me priceless information\nwhich I could never have obtained save through his kindly interest. He\nsecured for me the legend of the Flint, the last tale told by Charlot\nand rendered into English by Michel Rivais, the blind interpreter who\nhas served in that capacity for thirty years. Chief Charlot died after\nthis book was finished and he lies in the land of his exile, out of the\nhome of his fathers where he had hoped to rest. From Mr. Morgan also I\nreceived the account of Charlot's meeting with Joseph at the LoLo Pass,\nthe facts of which were given him by the little white boy since grown\nto manhood, Mr. David Whaley, who rode with Charlot and his band to the\nhostile camp.\n\nThe late Charles Aubrey, pioneer and plainsman, furnished me valuable\ndata concerning the buffalo.\n\nMadame Leonie De Mers and her hospitable relatives, the De Mers of\nArlee, were instrumental in winning for me the confidence of the Selish\npeople.\n\nMrs. L. Mabel Hight, the artist, who has caught the spirit of the\nmountains with her brush, has added to this book by making the peaks\nlive again in their colours.\n\nIn conclusion I would express my everlasting gratitude to Mr. Thomas\nH. Scott, of Lake McDonald, soldier, mountain-lover and woodsman, who,\nwith unfailing courage and patience, has guided me safely over many and\ndifficult trails.\n\nFor the benefit of students I must add that the authorities I have\nfollowed in my historical references are: Long's (James') \"_Expedition\nto the Rocky Mountains, 1819-20_,\" Maximilian's \"_Travels in North\nAmerica_,\" Father De Smet's \"_Oregon Missions_,\" Major Ronan's \"_History\nof the Flathead Indians_,\" Bradbury's \"_Travels_,\" Father L. B.\nPalladino's \"_Indian and White in the Northwest_,\" and the _Reports_ of\nthe Bureau of Ethnology.\n\n          HELEN FITZGERALD SANDERS.\n\n  _Butte, Montana,\n      April 5, 1910._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n       I. The Gentle Selish                                    15\n\n      II. Enchanted Waters                                     77\n\n     III. Lake Angus McDonald                                  89\n\n      IV. Some Indian Missions of the Northwest                97\n\n       V. The People of the Leaves                            155\n\n      VI. The Passing Buffalo                                 169\n\n     VII. Lake McDonald and Its Trails                        229\n\n    VIII. Above the Clouds                                    245\n\n      IX. The Little St. Mary's                               271\n\n       X. The Track of the Avalanche                          281\n\n      XI. Indian Summer                                       297\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n    Lake Angus McDonald                            _Frontispiece_\n\n                                                      Facing Page\n    Joe La Mousse                                              50\n\n    Abraham Isaac and Michel Kaiser                            66\n\n    Lake McDonald from McDonald Creek                          90\n\n    Francois                                                  154\n\n    Glacier Camp                                              234\n\n    Gem Lake                                                  266\n\n    On the Trail to Mt. Lincoln                               290\n\n\n\n\n_THE GENTLE SELISH_\n\n\n\n\nTRAILS THROUGH WESTERN WOODS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE GENTLE SELISH\n\n\nI\n\nWhen Lewis and Clark took their way through the Western wilderness\nin 1805, they came upon a fair valley, watered by pleasant streams,\nbounded by snowy mountain crests, and starred, in the Springtime, by a\nstrangely beautiful flower with silvery-rose fringed petals called the\nBitter Root, whence the valley took its name. In the mild enclosure of\nthis land lived a gentle folk differing as much from the hostile people\naround them as the place of their nativity differed from the stern,\nmountainous country of long winters and lofty altitudes surrounding it.\nThese early adventurers, confusing this tribe with the nations dwelling\nabout the mouth of the Columbia River, spoke of them as the Flatheads.\nIt is one of those curious historical anomalies that the Chinooks who\nflattened the heads of their children, should never have been designated\nas Flatheads, while the Selish, among whom the practice was unknown,\nhave borne the undeserved title until their own proper and euphonious\nname is unused and all but forgotten.\n\nThe Selish proper, living in the Bitter Root Valley, were one branch of\na group composed of several nations collectively known as the Selish\nfamily. These kindred tribes were the Selish, or Flatheads, the Pend\nd'Oreilles, the Coeur d'Alenes, the Colvilles, the Spokanes and the\nPisquouse. The Nez Perc\u00e9s of the Clearwater were also counted as tribal\nkin through inter-marriage.\n\nLewis and Clark were received with great kindness and much wonder by\nthe Selish. There was current among them a story of a hunting party that\ncame back after a long absence East of the Rocky Mountains, bearing\nstrange tidings of a pale-faced race whom they had met,--probably the\nadventurous Sieur de La V\u00e9rendrye and his cavaliers who set out from\nMontreal to find a highway to the Pacific Sea. But it was only a memory\nwith a few, a curious legend to the many, and these men of white skin\nand blue eyes came to them as a revelation.\n\nThe traders who followed in the footsteps of the first trail-blazers\nfound the natives at their pursuits of hunting, roving over the\nBitter Root Valley and into the contested region east of the Main\nRange of the Rocky Mountains, where both they, and their enemies, the\nBlackfeet, claimed hereditary right to hunt the buffalo. They were at\nall times friendly to the white men who came among them, and these\nvisitors described them as simple, straight-forward people, the women\ndistinguished for their virtue, and the men for their bravery in the\nbattle and the chase. They were cleanly in their habits and honorable\nin their dealings with each other. If a man lost his horse, his bow or\nother valuable, the one who found it delivered it to the Chief, or Great\nFather, and he caused it to be hung in a place where it might be seen by\nall. Then when the owner came seeking his goods, the Chief restored it\nto him. They were also charitable. If a man were hungry no one said him\nnay and he was welcome even at the board of the head men to share the\nbest of their fare. This spirit of kindliness they extended to all save\ntheir foes and the prisoners taken in war whom they tortured after the\nmanner of more hostile tribes. In appearance they were \"comparatively\nvery fair and their complexions a shade lighter than the palest new\ncopper after being freshly rubbed.\" They were well formed, lithe and\ntall, a characteristic that still prevails with the pure bloods, as does\nsomething of the detail of their ancient dress. They preserve the custom\nof handing down by word of mouth, from generation to generation, their\nmyths, traditions and history. Some of these chronicles celebrate events\nwhich are estimated to have happened two hundred years or more ago.\n\nOf the origin of the Selish nothing is known save the legend of their\ncoming out of the mountains; and perhaps we are none the poorer, for no\nbald historical record of dates and migrations could be as suggestively\ncharming as this story of the people, themselves, colored by their own\nfancy and reflecting their inner life. Indeed, a nation's history and\ntradition bear much the same relation to each other as the conventional\npublic existence of a man compared with that intangible part of him\nwhich we call imagination, but which is in reality the sum-total of his\nmental inheritance: the hidden treasure of his spiritual wealth. Let us\nlook then, through the medium of the Indian's poetic imagery, into a\npast rose-hued with the sunrise of the new day.\n\nCoyote, the hero of this legend, figures in many of the myths of the\nSelish; but they do not profess to know if he were a great brave bearing\nthat name or if he were the animal itself, living in the legendary age\nwhen beasts and birds spoke the tongue of man. Likely he was a dual\npersonality such as the white buffalo of numerous fables, who was at\nwill a beautiful maiden or one among the vast herds of the plains.\nPossibly there was, indeed, such a mighty warrior in ages gone by about\nwhose glorified memory has gathered the half-chimerical hero-tales which\nare the first step toward the ancestor-worship of primitive peoples.\nIn all of the myths given here in which his name is mentioned, except\nthat one of Coyote and the Flint, we shall consider him as an Ideal\nembodying the Indians' highest conception of valor and achievement.\n\nLong, long ago the Jocko was inhabited by a man-eating monster who lured\nthe tribes from the hills into his domain and then sucked their blood.\nCoyote determined to deliver the people, so he challenged the monster\nto a mortal combat. The monster accepted the challenge, and Coyote went\ninto the mountains and got the poison spider from the rocks and bade him\nsting his enemy, but even the venom of the spider could not penetrate\nthe monster's hide.\n\nCoyote took counsel of the Fox, his friend, and prepared himself for the\nfray. He got a stout leather thong and bound it around his body, then\ntied it fast to a huge pine tree. The monster appeared with dripping\nfangs and gaping jaws, approached Coyote, who retreated farther and\nfarther away, until the thong stretched taut and the pine curved like\na bow. Suddenly, the tree, strained to its utmost limit, sprang back,\nfelling the monster with a mortal stroke. Coyote was triumphant and the\nWoodpecker of the forest cut the pine and sharpened its trunk to a point\nwhich Coyote drove through the dead monster's breast, impaling it to the\nearth. Thus, the Jocko was rid of the man-eater, and the Selish, fearing\nhim no more, came down from the hills into the valley where they lived\nin plenty and content.\n\nThe following story of Coyote and the Flint is of exceptional interest\nbecause it is from the lips of the dying Charlot--Charlot the unbending,\nthe silent Chieftain. No word of English ever profaned his tongue, so\nthis myth, told in the impressive Selish language, was translated word\nfor word by Michel Rivais, the blind interpreter at the Flathead Agency,\nwho has served faithfully and well for a period of thirty years.\n\n\"In the old times the animals had tribes just like the Indians. The\nCoyote had his tipi. He was hungry and had nothing to eat. He had bark\nto shoot his arrow with and the arrow did not go through the deer. He\nwas that way a long time when he heard there was Flint coming on the\nroad that gave a piece of flint to the Fox and he could shoot a deer and\nkill it, but the Coyote did not know that and used the bark. They did\nnot give the Coyote anything. They only gave some to the Fox. Next day\nthe Fox put a piece of meat on the end of a stick and took it to the\nfire. The Fox had the piece of meat cooking there and the Coyote was\nlooking at the meat and when it was cooked the Coyote jumped and got the\npiece of meat and took a bite and in it was the flint, and he bit the\nflint and asked why they did not tell him how to kill a deer with flint.\n\n\"'Why didn't you tell me?' the Coyote asked his friend, the Fox. 'When\ndid the Flint go by here?'\n\n\"The Fox said three days it went by here.\n\n\"The Coyote took his blanket and his things and started after the Flint\nand kept on his track all day and evening and said, 'Here is where the\nFlint camped,' and he stayed there all night himself, and next day he\ntravelled to where the Flint camped, and he said, 'Here is where the\nFlint camped last night,' and he stayed there, and the next day he went\nfarther and found where the Flint camped and he said, 'The Flint started\nfrom here this morning.' He followed the track next morning and went not\nvery far, and he saw the Flint going on the road, and he went 'way out\nthat way and went ahead of the Flint and stayed there for the Flint to\ncome. When the Flint met him there the Coyote told him:\n\n\"'Come here. Now, I want to have a fight with you to-day.'\n\n\"And the Flint said:\n\n\"'Come on. We will fight.'\n\n\"The Flint went to him and the Coyote took the thing he had in his hand\nand struck him three or four times and the Flint broke all to pieces and\nthe Coyote had his blanket there and put the pieces in the blanket and\nafter they were through fighting and he had the pieces of flint in his\nblanket he packed the flint on his back and went to all the tribes and\ngave them some flint and said:\n\n\"'Here is some flint for you to kill deer and things with.'\n\n\"And he went to another tribe and did the same thing and to other tribes\nand did the same until he came to Flint Creek and then from that time\nthey used the flint to put in their arrows and kill deer and elk.\n\n\"That is the story of the Flint.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCoyote was the chosen one to whom the Great Spirit revealed the disaster\nwhich reduced the Selish from goodly multitudes of warriors to a handful\nof wretched, plague-stricken invalids. Old women are still fond of\nrelating the story which they received from their mothers and their\nmothers' mothers even to the third and fourth generation.\n\nCoyote laid down to rest and dreamed that the Voice of the Great Spirit\nsounded in his ears, saying that unless the daughter of the Chief became\nhis bride a scourge would fall upon the people. When morning broke he\nsought out the Chief and told him of the words of the Voice, but the\nChief, who was a haughty man, would not heed Coyote and coldly denied\nhim the hand of his daughter in marriage.\n\nCoyote returned to his lodge and soon there resounded through the\nforests the piercing cry of one in distress. Coyote rushed forth and\nbeheld a man covered with sores across the river. This man related to\nCoyote how he was the last survivor of a war party that had come upon\na village once occupied by the enemy whom they sought, but as they\napproached they saw no smoke arising from the tipis and no sign of life.\nThey came forward very cautiously, but all was silent and deserted. From\nlodge to lodge they passed, and finally they came upon an old woman,\npitted and scabbed, lying alone and dying. With her last breath she told\nthem of a scourge which had fallen upon the village, consuming brave and\nchild alike, until she, of all the lodges, was left to mourn the rest.\nThen one by one the war party which had ridden so gallantly to conquest\nand glory, felt an awful heat as of fire run through their veins.\nBurning and distraught they leaped into the cold waters of a river and\ndied.\n\nSuch was the story of the man whom Coyote met in the woods. He alone\nremained, disfigured, diseased, doomed. So Coyote brought him into the\nvillage and quenched his thirst that he might pass more easily to the\nHappy Hunting Ground. But as the Great Spirit had revealed to Coyote\nwhile he slept, the scourge fell upon the people and laid them low,\nscarcely enough grief-stricken survivors remaining to weep for their\nlost dead.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBesides this legendary narrative of the visitation of smallpox there\nare other authenticated instances of the plague wreaking its vengeance\nupon the Selish and depleting their villages to desolation. In this wise\nthe tribe was thinned again and again and as early as 1813, Mr. Cox\nof the Northwest Fur Company, told in his \"Adventures\" that once the\nSelish were more powerful by far in number than in the day of his coming\namongst them.\n\nThere was also another cause for the nation's decline quite as\ndestructive as the plague;--the unequal hostility continuing generation\nafter generation, without capitulation or truce, with the Blackfeet.\nThe country of the Selish abounded in game but it was a part of the\ntribal code of honour to hunt the buffalo in the fields where their\nancestors had hunted. All of the deadly animosity between the two\npeoples, all of the bloodshed of their cruel wars, was for no other\npurpose than to maintain the right to seek the beloved herds in the\nfavoured fields which they believed their forefathers had won. The\njealousy with which this privilege of the chase was guarded and\npreserved even to the death explains many national peculiarities, forms,\nindeed, the keynote to their life of freedom on the plains.\n\nIt is possible that the Selish would have been annihilated had not the\nestablishment of new trading-posts enabled them to get fire-arms which\nthe Blackfeet had long possessed. This means of defence gave them fresh\nstrength and thereafter the odds against them were not as great.\n\nThe annals of the tribe, so full of tragedy and joy, of fact and\nfancy, of folk-lore and wood-lore, contain many stories of war glory\nreminiscent of the days of struggle. Even now there stands, near\nRavalli in the Jocko, a rock resembling a man, called by the Indians\nthe Stone Sentinel, which touchingly attests the fidelity and bravery\nof a nameless hero. The story is that one of the runners who had gone\nin advance of a war-party after the Indian custom, was surprised while\nkeeping watch and killed by the Blackfeet. The body remained erect and\nwas turned to stone, a monument of devotion to duty so strong that not\neven death could break his everlasting vigil.\n\nNotwithstanding their love of glory on the war-path and hunting-field,\nthey were a peaceable people. The most beautiful of their traditions\nare based upon religious themes out of which grew a poetical symbolism,\nhalf devotional, half fantastic. And even to-day, in spite of their\nprofession of Christianity, there lives in the heart of the Indian the\nold paganism, not unlike that of the Greeks, which spiritualizes every\nobject of the woods and waters.\n\nThey thought that in the Beginning the good Spirit came up out of the\nEast and the Evil Spirit out of the West, and then began the struggle,\ntypified by light and darkness, which has gone on ever since. From this\ncentral idea they have drawn the rainbow Spirit-fancy which arches their\ndream-sky from horizon to horizon. They consider some trees and rocks\nsacred; again they hold a lake or stream in superstitious dread and shun\nit as a habitation of the evil one.\n\nThus, a cave in the neighbouring hills where rattlesnakes sleep in\nWinter, they avoided in the past, not on account of the common snakes,\nbut because within the damp, dark recesses of that subterranean den, the\nKing of Snakes, a huge, horned reptile dwelt, appearing occasionally in\nall his venomous, scaled beauty, striking terror wherever he was seen.\nA clear spring bubbled near the cave but not even the cold purity of\nthe water could tempt the Indians to that accursed vicinity until by\nsome revelation they learned that the King Snake had migrated to other\nfastnesses. He is still seen, so they say, gliding stealthily amongst\ndeserted wastes, his crest reared evily, and death in his poison tail.\n\nIn contrast to this cave of darkness is the spiritual legend of the\nSacred Pine. Upon those same gentle hills of the Jocko it grows, lifting\nits lessening cone of green toward heaven. It has been there past the\nmemory of the great-grand-fathers of the present generation and from\ntime immemorial it has been held sacred by the Selish tribe. High upon\nits venerable branches hangs the horn of a Bighorn Sheep, fixed there so\nfirmly by an unknown hand, before even the tradition of the Selish had\nshaped its ghostly form out of the mists of the past, that the blizzard\nhas not been strong enough to wrench it from its place, nor the frost\nto gnaw it away. No one knows whence the ram's horn came nor what it\nsignifies, but the tree is considered holy and the Indians believe that\nit possesses supernatural powers. Hence, offerings are made to it of\nmoccasins, beads, weasel skins, and such little treasures of wearing\napparel or handiwork as they most esteem, and at certain seasons,\nbeneath the cool, sweet shadow of its generous boughs the devoted\nworshippers, going back through the little superficialities of recent\ncivilization to the magnetic pole of their own true blood and beliefs,\nassemble to dance with religious fervor around its base upon the green.\nThe missionary fathers discourage such idolatrous practices; but the\npoor children of the woods play truant, nevertheless, and wander back\nthrough the cycle of the centuries to do honour to the old, sweet object\nof their devotion in the primitive, pagan way. And surely the Great\nSpirit who watches over white and red man impartially, can scarcely be\njealous of this tribute of love to a tree,--the instinctive, race-old\nfestival of a woodland tribe.\n\nThere is another pine near Ravalli revered because it recalls the days\nof the chase. It stands upon the face of a mountain somewhat apart from\nits brethren of the forest, and there the Bighorn Sheep used to take\nrefuge when pursued. If driven to bay, the leader, followed by his band,\nleaped to death from this eminence. It is known as the Pine of the\nBighorn Sheep.\n\nThus, it will be seen there lives among the Selish a symbolism, making\nobjects which they love chapters in the great unwritten book, wherein\nis celebrated the heroic past. He who has the key to that volume of\ntribe-lore, may learn lessons of valour and achievement, of patience and\nsacrifice. And colouring the whole story, making beautiful its least\nphase, is the sentiment of the people, even as the haze is the poetry\nof the hills.\n\n\nII\n\nAs heroic or disastrous events are celebrated in verbal chronicles\nit follows that the home of the Selish is storied ground. Before the\npressure of civilization, encroaching in ever-narrowing circles upon\nthe hunting-ground of the Indians, cramping and crowding them within\na smaller space, driving them inch by inch to the confinement which\nis their death, the Selish wandered at will over a stretch of country\nbeautiful alike in the reality of its landscape and in the richness\nof myth and legend which hang over every peak and transfigure every\nlake and stream. To know this country and the people it has sheltered\nthrough past centuries one must first glean something of that ephemeral\nstory-charm which records in crag, in mist, in singing stream and\nspreading tree the dreams made almost real by the thousands of souls\nwho have treasured them, and given them, lip to lip, from old to young,\nsince the forests were first green upon the hills.\n\nThe land of the Selish extended eastward to that portion of the Main\nRange of the Rocky Mountains known to them as _Sin-yal-min_, or the\n\"Mountains of the Surrounded,\" from the fact that once a hunting party\nsurrounded and killed a herd of elk by a stream upon those heights;\nanother time a war-party surrounded and slew a company of Blackfeet\nwithin the woods upon the mountain side. Though this range marked the\neastern boundary of their territory, they hunted buffalo, as we have\nseen, still east of its mighty peaks,--a region made bloody by battles\nbetween the Selish and the Blackfeet tribes. Westward, they wandered\nover the fertile valley of Sin-yal-min, where they, in common with the\nPend d'Oreilles, Kootanais and Nez Perc\u00e9s enjoyed its fruits and fields\nof grain. This valley is bounded to the north by the great Flathead\nLake, a body of water vast in its sweep, winding through narrow channels\namong wooded shores ever unfolding new and unexposed vistas as one\ntraverses it. On a calm summer day, when the sun's rays are softened\nby gossamer veils of haze, the water, the mountain-peaks and sky are\nfaintly traced in shades of grey and faded rose as in mother-of-pearl.\nAnd on such days as this, at rare intervals, a strange phenomenon\noccurs,--_the reflection of a reflection_. Looking over the rail of a\nsteamer within the semi-circular curve of the swell at its stern, one\nmay see, first the reflection of the shore line, the mountains and trees\nappearing upside down, then a second shore line perfectly wrought in\nthe mirroring waters right side up, pine-crest touching pine-crest,\npeak poised against peak. This lake was the Selish's conception of\nthe greatest of waters, for their wandering never took them to the\nAtlantic or Pacific Seas, and in such small craft as they used to\ntravel over the forty miles of water among serpentining shores, the\ndistance must have seemed immense. Many islands rise from the lake,\nthe largest of them, Wild Horse Island, is timbered and mountainous,\nand so big as to appear like an arm of the main land. This Wild Horse\nIsland, where in olden days bands of wild horses were found, possesses\na peculiar interest. Upon its steep cliffs are hieroglyphics traced\nin pigments unknown to-day, telling the forgotten story of a lost\nrace. The same strange figures appear upon the sheer escarpments of\nthe mainland shore. These rock-walls are moss-grown and colored by the\nlichen, chrome yellow, burnt orange, russet-brown and varying shades\nof bronze-green like Autumn leaves, and upon them broods a shadow as\ndarkly impenetrable as the mystery which they hold. Still, it is easy to\ndistinguish upon the heroic tablets of stone, crude figures of horses\nand some incomprehensible marks. These writings have been variously\ninterpreted or guessed at. Some declare them to be ancient war signals\nof the Selish, others suggest that they were records of hunting parties\nleft behind for the guidance and information of the tribe; but they,\nthemselves, deny all knowledge of them, saying that to them as to us,\nthe pictured rocks are a wonder and a riddle, the silent evidence of\nfoot-falls so remote that not even an echo has come down to us through\nthe centuries.\n\nSuch are the valley of Sin-yal-min and the Lake of the Flathead where\nthe Selish hunted. But their real home, the seat of their fathers,\nwas the Bitter Root Valley, where one branch of the tribe, headed by\nCharlot, the son of Victor, lived until the recent exodus. Therefore,\nthe Bitter Root Valley was particularly dear to the hearts of these\nIndians. It was there the bond between the kindred tribes, the Nez\nPerc\u00e9s and the Selish, was broken; there the pioneer Fathers came to\nbuild the first Mission and plant the first Cross among these docile\nchildren of the wood. It was there they clung together like frightened\nsheep until they were driven forth to seek new homes in the Valley of\nthe Jocko, which was to be merely a station in their enforced retreat.\n\nEastward and southward from the Bitter Root, the Jocko and the range\nof Sin-yal-min in the contested country, is a ca\u00f1on called the Hell\nGate, because within its narrow limits, the Blackfeet wreaked vengeance\nupon their less warlike foes. Flowing through the ca\u00f1on is a river,\n_In-mis-sou-let-ka_, corrupted into Missoula, which bears one of the\nmost beautiful of the Selish legends.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCoyote was taking his way through a pass in the mountains during the\nancient days, when there came to him, out of the closed lip of silence,\nthe echo of a sound. He stopped to listen, in doubt if it were the\nsinging of waters or human voices that he heard, and as he listened the\necho grew into a reality and the strains of wondrous, weirdly sweet\nmusic greeted his ear. He followed the illusive melody, attracted as by\nmagic, and at last he saw upon the flower-sown green a circle of young\nwomen, dancing around and around, hand clasped in hand, forming a chain\nand singing as they danced. They beckoned to Coyote and called unto him,\nsaying:\n\n\"Thou art beautiful, O Warrior! and strong as is the sun. Come dance\nwith us and we will sing to thee.\"\n\nCoyote, like one who walks in his sleep, obeyed them and joined the\nenchanted circle. Then he perceived that as they danced and sang they\ndrew him closer and closer to a great river that lashed itself into a\nblind, white fury of foam upon the rocks. Coyote became afraid like a\nwoman. He noted with dread the water-weed in the maidens' hair and the\nevil beauty of their eyes. He strove to break away but he was powerless\nto resist them and he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer the roaring\ntorrent, until at last the waters closed over him in whirlpools and he\nknew no more.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Fox, who was wise and crafty, passed along the shore and there he\nfound, among the water-weeds and grasses the lifeless body of Coyote\nwhich had been cast up by the waters, even as they had engulfed him.\nThe Fox was grieved for he loved Coyote, so he bent over the corpse and\nbrought it back to life. Coyote opened his eyes and saw his friend, but\nthe chill of the water was in his blood and he was numb. Then above the\nroar of the river, echoed the magical measure of a weird-sweet song\nand through a green glade came the dancers who had lured Coyote to his\ndeath. He rose at the sound of the bewitching melody and strained\nforward to listen.\n\n\"It was they who led me to the river,\" he cried.\n\n\"Aye, truly. They are the water Sirens and thou must destroy them,\"\nreplied the Fox.\n\nAt those words Coyote's heart became inflamed with ire; he grew strong\nwith purpose and crept forward, noiseless as a snake, unobserved by the\nwater-maidens.\n\nThey were dancing like a flock of white butterflies upon a stretch of\ngrass yellowed and seared by the heat of the sun. Swiftly and silently\nCoyote set fire to the grass, imprisoning them in a ring of flame. They\nsaw the wall of fire leap up around them and their singing was changed\nto cries. They turned hither and thither and sought to fly to the water\nbut the way was barred by the hot red-gold embrace of the fire.\n\nWhen the flames had passed, Coyote went to the spot where the Sirens\nhad danced, and there upon the blackened ground he found a heap of\ngreat, white shells. He took these, the remains of the water-maidens,\nand cast them into the river, saying as he did so:\n\n\"I call thee _In-mis-sou-let-ka_ and thou shalt forever bear that name!\"\n\nThus it was that the river flowing through the Hell Gate came by the\ntitle of In-mis-sou-let-ka, which men render into English by the\ninadequate words of \"_The River of Awe_.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThrough the length and breadth of the country are story-bearing\nland-marks. There is a rock in the Jocko, small of size but of weight so\nmighty that no Indian, however strong, can move it; there is a mountain\nwhich roars and growls like an angry monster; there is a cliff where a\nbrave of the legendary age of heroes battled hand to hand with a grizzly\nbear, and a thousand other spots, each hallowed by a memory. So, through\npeak and lowland, rivers and forests one can find the faery-spell of\nromance, lending the commonest stone individuality and interest. And the\nmost prosaic pilgrim wandering along haunted streams, cooling in the\nshadow of storied woods and upon the shores of enchanted lakes, must\nfeel the spell of poesy upon him; must look with altered vision upon the\nwhispering trees, listen with quickened hearing to the articulate murmur\nof the rivers, knowing for a time at least, the subtle fellowship with\nthe woodland which is in the heart of the Indian.\n\nSuch is the legended land of the Selish, a land fit for gentle, poetic\nfolk to dwell in, a land worthy for brave and devoted men to lay down\ntheir lives to save.\n\n\nIII\n\nWithin the Bitter Root Valley dwelt Charlot, _Slem-Hak-Kah_, \"Little\nClaw of a Grizzly Bear,\" son of the great chief Victor, \"The Lodge\nPole,\" and therefore by hereditary right Head Chief of the Selish tribe.\nThat valley is perhaps the most favoured land of the region. The snow\nmelts earlier within its mountain-bound heart, the blizzard drives less\nfiercely over its slopes and the Spring comes there sooner, sprinkling\nthe grass with the rose stars of the Bitter Root. Under the guidance\nof the missionary fathers the Indians learned to till the soil and the\nbounty of their toil was sufficient, for the rich earth yielded fine\ncrops of grain and fruit. The Indians who sowed and plowed their small\ngarden-spots, and the kindly fathers who watched over their prosperity,\nlittle dreamed that in the free gift of the earth and the mild beauty of\nthe land lay the cause which should wreak the red man's ruin. This land\nwas dear to the hearts of the people. Victor, their brave guardian, had\nsaved it for them at the treaty of the Hell Gate when they were called\nupon to give up part of their territory to the increasing demands of\nthe whites. Those of the dominant race kept coming into the Bitter Root\nand they were welcomed by the Indians. Thus, bit by bit the valley was\ntaken up, its fame spread and it became a region so desirable that the\ngovernment determined to move the Selish tribe out of the land of their\nfathers.\n\nCharlot was a courageous and honest man, a leader worthy of his trust.\nIt was he who met the Nez Perc\u00e9s as they descended into the Bitter Root,\nheaded by Chief Joseph, hot with the lust for the white man's scalp.\nThere are few more dramatic incidents in western history than Charlot's\nvisit to Chief Joseph on the LoLo trail and the ultimatum which he\ndelivered to the leader of the Nez Perc\u00e9 hosts.\n\nHe rode forth accompanied by Joe La Mousse and a small war-party,\ncarrying with him a little white boy. About his arm he had tied a snowy\nhandkerchief in token of the peaceful character of his errand. When the\ntwo Chiefs, Charlot and Joseph faced each other, Charlot spoke these\nwords, slowly, defiantly as one who has made a great decision:\n\n\"Joseph, I have something to say to you. It will be in a few words.\n\n\"You know I am not afraid of you.\n\n\"You know I can whip you.\n\n\"If you are going through the valley you must not hurt any of the\nwhites. If you do you will have me and my people to fight.\n\n\"You may camp at my place to-night but to-morrow you must pass on.\"\n\nAnd it was as Charlot decreed. Joseph the brave, intractable warrior who\ndid battle with the army of the United States and kept the cleverest\nof our generals guessing at his strategies, bent to the iron will of\nCharlot. The Nez Perc\u00e9s passed peacefully through the valley and never a\nsoul was harmed.\n\nIn the long, cruel struggle that followed, when Chief Joseph and his\nbraves struck terror to the settlers, leaving death and ruin in their\npath, Charlot remained staunch and true. Indeed, the boast of the Selish\nis that they, as a nation, were never guilty of taking a white man's\nlife.\n\nMeantime, while they lived in peace and plenty, the fates had sealed\ntheir doom. There is no use reiterating the long, painful story of the\ntreaty between the Selish and the government, ceding to the latter the\nland where the tribal ancestors lived and died. Charlot declared he did\nnot sign away the birth-right of his people and he was an honourable\nman. He and his friends went farther and said that his mark was forged.\nOn the other hand some of those who were witnesses for the United\nStates maintain that the name Charlot was written like that of Arlee\nand others, with a blank space left for the mark, or signature of each\nChief. They further state that Charlot never affixed his mark to the\ndocument nor was it forged as he asserted to the end. This is at best\nmere evasion. One of two things happened: a fraudulent signature was\nput upon the face of the treaty to deceive the government, or Charlot,\nas Head Chief, was overridden and ignored. Whatever the means employed\nthe outcome was the same. It was an unhappy day for the Indians. They\nhad no recourse but to submit, so most of them headed by Arlee, the War\nChief, struck their tipis, abandoned the toil-won fields where they had\nlaboured so long and so patiently, left the shadow of the Cross where\nthey were baptized, and went forth into the Jocko to begin again the\nstruggle which should never be more than a beginning.\n\n[Illustration: JOE LA MOUSSE]\n\nBut Charlot the royal-blooded, son of a long line of fighting chiefs,\nwas not to be moved by the master-hand like a pawn in a game of chess.\nHe haughtily refused to leave the Bitter Root Valley, telling his\npeople that those of them who wished to go should follow Arlee, but he\nwith a few of the faithful, would lie down to his repose in the land\nof his fathers beneath peaks that mingle with the sky. With impassive\ndignity he and a party of his loyal band went to Washington at the\nbidding of the Great Father to listen to the justice of the white man's\nclaim. Charlot proudly declined to accept pension and authority bought\nat the price of his exile. He wished only the \"poor privilege\" of\ndwelling in the valley where his fathers had dwelt; of resting at last,\nwhere they had lain so long. He wanted neither money nor land,--simply\npermission to live in the home of his childhood, his manhood and\nold age. He added that he would never be taken alive to the Jocko\nReservation. The Powers saw no merit in the sentiment of the old Chief.\nHe had dared to oppose their will and they determined to break his\nspirit. He might remain in the Bitter Root the All-Wise decreed, but in\nremaining he relinquished every right. More crushing to him than poverty\nand exile was the final blow to his pride. In a sense he was King of\nhis tribe. The title of Great Chief descended from father to son, even\nas the crowns of empires are handed down. The War Chiefs, on the other\nhand, were elected to command the warriors for a year and at the end of\ntheir service they became simple braves again. The government, ignoring\nthe canons of the Selish, put Charlot aside, and Arlee, the Red Night,\nlast of the War Chiefs, took precedence over him and became Head Chief\nof his nation. Charlot was stripped of his title, his honours, his\nprivileges of land grant and pension; in other words, he was reduced\nfrom Great Chief to pauper.\n\nThus Charlot, who with his braves had defied his kinsfolk, the Nez\nPerc\u00e9s, to protect the weak colony of settlers in their Bitter Root home\nwas driven forth by these same strangers within his gates, and he, the\nbravest and best of his kind, shorn of the dignities his forebears and\nhe, himself, had won;--robbed, cast out, was held up to contumely as an\nunruly savage and spurned by the people his mercy had spared.\n\nFrom the Bitter Root, the poor wanderers took their way into the Jocko,\na region also fair, where some of their tribe already dwelt, and made\nfor themselves new homes. They accepted the change uncomplainingly and\nset to work to sow and reap in this adopted land.\n\nCharlot and his band of nearly two hundred lingered in the Bitter Root\nuntil 1891, when driven by hunger and suffering they followed their\ntribesmen into the Jocko. He had said he would never be _taken alive_\nto the new reservation, nor was he. Clad in his war dress, mounted on\nhis best horse, surrounded by his young men in full war regalia, he rode\ninto exile, proud, unbending as a triumphant Chief entering dominions\nwon by conquest. No expression of pain crossed his bronze-stern face;\nno hint of humility or subjection softened the majesty of his mien. He\nand his braves were met by the Selish who had gone before, with great\nostentation and ceremony. Charlot never forgot nor forgave. He had been\ncast out, betrayed, but not conquered.\n\nThe Selish have learned to love the soft, yellow-green of the Jocko\nhills, the free sweep of its prairies, where sun flowers flow in a sea\nof gold beneath the rushing tide of the summer wind, and the prettily\nboisterous little Jocko River laughs and plays over its rocky bed\nbetween a veritable jungle of trees and vines and flowers. In these\nwoods bordering the stream, the most luscious wild gooseberries,\nstrawberries and bright scarlet brew berries grow--this last, dear to\nthe Indian, is picked by the squaws and made into a sparkling draught.\nThere the trees are hung with dense tapestries of blossoming vines,\nthick moss deadens the footstep and birds call shrilly from the\ntwilight of the trees. But the Jocko and Sin-yal-min are beautiful and\nfertile, and wherever there is beauty and fertility there comes the\nMaster saying:\n\n\"_This is mine by right of might! Go forth again O Indian! There are\nlean hills and deserts left for thee!_\"\n\nAnd the Indian, grown used to such things, folds his tipi and takes his\nway into the charity of the lessening wilderness.\n\nNot long ago a strange thing came to pass. One evening the sun set\nin a passion of red and gold. The tide of light pulsed through the\nskies, the air throbbed and shimmered with it, and every lake and pool\nreflected its ruddy splendour until they seemed to be filled with\nblood. The Indians gazed at the spectacle in silent awe. Groups of them\non horseback, dark figures silhouetted against the bright sky, stared\ncuriously at the awful glory of the heavens and earth, whispered in\nlow tones together and were afraid. Was the Great Spirit revealing\nsomething to his children? Some there were who thought that the crimson\nbanners in the West foretold a disaster and verily it was true. The end\nwas near. The sun was setting forever upon their freedom. Once more the\nchildren of the old time would be driven to another camping ground where\nthey might halt for a little space and rest their weary heads before\nthey take up the march upon their endless retreat.\n\n\nIV\n\nDuring the Summer at the time when the sun reached his greatest\nstrength, according to the ancient custom, the Selish gathered together\nto dance. In this celebration is embodied the spirit of the people,\ntheir pride, their hates and loves. But this dance had a peculiar\nsignificance. It was, perhaps, the last that the tribe will celebrate.\nAnother year the white man will occupy the land, and the free, roving\nlife and its habits will be gone. It was a scene never to be forgotten.\nOverhead a sky deeply azure at its zenith which mellowed toward the West\ninto a tide of ruddy gold flowing between the blue heavens and the green\nearth; far, far away, dim, amethyst mountains dreaming in the haze;\nand through that rose-gold flood of light, sharply outlined against\nthe intense blue above and the tender green below, silent figures on\nhorseback, gay with blankets, beads and buckskins, rode out of the filmy\ndistance into the splendour of the setting sun, and noiselessly took\ntheir places around the musicians on the grass.\n\nThere were among them the most distinguished men of the tribe. Joe La\nMousse, once a warrior of fame, grown to an honored old age, watched\nthe younger generation with the simple dignity which becomes one of his\nyears and rank. He possessed the richest war dress of all, strung with\nelks' teeth and resplendent with the feathers of the war-eagle. It was\nhe, who with Charlot, met the Nez Perc\u00e9s and repudiated their bloody\ncampaign; he, whose valiant ancestor, Ignace La Mousse, the Iroquois,\nhelped to make glorious the name of his adopted people. _Fran\u00e7ois_ and\n_Kai-Kai-She_, the judge, both honoured patriarchs, and Chief Antoine\nMoise, _Callup-Squal-She_, \"Crane with a ring around his neck,\" who\nfollowed Charlot to Washington on his mission of protest, moved and\nmingled in the bright patchwork of groups upon the green. There was\nnone more imbued with the spirit of festivity than old Fran\u00e7ois with\nwhite hair falling to his bowed shoulders. These and many more there\nwere whose prime had known happier days. Chief Moise's wife, a handsome\nsquaw, rode in with her lord, and conspicuous among the women was a\nslim wisp of a girl with an oval face, buckskin-colored complexion, and\ngreat, dusky, twilight eyes. A pale gray-green blanket was wrapped\nabout her head and body, hanging to her moccasined feet. She was the\nwife of Michel Kaiser, the young leader of the braves. But towering\nabove the rest of the assembly, regal to the point of austerity, was a\nman aged but still erect, as though his strength of pride would never\nlet his shoulders stoop beneath the conquering years. He wore his\nblanket folded closely around him and fanned himself with an eagle's\nwing, the emblem of the warrior. One eye was hidden beneath a white film\nwhich had shut out its sight forever, but the other, coal-black and\npiercing, met the stranger gaze for gaze, never flinching, never turning\naside. It was Charlot. Though an exile, his head was still unbent, his\nspirit unbroken.\n\nSometimes we see in the aged, the placid melancholy which comes with\nthe foreknowledge of death, so in the serenely sad faces of the aged\nIndians, we recognize that greater melancholy which is born of the\nforeshadowing of racial death. They cherish, too, a more personal grief\nin that they shall live to see the passing of the old life. Patiently\nthey submitted to the expulsion from the Bitter Root, but now in the\ndarkness of gathering years once more they must strike their tipis to\nmake room for the invading hosts. The setting sun streamed through the\nleaves and touched the venerable faces with false youth. Wagon and\npony discharged their human loads who sat passively, listening to the\nadmonition of the tom-tom and the chant:\n\n    \"_Come, O! ye people! Come and dance!_\"\n\nAfter this preliminary measure had lasted hours, not an Indian professed\nto know whether the people would be moved to dance or not. A race\ncharacteristic is that impulse must quicken them to action. It was\nstrange how the tidings had spread. The tipis and lodges are scattered\nover many miles, but the Indians kept coming as though called up by\nmagic from their hiding places in the hills.\n\nBeneath a clump of cottonwood trees around the tom-tom, a drum made of\ndeer hide stretched over a hollowed section of green tree, sat the four\nmusicians beating the time of the chant with sticks bound in strips of\ncloth. Of these players one was blind, another aged, and the remaining\ntwo, in holiday attire, with painted lips and cheeks, were braves. One\nof these, seated a trifle higher than his companions, leaned indolently\nover the tom-tom plying his sticks with careless grace. He possessed a\npeculiar magnetism which marked him a leader. Occasionally his whole\nbody thrilled with sudden animation, his voice rose into a strident cry,\nthen he relapsed into the languid posture and the bee-like drone. Of all\nthat gathering he was the one perfect, full-blood specimen of a brave in\nthe height of his prime. The dandy, Victor Vanderberg, was handsomer\nperhaps, and little Jerome had the beauty of a head of Raphael, but this\nMichel Kaiser was a type apart. His face and slim, nimble hands were the\ncolour of bronze. His nose curved sharply as a hawk's beak, his mouth\nwas compressed in a hard, cold line over his white teeth, his cheek\nbones were high and prominent, his brows straight, sable strokes above\nsmall, bright-black eyes that gleamed keen as arrow darts. His hair was\nmade into two thick braids wrapped around with brown fur, his arms were\ndecorated with bracelets and from his neck hung string upon string of\nbeads falling to his waist. It was he who with suppressed energy flung\nback his head as he gave the shrill cry and quickened the beat of the\ntom-tom until louder and louder, faster and faster swelled the chant:\n\n\"_Come, O! ye people! Come and dance!_\"\n\nThen out into the open on the green stepped a girl-child scarcely three\nyears of age, who threw herself into rhythmic motion, swaying her small\nbody to the time of the music and bearing in her quavering treble the\nburden of the chant. The impressive faces of the spectators melted into\nsmiles. She was the pet of the tribe, the orphan granddaughter of Joe La\nMousse and his venerable wife. Loving hands had made for her a war dress\nwhich she wore with the grave complaisance of one favoured above her\npeers. She scorned the sedate dances of the squaws and chose the quicker\naction of the war dance, and she would not yield her possession of the\nfield without a struggle which showed that the spirit of her fighting\nfathers still lived in her.\n\nSuddenly a brave painted grotesquely, dressed in splendid colours with\na curious contrivance fastened about his waist and standing out behind\nlike a tail, bounded into the ring, his hurrying feet beating to the\ntintinnabulation of sleigh bells attached to his legs. Michel Kaiser and\nthe young man who sat beside him at the tom-tom gave up their places\nto others, and after disappearing for a moment came forth freed from\nencumbering blankets, transformed with paint and ornament. A fourth\ndancer joined them and the awe-begetting war dance began. The movement\nwas one of restrained force. With bent heads and bodies inclined\nforward, one arm hanging limp and the other resting easily at the back,\nthey tripped along until a war-whoop like an electric shock, sent them\nspringing into the air with faces turned upward and clenched fists\nuplifted toward the sky.\n\nIt was now that Michel stood revealed in all his physical beauty. In\ncolour and form he was like a perfectly wrought bronze statue. He was\ntall and slender. His arms and legs, metal-hard, were fleet and strong\nand his every motion expressed agility and grace. He was clad in the\nfull war-dress of the Selish, somewhat the same as that which his\nancestors had worn before the coming of the white man. Upon his head\nwas a bonnet of skunk tails that quivered with the slightest motion\nof his sinewy body. He wore, besides, a shirt, long, fringed buckskin\nleggins and beaded moccasins. He was decorated with broad anklets and\nlittle bells that tinkled as he moved. Of the four dancers Michel sprang\nhighest, swung in most perfect rhythm, spent in that wild carnival most\nenergy and force. Supple and lean as a panther he curvetted and darted;\nlight as the wind his moccasined feet skimmed over the green, scarcely\nseeming to crush a spear of grass. As he went through that terrible\npantomime practiced by his fathers before they set out to kill or die,\nthe fire flashing in his lynx-eyes, his slim arm poised over his head,\nhis whole willow-lithe body swaying to the impulse of the war-lust,\nit was easy to fancy how that play might become a reality and he who\ndanced to perpetuate an ancient form might turn relentless demon if the\nintoxication of the war-path once kindled in his veins.\n\n[Illustration: ABRAHAM ISAAC AND MICHEL KAISER]\n\nThis war dance explained many things. It was a portrayal of the glorious\ndeeds of the warriors, a recitation of victorious achievement, a picture\nof battle, of striking the body of the fallen enemy--one of the great\ntests of valor. The act of striking was considered a far more gallant\nfeat than the taking of a scalp. After a foe was shot and had fallen,\na brave seeking distinction, dashed forth from his own band into the\nopen field and under the deadly rain of the enemy's arrows, struck with\nhis hand the body of the dead or wounded warrior. In doing this he not\nonly courted the desperate danger of that present moment, but brought\nupon his head the relentless vengeance of the family, the followers and\nthe tribe of the fallen foe,--vengeance of a kind that can wait for\nyears without growing cold. By such inspiring examples the young men\nwere stirred to emulation. The dance showed, too, how in the past\nthe storm-clouds of war gathered slowly until, with lightning flash\nand thunder-blast, the warriors lashed themselves to the white-heat\nof frenzy at which they mocked death. The whole thing seemed to be a\nmarshalling of the passions, a blood-fire as irresistible and sweeping\nas those floods of flame which lay the forests low.\n\nThe warriors ceased their mad career. The sweat streamed from their\nbrows and down their cheeks as they sat beneath the shade trees in\nrepose. Still the tom-tom beat and the chant continued:\n\n\"_Come, O! ye people! Come and dance!_\"\n\nThey needed no urging now. What did they care for vespers and sermons\nwhen the ghostly voices of warrior-ancestors, of forest dwellers and\nhuntsmen came echoing from the lips of the past? Their spirit was\naroused and the festival would last until the passion was quenched and\ntheir veins were cooled.\n\nThe next dance was started by a squaw. It was called the \"choosing\ndance,\" from the fact that either a man or a woman chose a partner for\nthe figure. The ceremony of invitation was simple. The one who desired\nto invite another, grasped the individual's arm and said briefly:\n\n\"Dance!\"\n\nThe couples formed two circles around the tom-tom, one within the other,\nthen slowly the two rings moved 'round and 'round, with a kind of short,\nspringing step, droning the never-varying chant. At the end of the\ndance the one who had chosen his partner presented him with a gift. In\nsome cases a horse or a cow was bestowed and not infrequently blankets\nand the most cherished bead-work belts and hat-bands. Custom makes the\nacceptance of these favours compulsory. Even the alien visitors were\nasked to take part and the Indians laughed like pleased children to\nwelcome them to the dance. One very old squaw, Mrs. \"Nine Pipes,\" took\nher blanket from her body and her 'kerchief from her head to give\nto her white partner, and a brave, having chosen a pale-faced lady\nfor the figure, and being depleted in fortune by his generosity at a\nformer festival, borrowed fifty cents from a richer companion to bestow\nupon her. It was all done in the best of faith and friendliness, with\nchild-like good will and pleasure in the doing.\n\nWhen the next number was called, those who had been honoured with\ninvitations and gifts returned the compliment. After this was done,\nthe Master of the Dance, Michel Kaiser, stepped into the center of the\ncircle, saying in the deep gutturals of the Selish tongue, with all the\npomp of one who makes a proclamation, something which may be broadly\nrendered into these English words:\n\n\"This brave, Jerome, chose for his partner, Mary, and gave to her a belt\nof beads, and Mary chose for her partner, Jerome, and gave to him a\nsilken scarf.\"\n\nAround the circumference of the great ring he moved, crying aloud the\nnames of the braves and maids who had joined together in the dance, and\nholding up to view the presents they had exchanged.\n\nThe next in order was a dance of the chase by the four young men who had\nperformed the war dance. In this the hunter and the beast he pursued\nwere impersonated and the pantomime carried out every detail of the\nfleeing prey and the crafty huntsmen who relentlessly drove him to earth.\n\nThe fourth measure was the scalp dance given by the squaws, a rite\nanciently practiced by the female members of families whose lords had\nreturned victorious from battle, bearing as trophies the scalps of\nenemies they had slain. It was considered an indignity and a matter of\njust reproach to her husband or brother, if a squaw were unable to take\npart in this dance. The scalps captured in war were first displayed\noutside the lodges of the warriors whose spoil they were, and after a\ntime, when they began to mortify or \"break down,\" as the Indians say,\nthe triumphant squaws gathered them together, threw them into the dust\nand stamped on them, heaping upon them every insult and in the weird\nceremony of that ghoulish dance, consigning them to eternal darkness,\nfor no brave without his scalp could enter the Happy Hunting Ground. The\nchant changed in this figure. The voices of the women rose in a piercing\nfalsetto, broken by a rapid utterance of the single syllable \"la, la\"\nrepeated an incredible length of time. The effect was singularly savage\nand strange, emphasizing the barbarous joy of the vengeful women. As the\nwar dance was the call to battle, this was the aftermath.\n\nIn pleasing contrast to this cruel rite was the marriage dance,\ncelebrated by both belles and braves. The young squaws, in their gayest\nattire, ornamented with the best samples of their bead work and painted\nbright vermillion about the lips and cheeks, formed a chain around\nthe tom-tom, singing shrilly. Then a brave with a party of his friends\nstepped within the circle, bearing in his hand a stick, generally a\nsmall branch of pine or other native tree. He approached the object\nof his love and laid the branch on her shoulder. If she rejected his\nsuit she pushed the branch aside and he, with his followers, retired\nin humiliation and chagrin. It often happened that more than one youth\ndesired the hand of the same maiden, and the place of the rejected lover\nwas taken immediately by a rival who made his prayer. If the maid looked\nwith favor upon him she inclined her head, laying her cheek upon the\nbranch. This was at once the betrothal and the marriage. At the close of\nthe festivities the lover bore her to his lodge and they were considered\nman and wife.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe sun set mellow rose behind the hills which swam in seas of\ndeepening blue. Twilight unfolded shadows that climbed from the valleys\nto the peaks and touched them with deadening gray chill, until the warm\nglow died in the bosom of the night. Still the tom-tom beat, the chant\nrose and fell, the dancers wheeled on madly, singing as they danced. The\ndarkness thickened. The stars wrote midnight in the sky. Papooses had\nfallen asleep and women sat mute and tired with watching. By the flare\nof a camp fire, running in uneven lights over the hurrying figures,\none might see four braves leaping and swaying in the war dance. The\nnight wore on. A heavy silence was upon the hills which echoed back the\nwar cry, the tom-tom's throb and the chant. One, then another, then a\nthird dropped out. Still the quivering, sweat-burnished bronze body of\nMichel writhed and twisted, bent and sprang. The lines of his face had\nhardened, the vermillion ran down his cheeks in rivulets, as of blood,\nand the corners of his mouth were drawn like the curves of a bow. The\ncamp fire glowed low. The gray of the dawn came up out of the East with\na little shuddering wind and the faint stars burned out. The tom-tom\npulsed slower, the chant was broken. Suddenly a wild cry thrilled\nthrough the pallid morn. The figure of Michel darted upward like a\nrocket in a final brilliant gush of life, then fell senseless upon the\nground.\n\nThe embers grayed to ashes. The last spark was dead. The dance was done.\nThe mists of morning rolled up from the valleys and unfurled their pale\nshrouds along the peaks, and the Indians, mere shadow-shapes, like\nphantoms in a dream, stole silently away and vanished with the night.\n\n\n\n\n_ENCHANTED WATERS_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nENCHANTED WATERS\n\n\nI\n\nThere is a lake in the cloistered fastnesses of Sin-yal-min, named by\nthe Jesuit priests St. Mary's, but called by the Indians the Waters\nof the Forgiven. It is a small body of water overshadowed by abrupt\nmountains, fed by a beautiful fall and for some reason, impossible\nto explain, it is haunted by an atmosphere at once ghostly and sad.\nSo potent is this intangible dread, this fear of something unseen,\nthis melancholy begotten of a cause unknown, that every visitor is\nconscious of it. Most of all, the Indians, impressionable and fanciful\nas children, feel the weird spell and cherish a legend of it as nebulous\nas the mists that flutter in pale wraith-shapes across its enchanted\ndepths.\n\nThe story goes that once, long ago, someone was killed upon the lake and\nthe troubled spirit returns to haunt the scene of its mortal passing,\nbut the murderer, smitten with remorse and repenting of his crime was\nfinally forgiven by the Great Spirit, and the lake became known as the\nWaters of the Forgiven. The shadow of that crime has never lifted and\nit broods forever over the lake's dark face and upon the mountains that\nhold it in their cup of stone. There the echo is multiplied. If one\ncalls aloud, a chorus of fantastic, mocking voices takes up the sound\nand it goes crying through the solitude like lost souls in Purgatory.\nThe Waters of the Forgiven exhale their eternal sigh, their pensive\ngloom, even when the sun rides high in the blue, but to feel the\nfullness of its spectral melancholy, one must seek it out in the secrecy\nof night. Then, as the mellow moon rises over the mountain tops laying\nthe pale fingers of its rays suggestively on rock and tree, touching\nthem with magical illusion and transforming them to goblin shapes, one\npalpitates with strange fear, is impressed with impending disaster.\nAs the moonlight flows in misty streams, sealing ravine and lake-deep\nin shadow the more intense for the contrast of white, discriminating\nlight that runs quicksilver-like upon the ripples of the water and the\nquivering needles of the pine, the silence is broken by dismal howls. It\nis the lean, gray timber wolves. Their mournful cry is flung back again\nby the ghostly pack that no eye sees and no foot can track. Mountain\nlions yell shrilly and are answered by distant ones of their kind and\ninevitably that other lesser cry comes back again and again as though\nthe phantom chorus could never forget nor leave off the burden of that\nlament. Out of the pregnant darkness into the spectral moonlight shadowy\ncreatures come to the shore to drink. The deer, the bear, sometimes the\nmountain lion and the elk stalk forth and quench their thirst. These\nthings are strange enough, savage enough to inspire fear, but it is\nnot they, nor the grisly mountains that create the terror which is a\nphantasm, the dread which is not of flesh nor earth.\n\nNo Indian, however brave, pitches his tipi by this lake nor crosses its\nwaters, for among the tangle of weeds in its black, mysterious bosom,\nwater sirens are believed to dwell. Ever watchful of human prey they\ngaze upward from their mossy couches and if a boatman venture out in\nhis frail canoe, they rise, entwining their strangling, white arms\nabout him, pressing him with kisses poisonous as the serpent's sting,\nbreathing upon him their blighting, deadly-sweet breath that dulls his\nsenses into the oblivion of eternal sleep.\n\n\nII\n\nThe Jocko or Spotted Lakes are enchanted waters also. They lie high up\nin the crown of the continent--the main range of the Rocky Mountains.\nTo reach them the traveller needs patience and strength of body and\nsoul, for the trail is long and tortuous, winding along the rim of\nsickening-steep ravines, across treacherous swamps, amid mighty forests\nto great altitudes. There are three lakes in this group, one above the\nother, the last being sometimes called the Clearwater Lake because it is\nwithin the borders of that terrible wilderness whose savage fastnesses\nhave claimed their prey of lost wanderers.\n\nThe first lake is inexpressibly ghostly. The flanks of the mountains\nrise sheer and frown down on murky waters, leaving scarcely any shore,\nand around their margin, gray-white drift-wood lies scattered like\nunburied bones. It is a spectral spot, unearthly, colourless as a\nmoth, preyed upon by a lamentable sadness which broods unbroken in the\nsolitude. There the fox-fire kindles in the darkness, the owl wheels in\nhis midnight flight and pale shades of mist unwind their shroud-like\nscarfs. It is a pool of the dead, a region of lost hopes and throttling\ndespair.\n\nFrom this lake the trail bears upward through dense jungles and\nmorasses, venomously beautiful with huge, brilliantly coloured flowers\ngrowing to the height of a man. Their scarlet and yellow disks exhale\nan overpowering fragrance, insidious, almost narcotic in its strength.\nBeneath rank stalk and leaf, rearing blossom and entangling vine,\ncreeping things with mortal sting dwell in the dank, sultry-sweet\nshadow. One is dazzled with the colour and the scent; charmed and\nrepelled; tempted on into treacherous sinkholes by a wild extravagance\nof beauty too wanton to be good.\n\nAt length the second lake unfolds itself from the living screen of tree\nand wooded steep. A point of land, stained blood-red, juts out into the\nwater and over it tumbles and cascades a foam-whitened fall. This stain\nof crimson is a thick-spun carpet of Indian Paint Brush interwoven with\nlush grass. The mountains show traces of orange and green, apparently a\nmineral wash hinting of undiscovered treasure.\n\nLooking into the depths of the lake one is impressed with its freckled\nappearance. A blotch of milky white, then one of dull yellow mottles\nthe water and even as one watches, a shadow darkens the surface,\nconcentrating, scattering in kaleidoscopic variety, then disappearing as\nmysteriously as it came. There is no cloud in the sky, nor overhanging\ntree, nor passing bird to cause that shade without substance. At first\nit seems inexplicable and the Indians, finding no natural reason for its\nbeing, believe it to be the forms of water sirens gliding to and fro.\nOn this account, here as at the Waters of the Forgiven no Indian dares\nto come alone and even with human company he fears the sirens' spell.\nFor as the victim sleeps they come, drawing closer and breathing his\nbreath until he dies. If one watches patiently he may see that the dark\nshadows are made by shoals of fish, gathering and dispersing, and in so\ndoing, accentuating and lessening the sable spots. The lake is as uneven\nin temperature as it is in colour. It has hot pools and icy shallows,\nso it is probably fed by springs as well as by the torrent which falls\nfrom the peaks. A strong, sulphurous odour taints the air; the water is\nunpleasant to the taste and the sedgy weeds which grow about the shores\nare stained. And as the waters recede during the summer heat, along\nthe banks, in uneven streaks a mineral deposit traces their retreat.\nTowards the end of July or August a curious thing may be seen in this\nLake of the Jocko. A current eddies around and around in a gigantic\nwhirlpool, transforming it into a mighty funnel with an underground\nvent. At a considerable distance below a stream bursts forth from the\nmountain side with terrific energy of pressure and plunges downward in a\nfoaming torrent. It is the Jocko River,--the gentle, merry-voiced Jocko\nof the prairie which winds its course among lines of friendly trees and\nblossoms. Who would guess that it drew its nurture from the Lake of the\nJocko, siren-haunted, poison-breathed, which careful Indians avoid as a\nregion of the accursed? Still it is so and the menace of that mysterious\nlake becomes the blessing of the plains.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch are the Waters of the Forgiven and the Jocko, secure in their\nsolitude, guarded more potently by their spell of evil than by wall of\nstone or armed hosts, holding within their deep, dark bosoms the charm\nof the water sirens whose sad, sweet song quavers in the music of fall\nand stream, whose pallid, white faces flash lily-like from the depths,\nwhose entangling tresses spread in flowing masses of sedgy green.\n\nAnd of the strange things which have happened on those shores, of the\nbraves lured to the death-sleep on couches of moss and pillows of lily\npad, scarcely an echo shrills down from the white-shrouded peaks to give\nwarning to the adventurers who would seek out the awful beauty of those\nEnchanted Waters.\n\n\n\n\n_LAKE ANGUS McDONALD_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nLAKE ANGUS McDONALD AND THE MAN FOR WHOM IT WAS NAMED\n\n\nWithin the range of Sin-yal-min, which rises abruptly from the valley of\nthe Flathead to altitudes of perpetual snow, in a ravine sunk deep into\nthe heart of the mountains, is Lake Angus McDonald. Though but a few\nmiles distant the bells of Saint Ignatius Mission gather the children of\nthe soil to prayer, no hand has marred the untamed beauty of this lake\nand its surrounding mountain steeps where the eagle builds his nest in\nsecurity and the mountain goat and bighorn sheep play unmolested and\nunafraid.\n\nThe prospect is a magnificent one as the roadway uncoils its irregular,\ntawny length from rolling hills into the level sea of green where only\na year or two ago the buffalo grazed in peace. Beyond, the jagged\nsummits of Sin-yal-min toss their crests against the sky, their own\nimpalpable blue a shade more intense than the summer heavens, their\nsilvered pinnacles one with the drifting cloud. A delicate, shimmering\nthread like the gossamer tissue of a spider's web spins its length from\nthe ethereal brow of the mountains to the lifted arms of the foothills\nbelow. The yellow road runs through the valley, passes the emerald patch\naround the Mission and thence onward to blue shadows of peaks where\ngorges flow like purple seas and distant trees are points of azure. The\nswelling foothills bear one up, the valley melts away far beneath and\nsweet-breathed woods sigh their balsam on the breeze. The pass becomes\nmore difficult, the growth thickens. Among the trees broad-leafed\nthimble berry, brew berry and goose berry blossom and bear; wild\nclematis builds pyramids of green and white over the bushes; syringa\nbursts into pale-starred flower, and a shrub, feathery, delicate, sends\nforth long, tender stems which break into an intangible mist of bloom.\n\nSuddenly out of the tangled forests, a sheet of water, smooth and clear,\nappears, spreading its quicksilver depths among peaks that still bear\ntheir burden of the glacial age. And in the polished mirror of those\nwaters is reflected the perfect image of its mountain crown. First, the\npurplish green of timbered slopes, then the naked, beetling crags and\ndeep crevasse with its heart of ice. A heavy silence broods here, broken\nonly by the wildly lonesome cry of the raven quavering in lessening\nundulations of tone through the recesses of the crags. Two Indians near\nthe shore flit away among the leaves, timid as deer in their native\nhaunts. Such is Lake Angus McDonald, and yonder, presiding over all,\nshouldering its perpetual burden of ice, is McDonald's Peak. Strangely\nbeautiful are these living monuments to the name and fame of a man, and\none naturally asks who was this Angus McDonald that his memory should\nendure in the eternal mountains within the crystal cup of this snow-fed\nlake?\n\nThe question is worth the answering. Angus McDonald was a Highland\nScotchman, sent out into the western wilderness by the Hudson Bay\nCompany. There must have lurked in his robust blood the mastering love\nof freedom and adventure which led the scions of the House of McDonald\nto such strange and varied destinies; which made such characters in the\nScottish hills as Rob Roy and clothed the kilted clans with a romantic\ncolour totally wanting in their stolid brethren of the Lowlands. In any\nevent, it is certain that Angus McDonald, once within the magic of the\nwild, flung aside the ties that bound him to the outer world and became\nin dress, in manner of life and in heart, an Indian. He took unto\nhimself an Indian wife, begot sons who were Indians in colour and form\nand like his adopted people, he hunted upon the heights, moved his tipi\nfrom valley to mountain as capricious notion prompted, and finally made\nfor himself and his family a home in the valley of Sin-yal-min not far\nbelow that lake and peak which do honor to his memory. Physically he was\na man of towering stature, standing over six feet in his moccasins; his\nshoulders were broad and he was very erect. His leonine head was clad\nwith a heavy shock of hair, and his beard, during his later years, snow\nwhite, hung to his waist. His complexion was ruddy, his eyes, clear,\nblue and penetrating. A picturesque figure he must have been, clad in\nfull buckskin leggins and shirt with a blanket wrapped around him. He\nwas known among the Indians and whites through the length and breadth of\nthe country about, and no more strange or striking character quickened\nthe adventure-bearing epoch which we call the Early Days.\n\nAs he was free to the point of lightness in his nature, trampling down\nand discarding every shackle of conventionality, he was likewise bound\nbut nominally by the Christian creed. He believed in reincarnation and\nhis one desire was that in the hereafter, when his soul should be sent\nto tenant the new body, he might be re-born in the form of a wild,\nwhite horse, with proud, arched neck and earth-scorning hoofs, dashing\nwind-swift over the broad prairies into the sheltering hills.\n\nSo it seems fitting that McDonald's Peak and Lake should remain untamed\neven as their namesake; that the eddying whirlpool of life should pass\nthem by and that in their embrace the native creatures should live and\nrange as of yore. And may it be that within those shadowy gorges, remote\nfrom the sight and hearing of man, a wild, white horse goes bounding\nthrough the night?\n\n\n\n\n_SOME INDIAN MISSIONS_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nSOME INDIAN MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST\n\n\nMore than a century after the Spanish Francescans planted the Cross upon\nthe Pacific shores, the French, Belgian and Italian Jesuits or _robes\nnoires_, took their way into the Northwestern wilderness in response\nto a cry from the people who lived within its solitudes. Civilization\nfollows the highways of intercourse with the outer world, so the Western\ncoast had passed through the struggle of its beginnings and entered\ninto a period of prosperity and peace, while that territory with the\nRocky Mountains as its general center, was still as primeval as when the\ngalleons of Juan de Fuca sailed into Puget Sound.\n\nThe mellowness of old romance, the warmth of Latin colour, hang over\nthe Missions of California. The pilgrim lingers reverently in their\ncloistered recesses, breathing the scent of orange blossoms, reposing\nin the shade of palm and pepper trees. With the song of the sea in his\nears and its sapphire glint in his eye he re-lives the olden days,\nweaves for himself out of imagination's threads, a picture as harmonious\nin its tones of faded rose and gray as an ancient tapestry. How much\nthe architectural beauty of these Missions has brought them within the\naffectionate regard of the people it is hard to say, but undoubtedly it\nhas had an influence. The graceful lines of arch and pillar, the low,\nbroad sweep of roof and corridor, the delicate, yellowish-white of the\nadobe outlined against a sky of royal blue, stir the sleeping sense\nof beauty in our hearts and make us pause to worship at such favoured\nshrines.\n\nIt is for precisely the opposite reason that we are drawn to the\nMissions of the Northwest. Austere, ascetic in form, they make their\nappeal because of their unadorned simplicity. They were originally the\nplainest structures of logs, added to as occasion demanded and always\nconstructed of such homely materials as the surrounding country could\nyield. Hands unaccustomed to other labours than telling the rosary or\nmaking the sign of the Cross, hewed forest trees and wrought in wood\nthe symbol of their teaching. No wonder, then, that the buildings were\nsmall and crude, but their lack of grandeur was the best testimony\nto the sacrifice and noble purpose of which they were the emblems.\nOverlooked, isolated they stand, passed by and all but unknown. Yet they\nare monuments of heroic achievement and devotion; brave men risked their\nlives willingly to lay these foundation stones of the faith; bitter\nstruggles were fought and won in their consecrated shadows and upon them\nis the glamour of thrilling episode.\n\nDuring the seventeenth century a little band of French missionaries of\nthe order of St. Ignatius journeyed from their native France to Canadian\nterritory with the purpose of spreading the word of God amongst the\nsavages of that benighted land. One of them, Father Ignace Jogues,\nbecame the apostle of the Iroquois and died at their hands, a martyr.\nStrangely enough, his teachings lived after him and were preserved in a\nmeasure, at least, by those who had murdered him because of the message\nhe brought.\n\nYears afterwards, about 1815, a small party of Iroquois took their\nway from the Mission of Caughnawaga, in the neighbourhood of Sault\nSt. Louis, on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, and proceeded,\nprobably in quest of furs, into the little known and perilous ascents\nof the Rocky Mountains. This party was headed by one Ignace La Mousse,\nhis given name being by a curious coincidence, the same as that of the\nmartyred disciple of the Gospel. He was a man of lordly stature and\npuissance indomitable. Upon their wanderings they came to _Spetlemen_,\n\"the place of the Bitter Root,\" a mild, fair valley where dwelt a folk\nkindly in their natures, who called themselves the Selish. These people\nwelcomed the Iroquois, made them at home in their lodges and shared with\nthem the sports of the chase until the visiting Indians were visitors no\nmore and claimed no other land than this.\n\nFrom the lips of Old Ignace, as he was known, the Selish heard of a\nmysterious faith symbolized by a Cross, a greater medicine than that of\nany of the tribes, and of pale-faced, sable-robed priests, who, in the\nolden time, taught that faith and died happily in the teaching.\n\nThe Selish practiced a simple, spontaneous kind of paganism. They\nbelieved in a Good and Evil Spirit who were constantly at war. These two\npowers were symbolized by light and darkness and their heroic battle\nwas pictured in the alternate triumph of day and night. If buffalo came\nin plenty, if elk and moose were slain and the season's yield were rich,\nthen, according to their notion, the Good Spirit was in the ascendency;\nbut if, on the other hand, Winter rode down from the mountains while\ntheir larder was low, if fish would not bite and game could not be\ncaught, the influence of the Evil Spirit prevailed. They believed also,\nin a future existence, happy or miserable according to the merit or\ndemerit of the soul during its mortal life. The worthy shade passed\ninto eternal Summer time, to a land watered by fair streams and green\nwith meadows; in these streams were countless fishes and in the meadows\nbands of wild horses and endless herds of the beloved buffalo. There the\nspirit, united with its family, would ride through all eternity, hunting\namongst the ghostly flocks in the Summer sun of happy souls. But those\nwho had violated the tenets of the tribe, who had been liars, cowards\nor otherwise dishonourable, and those negative offenders who had been\nlacking in love for their wives, husbands and children, had sealed for\nthemselves a bitter fate. These outcasts went to an arctic region of\neverlasting snow where false fires were kindled to torment their frozen\nlimbs with the mocking promise of warmth. Phantom streams offered their\nparched lips drink, but as they hastened to the banks to quench their\nthirst, the elusive waters were ever farther and farther away. So ever\nand anon, through the years that never seemed to die, the shades were\ndoomed to hurry onward through the night and cold of Winter that knows\nno Spring, in misery as dark as the shadow engulfing them. The Lands\nof Good and Evil were separated by savage woods, inhabited by hungry\nwolves, lithe wild cats and serpents coiled to strike. The wretched\nsinner in his prison of ice, might after a period of penance, short or\nlong, according to the measure of his offense, expiate his sins and join\nhis brethren in the Happy Hunting Ground.\n\nBesides this general belief held in common by the tribe, they cherished\ncountless myths such as those of the creation and many lesser fanciful\nlegends which formed a part of their religion.\n\nAlthough these Indians were sincere in this simple, half-poetical\nmythology, they listened very willingly, like eager children, to Old\nIgnace, and from him learned to make the sacred sign and repeat the\nwhite man's prayer. After knowing something of their mysticism it is\nnot surprising that the greater mysticism of the Catholic Church should\nappeal to them; that once having heard the story of a faith much in\naccord with many of their elementary, pre-conceived ideas, they should\npursue it tirelessly until they gained that which they most desired.\n\nTime upon time at the councils, the chiefs discussed a means of\ngetting a Black Robe to come to them. At last, in a mighty assembly,\nOld Ignace arose and proposed that a delegation be sent to St. Louis\nto pray that an apostle of the church might come to shed the light\nof the new faith upon the darkness of the Western Woods. A stir of\napproval ran through the attentive people, for it was a great and daring\nthing to think of. But who would go? The journey of about two thousand\nmiles lay over barriers of mountains, rushing torrents, virgin forests\nwhere the sun never shone, and worst of all, penetrated the country of\ntheir hereditary enemies, the Sioux. In spite of these perils, in the\nbreathless quiet of expectation that had hushed the tribe, four braves\ncame forward and volunteered to undertake the quest.\n\nThe knights of the olden days, who went forth sheathed in armour, in\ngoodly cavalcades, to the land of the Saracen in search of the Holy\nGrail, have gathered about their memory the white light of heroism,\nbut if their daring and that of these four were weighed impartially,\nthe Indians would rise higher in the scale of glory. Alone, afoot,\narmed only with such weapons as their skill could contrive, they\nstarted out in the Spring of 1831, and in spite of the death that\nlurked around them, reached their journey's end with the Autumn. The\ntragical aftermath of that heroic adventure followed quickly. The\ndangers overcome, the goal won, they failed. Not one among them could\nspeak a word of French or English. They sought out General Clark who had\npenetrated into their lands, but what brought them from across the Rocky\nMountains, through the teeth of perdition to St. Louis, not even he\ncould guess. Picture the tragedy of being within reach of the treasure\nand unable to point it out! Through General Clark the four emissaries\nwere conducted to the Catholic Church. Monseigneur, the Bishop,\nwas absent--he whom they had travelled six moons to see. Very soon\nthereafter, two of the number fell ill as a result of exposure. In their\nsickness, doomed to die in a strange land far, far from the pleasant\nglades of their native valley, they made the sign of the Cross and other\nfeeble gestures which some priests who visited them interpreted rightly\nto be an appeal for baptism and the last rites of the church. The\npriests accordingly gave them the consolation they prayed for and placed\nin the hands of each a little crucifix. So rigidly did they press these\nsymbols to their breasts, that they retained them even in death. Still\nin their final agonies not one word could they tell of that mission for\nwhich they were even then yielding up their lives. They died christened\nNarcisse and Paul and were buried in a Catholic cemetery in the City of\nSt. Louis.\n\nThe two survivors, nameless shadows, flitted back into the wild and\nwere lost forever in the darkness. No tidings of them ever reached the\nwaiting tribe, so they, too, sacrificed themselves to a fruitless cause.\n\nAfter these things had happened a Canadian, familiar with the Indians,\ninformed the good fathers who these children of the forest were and of\ntheir devotion to a Faith, the merest glimmering of which had penetrated\nto their remote and isolated valley. Then a priest of the Cathedral\noffered to go with one companion to these zealous Indians when the\nSpring should make possible the desperate trip.\n\nMeantime, the Selish waited long and anxiously for word from their\ndelegation. Michel Insula, or Red Feather, \"Little Chief and Great\nWarrior,\" small of stature but mighty of spirit, always distinguished\nby the red feather he wore, hearing that some missionaries were\ntravelling westward, fought his way through the hostile country and\narrived at the Green River Rendezvous where Indians, trappers and some\nProtestant ministers were assembled. Insula was dissatisfied with the\nministers because they had wives, wore no black gowns such as Old Ignace\ndescribed, and carried no crucifix. The symbolism of the Catholic Church\nhad impressed him deeply and he would have no other faith, so he and his\nband returned to their people to tell them that the _robes noires_ were\nnot yet come and their brave messengers had perished with their mission\nunfulfilled.\n\nThey were resolute men, these Indians, and never faltering, they\ndetermined to send another party upon the same sacred quest. This time\nOld Ignace, he who had first broached the adventure to the council,\narose among the chiefs and warriors and offered to go. He took with him\nhis two young sons. The Summer was already well spent, but he and the\nlads started out undaunted, and after a terrible period of ceaseless\ntravelling, smitten with cold and hunger, they reached St. Louis, and\nIgnace more favoured than the preceding delegation, made known the wants\nof his adopted tribe to the Bishop, who listened to him kindly and\npromised to send a priest among his people.\n\nIgnace and his sons returned safely to the Bitter Root Valley and\nbrought the glad tidings to the Selish. But eighteen moons waxed and\nwaned and though the watchful eyes of the Indians scanned the East,\nnever a pale-faced father in robes of black came out of the land of the\nsunrise.\n\nThe chiefs took counsel again. A third time they determined to make\ntheir appeal. Once more Ignace La Mousse led the way and in his charge\nwere three Selish and one Nez Perc\u00e9 brave. They fell in with a little\nparty of white people near Fort Laramie, and uniting forces for greater\nsafety, took up the march together. They journeyed onward unmolested\nuntil they came to Ash Hollow in the land of the warlike Sioux. In that\nfateful place three hundred of the hostile tribe surrounded them. The\nSioux, wishing only the scalps of the Selish and Nez Perc\u00e9, ordered the\nwhite men and Old Ignace who was dressed in the garb of civilization, to\nstand apart. The whites obeyed, but Ignace La Mousse, scorning favour\nor mercy at the enemy's hands, joined his adopted tribal brethren and\nfought with them until they all lay dead upon the plains. So ended the\nthird expedition.\n\nOnce more news of the bloody death of their heroes reached the Selish.\nA fourth and last party volunteered to undertake that which now seemed\na hopeless charge. Two Iroquois, Young Ignace La Mousse, so called\nto distinguish him from the elder of the name, whose memory was held\nhonourable by the tribe, and Pierre Gaucher, \"Left Handed Peter,\" set\nout, joining a party of the Hudson Bay Fur Company's men and making the\ntrip in canoes. They finished the journey in safety and obtained from\nMonseigneur, the Bishop, the pledge that in the Spring he would send a\nmissionary to the Valley of the Bitter Root. Young Ignace waited at the\nmouth of Bear River through the Winter in order to be ready to guide\nthe priest to the Selish with the coming of the Spring. Pierre Gaucher\nreturned hot-footed, in triumph, conveying to the tribe the glad tidings\nthat their prayer had been answered; that the Great Black Robe was\nsending them a disciple to preach the Holy Word. At last, after eight\nyears of waiting, the Selish were to have granted them their hearts'\ndesire. From out of the East the pale-faced, black robed father would\ncome bearing with him the Cross illuminated by the rising sun, casting\nthe benediction of its shadow upon the people and their land.\n\nWhen the Selish learned from Pierre Gaucher that the _robe noire_ was\nin reality travelling towards their country even then, the Great Chief\nassembled his braves and it was decided that the tribe should march\nforward to meet and welcome their missionary. Accordingly they started\nin good season and on their way met groups of Kalispehlms, Nez Perc\u00e9s\nand Pend d'Oreilles, who joined them, swelling their number to about\nsixteen hundred souls. The ever increasing cavalcade moved on over pass\nand valley, peak and ford, clad in rich furs, war-eagle feathers and\nbuckskins bright with beads--a gaily coloured column filing through the\nwoods. Finally, in the Pierre Hole Valley they came upon him who was\nhenceforth to be their teacher and guide, Father de Smet, whose memory\nis held in reverence by the Indians of the present generation.\n\nThere was great rejoicing among the Selish, the Nez Perc\u00e9s, the Pend\nd'Oreilles and the Kalispehlms. They burst into wild shouts of delight,\nswarming around the pale priest, shaking his hand and bowing down\nbefore him. They conducted him to the lodge of the Great Chief, called\nthe \"Big Face,\" whom Father de Smet has described as one \"who had the\nappearance of a patriarch.\" The Chief made Father de Smet welcome in\nthese words:\n\n\"'This day the Great Spirit has accomplished our wishes and our hearts\nare swelled with joy. Our desire to be instructed was so great that four\ntimes had we deputed our people to the Great Black Robe in St. Louis to\nobtain priests. Now, Father, speak and we will comply with all that you\nwill tell us. Show us the way we have to take to go to the home of the\nGreat Spirit.'\"\n\nThus spake the Big Face, Chief of all the Selish, and there before the\nassembled peoples of the kindred tribes, he offered to the priest his\nhereditary honours as ruler. His renunciation was sincere, but Father de\nSmet replied that he had come merely to teach, not to govern them.\n\nThat night in the deepening shadow, the children of the forest gathered\ntogether around their new leader and chanted a song of praise. Strange\nmusic swelling from untutored lips and awakening hearts into the wild\nsilence which had echoed only the howl of native beasts and the war cry\nof battle and death! Yet even in that hymn of thanksgiving there was an\nundertone of unconscious sadness. It was the beginning of a new epoch.\nThe old, poetical wood-myth and paganism were gone; the free range\nover mountain and plain in the exhilarating chase would slowly give\nplace to the pursuits of husbandry. And this new, shapeless compound of\ncivilization and religion was bringing with its blessings, a burden of\nobligation and pain. The Indians did not know, the priest himself could\nnot understand, that he was the channel through which these simple,\nhappy folk should embark upon dangerous, devouring seas.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: LAKE McDONALD FROM McDONALD CREEK]\n\nFather De Smet was a Belgian and he had spent some time with the\nPottowatamies, in Kansas. He understood the Indians well and what was\nmost important, he loved them. He remained among the Selish long enough\nto be assured of their docile nature and sincerity of purpose, then\nreturned to St. Louis to urge the establishment of a permanent mission\nand to ask for assistance to carry on his work. Monseigneur, the Bishop,\nlistened favourably to his appeal and consequently, in the Spring of\n1841, Father De Smet, reinforced with two Italian priests, three lay\nbrothers and some other man, started for the Rocky Mountains. The Selish\nhad promised to meet the party at a given place at the base of the Wind\nRiver Mountains, on the first day of July. The Indians waited until\nthey were driven by hunger to hunt in more likely fields. The Fathers,\nlearning of this, sent a messenger to recall them, and they hastened\nback to greet their apostle and his followers. And of that little band\nthere were Charles and Fran\u00e7ois, the sons of Old Ignace, the Iroquois,\nSimon, the oldest of the tribe, and Young Ignace of great fame, who, we\nare told, journeyed for four long days and nights having neither food\nnor drink, in his haste to make good his promise to meet the _robes\nnoires_.\n\nSo far was the season advanced that the Selish had started on their\nbuffalo hunt. Therefore, the priests whose supplies were exhausted,\nwith their Indian friends, went on to Fort Hall, procured provisions\nthere, and then proceeded to the Beaverhead River to join the tribe.\nThe priests stayed only a few days among the Indians who were absorbed\nin the chase, and again took up their journey with the Bitter Root\nvalley as the chosen place of permanent rest. There they had determined\nto build the Mission, \"the house of the Great Spirit,\" and there the\nSelish promised to join them after the hunt was over in the Fall. Along\nthe course of the Hell Gate River they took their way and at last came\nsafely within the green refuge of the valley to lay down their burden\nand build their church. They selected a fair spot near the present site\nof Stevensville and laboured long to fashion the pioneer home of the\nFaith which they called The Mission of St. Mary's. The good priests\nwent farther still and re-named the valley, the river watering it and\nthe highest peak, St. Mary's, so anxious were they in their zeal to\neradicate every trace of the old, pagan beliefs of their converts, even\nto the names of the valleys, lakes and hills!\n\nThe element of incongruity and pity in this, the zealous fathers did\nnot appreciate. That a jagged, beetling crest, the home of the thunder\ncloud, the womb whence issues glacier and roaring stream, fit to be\nJove's dwelling, should bear the mild title of St. Mary's, did not\nshock their notions of the eternal fitness of things. Happily, the\nvalley with its rose-starred brocade of flowers, is still the Bitter\nRoot and a re-awakening interest is calling the old names from their\nlong oblivion to take their places once again, vesting peak and stream\nand grassy vale with a significance of meaning totally wanting in the\nartificial foreign titles forced on them by those who neither knew nor\ncared for their tradition and sentiment. And even the ancient gods and\nspirits are no longer despised as evils antagonistic to the salvation\nof the soul. Lafcadio Hearn expressed pity for the cast-off Shinto\ngods whose places were usurped by the deities of the Buddhist creed.\nLikewise, the best Christian amongst us, if he looks beneath the surface\ninto the heart of things, must be conscious of a vague regret for the\nquaint, mythical lore which cast its glamour over the wilderness; for\nthe poor, vanished phantoms of the wood and the gods who have fallen\nfrom their thrones. Sometimes in the remotest mountain solitudes we\ndare to acknowledge thoughts we would not harbour elsewhere. Under the\npensive appeal of the still forests, the heaven-reaching peaks and\nstream-songs, we wonder if upon the heights, in deep-bosomed caverns,\nthose sad exiles dwell, casting over the cloistered groves a subtle\nmelancholy, evasive as the shadow of a cloud, fleeting as the sigh of\nthe Summer wind.\n\nBut the good fathers of St. Mary's had no such thought for the ancient\npaganism and its symbols. They were busy planting the Cross, building a\nchapel, the best that their strength and skill could erect, and other\nstructures necessary for their protection and comfort. It was a labour\nof love, as much a religious rite as the saying of the Mass, and verily,\nthe ring of the hammers must have seemed in the ears of those devoted\nmen, endless _aves_ and _pater nosters_. Finally the work was done. A\ncomfortable log cabin, large enough to hold nearly the assembled tribe,\nstood in the valley, and when the Indians returned from the hunt, they\nwere joyful in this, their reward, for all those brave attempts to bring\nthe Light into the Wilderness.\n\nThe Mission completed, Father De Smet travelled to Fort Colville in\nWashington, a journey of more than three hundred miles, to procure\nseeds and roots, and on his way he stopped among the Kalispehlms, the\nPend d'Oreilles and the Coeur d'Alenes, all of whom welcomed him and\nlistened attentively to the message he brought. He took back to his\nSelish charges at St. Mary's \"a few bushels of oats, wheat and potatoes\"\nwhich he and his brethren sowed. The Indians, like children, watched\nwith wonder, the planting, sprouting, ripening and reaping of the crop,\na thing hitherto unknown to them, though husbandry on a small scale had\nbeen practiced at an earlier date by some of the Eastern tribes.\n\nBut however truly the Indians loved their new teachers, the _robes\nnoires_, and however sincerely they accepted the tenets of their\nfaith, they still persisted in buffalo hunts, which twice a year took\nthem into the contested country, and upon these expeditions, fired\nwith excitement, alive with all the heritage of passion inspired by\nthe chase, the war path and the intoxication of glory handed down\nto them through an ancestry so ancient as to be lost in the dimness\nof beginnings, they forgot for a time, at least, the life of order,\nindustry and religion they had pledged themselves to lead. Therefore,\none of the new priests, Father Point, accompanied them on the hunt, but\nin the abandon of those days when every sense was strained to find the\nprey, and every nerve was as tense as the bow-string 'ere it speeds the\narrow to its mark, it was impossible to preach to them the gentle word\nof Christianity, so the Fathers gave up these attempts and remained at\nthe Mission awaiting the return of their straying converts, a situation\nwhich was to result sadly for St. Mary's. Meantime the work was growing.\nThe Pend d'Oreilles and Coeur d'Alenes had asked for missionary\npriests and Father De Smet needed more helpers in the new land.\n\nFrom St. Mary's, the Mother Mission, Father Point and Brother Huet\nwent forth to minister to the Coeur d'Alenes, where they established\nthe Mission of the Sacred Heart. A third Mission, St. Ignatius, was\nfounded amongst the Kalispehlms on the Pend d'Oreille River. With these\ntwo offshoots from the parent stem of St. Mary's, it was necessary for\nFather De Smet to seek re-inforcement abroad, but before he sailed he\nstarted westward three new recruits from St. Louis.\n\nIt must have been an inspiring sight when this humble priest, fresh\nfrom the western woods, the scent of the pines exhaling from him, the\nbreadth of vast distances in his vision, the simplicity of the Indians'\nracial childhood reflected in his own nature, stood before his August\nHoliness, Pope Gregory XVI., in the grandeur of the Vatican at Rome,\nand there, amidst the pomp and ostentation, the wealth and luxury of\nthe headwaters of that Church which sends its streams to the utmost\ncorners of the earth, pled the cause of the lowly Indian. More imposing\nstill, it must have been, when His Holiness arose from his throne and\nembraced this apostle from the great, New World. The Pope sought to\nmake the priest a bishop, but Father De Smet chose to remain as he was,\nand certainly in the eyes of unprejudiced laymen, he gained in simple\ndignity more than he foreswore in ecclesiastical honors.\n\nThis trip of Father De Smet to Europe has a peculiar interest in that\nit was the means of bringing into the West, besides numbers of pioneer\nSisters, and clergy, a man so beloved, so revered that his name--Father\nRavalli--is known by Catholic and Protestant, Indian and White alike,\nthrough the whole of the Rocky Mountain region. Those who knew the\ngentle old man loved him not only for his spirituality, but for his\nhuman sweetness. He possessed that breadth of sympathy which sheds mercy\non good and bad equally, commiserating the fallen, pitying the weak.\nHe was a native of Ferrara, Italy, and at a very early age decided to\nbecome a missionary priest. That he might be most useful materially\nas well as religiously, he fitted himself for his work. He graduated\nin _belles lettres_, philosophy, the natural sciences, and became a\nteacher in these branches of learning, in several cities of Italy.\nUnder a skilled physician of Rome he studied medicine; in a mechanic's\nshop he learned the use of tools; finally, in a studio, he practiced\nthe rudiments of art which he always loved. So he came to the Indians\nbringing with him great human kindliness, and the knowledge of crafts\nand homely pursuits that made their lives more easy and independent.\nIt was he who devised the first crude mill, the means of giving the\npeople flour and bread, he who by a hundred ingenious devices lightened\nthe burden of their toil. But most of all was his practice of medicine\na mercy. To stricken infancy or old age he was alike attentive; to\ndying Christians he bent with ready ear and alleviating touch, or\nas compassionately eased the last throes of highwaymen, heretic or\nmurderer. Over the bleak, snowy passes of the mountains, heedless of\nhardship or danger, he hurried in answer to the appeal of the sick,\nno matter who they were or where they dwelt. And though often those\nwho went before or came after him were robbed, he was never molested.\nThe most desperate of the \"road agents\" respected him and suffered\nhim to pass in peace on his way. Gently brave, like the good bishop in\n_Les Miserables_, his very trustfulness was his safeguard. Perhaps as\nstriking an example of his forethought as we can find is the fact that\nhe trained a squaw to give intelligent care to women in the throes of\nchildbirth. There is no record of the mothers and babes spared thus, but\nthere were many, and even the letter of the monkish law never stayed his\nhelping hand or curbed his humane devotion. The more ascetic brethren\nwho lived in colder spiritual altitudes, looked doubtfully upon Father\nRavalli's impartial ministry; the more astute financiers who held the\nkeys to the Church's coffers, frowned upon his unrewarded toil, and\nthere comes a whisper through the years that there were times when he\nwas an object of charity because he never asked reward for the surcease\nof suffering his patient vigils brought.\n\nHe travelled from one to another of the Northwestern missions and even\nto Santa Clara, California, but he is known best and loved most as the\nApostle of the Selish at St. Mary's. Indeed, looking back through the\nperspective of time at the plain, little Mission crowned as with an\naureole, one figure stands out clearly among the pious priests, who, in\nturn, presided at its altar, and this figure is Father Ravalli.\n\nHis grave, marked by a shaft of stone, is within the shadow of the\nchurch in the valley of the Bitter Root, and it was fitting he should\nlie down to rest where he had laboured so long and lovingly. A\ngeneration hence, when the hallowed places of the West become shrines\nabout which pilgrims shall gather reverently, this mountain-tomb of\nthe gentle old priest will be visited and written of. Meantime, he\nsleeps as sweetly for the solitude, and those whose lives he made more\nbeautiful by his presence think of him at peace as they turn their eyes\nheavenward to the infinite rosary of the stars.\n\nIn spite of the progress of the beneficent work and the fresh blood that\nhad infused new strength into the cause, dark days were to cast their\nshadow upon the little Mission of St. Mary's. No power could restrain\nthe Selish from the chase, and during their absence twice a year, the\ncolony left behind, consisting only of the priest and those too aged\nor sick to follow the tribe, were menaced by the Blackfeet and Bannock\nIndians. The old feud was fanned red hot by the Selish killing two\nBlackfeet warriors who invaded the very boundaries of the Mission with\nhostile intent. The threats from the Blackfeet became more terrible.\nThey lurked in the thick timber and brush around the stockade which\nenclosed the Mission, and, finally, while the tribe was absent on a\nbuffalo hunt, a rumour reached the anxious watchers that the hostiles\nwould descend in a great war party upon the defenseless community. And\nindeed, they were roused by war whoop and savage yell to see swarming\naround their weak barricade, the dreaded enemy. Father Ravalli was in\ncharge of the Mission at that time and he and his companions prepared\nthemselves for the death which seemed inevitable. But the Blackfeet,\nprobably seeing that only a man stricken with years, two young boys and\na few aged women and little children were all of their hated foe who\nremained at St. Mary's, retreated to the brush. One of the two boys\nventured to the gate to make sure the Blackfeet were gone and was shot\ndead. This tragical incident and the more awful menace it carried with\nit to those who were left at the mercy of the invading tribes, and\nanother reason we shall now consider, led to the temporary abandonment\nof St. Mary's.\n\nIn those early days, the missions being the only habitations within many\nhundreds of miles, became the refuge and abiding place during bitter\nweather, of French-Canadian and mixed breed trappers, who in milder\nseasons ranged over the mountains and plains in pursuit of furs. These\nhalf-savage men were undoubtedly a picturesque part of the old, woodland\nlife and their uncouth figures lent animation and colour to the quiet\nmonotone of the religious communities. In the first quarter of the last\ncentury we find mention of French-Canadians employed by the Missouri Fur\nCompany, appearing on New Year's Eve, clad in bison robes, painted like\nIndians, dancing _La Gignolee_ to the music of tinkling bells fastened\nto their dress, for gifts of meat and drink. These trappers were, in\nthe day of St. Mary's Mission, a licentious, roistering band with easy\nmorals, consciences long since gone to sleep, who did not hesitate to\ndebauch the Indians, and who feared neither man nor devil. They went\nto St. Mary's as to other shrines, and under the pretext of practicing\ntheir religion, lived on the missionaries' scanty stores and filled\nthe idle hours with illicit pastimes. It is said that they became\nrevengeful because of the coolness of their reception by the priests,\nand maliciously set about to poison the Selish against the beloved\n_robes noires_. However this may be, whether the wayward, capricious\nchildren strayed or not, it is certain that they would not sacrifice the\nbuffalo hunt for priest nor promise of salvation, so the Mission was\ndismantled and leased; its poor effects packed and the Apostles of the\nFaith started out again to seek refuge in new fields. At Hell's Gate,\nthe inferno of the Blackfeet, they parted; Father Ravalli to wend his\nway to the Mission of the Sacred Heart among the Coeur d'Alenes; the\nrest, under the escort and protection of Victor, the Lodge Pole, Great\nChief of the Selish and father of Charlot, followed the Coriacan defile\nto the Jocko River and finally arrived at St. Ignatius, the Mission of\nthe Kalispehlms.\n\nFor a time we leave St. Mary's in the sad oblivion of desertion, while\nthose who had tended its altar, poor pilgrims, toiled over diverse\ntrails toward different destinations.\n\nIt is not necessary to follow the varying fortunes of the few, small\nmissions in the Northwestern wilderness, included then within the vast\nterritory called Oregon. Each has its pathetic story of privation and\ndanger, which may be found complete and detailed in ecclesiastical\nhistories written by priests of the order.\n\nWe shall pass on to the Mission of St. Ignatius, whither the party from\nSt. Mary's sought refuge, which, in the course of time absorbed some\nof the lesser institutions and became, as we shall see, the religious\ncenter of several tribes. The Mission of St. Ignatius was the same\nfounded by Father Point on the banks of the Pend d'Oreille River\namong the Kalispehlms in the year 1844. The original location proved\nundesirable, so ten years later the Mission was moved to a site chosen\nby the advice of Alexander, Chief of the tribe. A wonderful revelation\nit must have been when the Indian guide, leading the priests through a\npass in the mountains, the secret of his people, showed them the vast\nsea of flowing green--the valley of Sin-yal-min--barred to the East\nby the range of the same name. There ever-changing shades of violet\nand lights of gold altered the mien of these mountains whose jagged\npeaks showed white with snow, from whose deep bosoms burst a water-fall\nplunging from mighty altitudes into the emerald bowl of the valley.\nThis was veritably a kingdom in itself, and no white man had trodden\nthe thick embroidery of wild flowers and grass. It had been a gathering\nplace for many tribes. Within its luxuriantly fruitful limits, berries\nand roots grew in plenty and game abounded in the neighbouring hills.\n\nIn the very palm of Sin-yal-min the new Mission of St. Ignatius was\nbuilded. There could scarcely have been a more ideal spot for church\nand school, forming the nucleus of an agricultural community. There\ngathered parties of the upper and lower Kalisphelms, upper Kootenais,\nFlat Bowes, Pend d'Oreilles and Selish, to pitch their tipis in the\nshadow of the Mission Cross. Many of these Indians made for themselves\nlittle farms where they laboured and lived. Entire families of Selish\nmoved from the Bitter Root valley to be near the _robes noires_ they\nloved. St. Ignatius possessed an advantage that bound the Indians to\nit by permanent ties and that was its schools. Four pioneer Sisters\ntravelling into the Rocky Mountain region under the guidance of two\npriests and two laymen, from their home mission in Montreal, founded\nat St. Ignatius the first girls' school among the Indians of the\nterritory. Not long thereafter the priests established a similar school\nfor boys, where they taught not only the French and English languages\nand the rudiments of a simple education, but also such handicrafts as\nseemed most necessary to the development of industry. In saddle-making\nparticularly, the boys excelled, and wonderful specimens of leather\nwork have gone forth from the Mission shops. Thus, largely through\nits practical industry St. Ignatius grew into a powerful institution.\nBuilding after building was added to the group until a beautiful village\nsprang up, half hidden among clumps of trees and generous vines. On\nthe outskirts of this community rows of tiny, low, thatch-roofed log\ncabins were built by the Indians to shelter them when they assembled\nto celebrate such feasts as Christmas, Good Friday and that of St.\nIgnatius, their patron Saint.\n\nThe fates favoured St. Ignatius. In the year of its removal the\nHell's Gate treaty was signed wherein the bounds of the reservation\nwere re-adjusted, making the new mission the center of that rich\ndominion. The treaty of the Hell Gate, participated in by the Selish,\nthe Pend d'Oreilles and some of the Kootenais, was the same, it may\nbe remembered, wherein Victor, the father of Charlot, insisted upon\nretaining possession of the Bitter Root Valley \"above the LoLo Fork\" for\nhimself and his people, unless after a fair survey by the United States,\nthe President should deem it best to move the tribe to the Jocko. This\nagreement was entered into in 1855. Seventeen years went by. The Indians\ndeclare that no survey was ever made during that time nor were they\nfurnished with school teachers, skilled artisans and agriculturalists\nto instruct them, as had been promised on the part of the government.\nSummarily the Selish were called upon to sign a second agreement, the\nGarfield treaty, which deprived them of their ancestral home and drove\nthem forth to share the Jocko Reservation in common with the allied\ntribes. This was at once an impetus to the fortunes of St. Ignatius and\na mortal blow to St. Mary's.\n\nThat pioneer shrine, abandoned on account of the depredations of the\nBlackfeet, remained dark and silent for sixteen years. The Selish\nmourned the loss of their friends and teachers, the _robes noires_. In\nspite of the absence of the church's influence, save such intermittent\ninspiration as the occasional visit of a priest, the Selish prayed and\nwaited. And surely, poor, impulsive children that they were, if they\nhad been misled by tale-bearing, mixed breed trappers, their digression\nwas dearly expiated. During those sixteen years they remained faithful\nto the cause which four delegations of their number had braved danger,\nprivation and death to win.\n\nIn the meantime the West was changing. The first stern, ascetic days\nwere passing when the best of men's characters was called into active\nexistence to cope with immediate hardship; when every nerve rang true,\ntuned to the highest bravery and that magnificent indifference to death\nwhich makes heroes. The cry of gold ran through the length and breadth\nof the land and the headlong rush of adventurers, good and bad, from the\nfour corners of the earth, all bent on wealth, changed the spirit of the\nwestern world. In that mad stampede, men, spurred by the lust of gain,\npushed and crowded each other, and with such competition, who thought\nof or cared for the Indian? His day was done; the accomplishment of his\nruin was merely a matter of years. Moreover, the lower element of the\nreckless, pillaging crew of gold seekers brought with it the vices of\ncivilization--drink and the game.\n\nChange the ideal which inspires a deed and the deed itself is changed.\nThat first, stern West which taught men not to fear by surrounding them\nwith danger, made heroes of them because they had braved the unknown\nfor some noble purpose, religion, the simple love of Nature or another\nreason as good; but in these altered conditions where debauching gain\nwas the one object of their quest, though they spurned death as the\npathfinders had done, their bravery sank to bravado and dare-deviltry\nbecause their purpose was sordid.\n\nWith this invasion of the wilderness the whole aspect of the mission\nwork underwent a change. The masked man on horseback stalked the trails;\nthe bizarre glamour of the dance hall flaunted its coarse gaiety in the\nmushroom camps' thronged streets; the saloon and gaming house brought\ntemptation to the Indian, and generally he fell. It was also true that\nin more than one instance the precedent of bloodshed was set by brigand\nwhites, sowing the seeds which were later to bear a red harvest of war.\n\nSo, when St. Mary's opened her doors in 1869, it was upon a period of\ntransition. If the placid image of Our Lady, looking through half\nclosed eyelids, could have seen and understood the metamorphosis what\na shock would have smitten her sainted soul! The painted, war-bent\nBlackfeet were gone far back into their fastnesses, but here and there,\nthick and fast, came the white settler, peaceful, cold, inevitable,\noverwhelming, bringing ruin to the old life and its people--the\nbeginning of the end. And that calm, just Mother of Mankind would have\nseen the timid shadow-shapes of the Selish melting into the gathering\ntwilight, at once welcoming the stranger to the land and relinquishing\nit to him, retiring step by step before the great, white inundation. It\nis useless to prolong the story. The climax had to come, and come it\ndid, swiftly, cruelly, with a dark hint of treachery that we, of the\nsuperior race are too willing to excuse and condone. By the Garfield\nTreaty, which, by a curious anomaly, never very lucidly explained,\nbears the sign of Charlot, son of Victor, hereditary chief of the\nSelish, that he, a man in his sane senses swears he never signed, the\ntribe renounced all claim to the land of their fathers and consented to\nbetake themselves to the Jocko reservation. During the twenty-two years\nof the existence of St. Mary's as an Indian Mission, after its second\nopening, the fathers, among them Father Ravalli, watched over and tended\ntheir decreasing charge. The numbers of the red hosts dwindled; the\nfalling off of the people through new and unnatural conditions thinned\ntheir ranks, but surer still, was the admixture of the white strain, so\ncorrupting in most cases to the unfortunate in whom the two race strains\ncommingle. But in spite of the Garfield Treaty, notwithstanding the\nexodus of the main body of the Selish, St. Mary's faithful to the end,\ndrew to her little altar the last, failing remnant of the tribe--the\nsplendidly defiant Charlot and his band. At last, in 1891, they accepted\nthe inevitable and rode away to the land of their exile resigning to\nthe conquering race their blood-right to the Bitter Root. This was the\ndeath of St. Mary's. It remained standing, a church of the whites, but\nan Indian mission no more. In looking back through the years, their\nmercies and their cruelties, it is a sorrowfully sweet thing to remember\nthat Father Ravalli, guardian spirit of the Selish, lay down to rest\nbefore the ultimate change, the final expulsion, while the first light\nof the wilderness from the altar of St. Mary's still shone, however\nfaintly, to show the way.\n\nThe sequel of St. Ignatius is, happily, less pathetic in its unfolding.\nThe life that ebbed from St. Mary's flowed amply into the newer\nMission's growing strength and to-day it stands, substantial and\nprosperous in the valley of Sin-yal-min. Though the same tragedy is\nabout to be enacted, the expulsion, less summary, leaving to the\nindividual Indian his garden patch, St. Ignatius remains a beacon to\nthe dusky hosts, poor frightened children who cling to this last hope,\npromising as it does a happiness born of suffering, an ultimate reward\nwhich not even the white man can take away. A handsome new church,\nfrescoed by an Italian brother, does service instead of the old chapel,\nvenerable with age that hides behind the sheltering trees. In front of\nthe modern church stands the great, wooden Cross erected by the early\nfathers, which the Indians kneel to kiss before they go to Mass. And\nto the right, covered with wild grass, and that neglect of which such\nvagrant growths are the emblem, is the old cemetery where so many weary\npilgrims who travelled long and painfully over difficult trails, have\nsought peace past the power of dreams to disturb.\n\nHere, as we have seen, upon feast days the Indians come, the scattered\nbands gathering from mountain and valley, clad in gala attire. Their\nranks are thinning fast. The once populous nation of the Selish is\nshrunk to between three and four hundred souls, still the little village\noften holds a thousand Indians all told, from the different neighbouring\ntribes. And sometimes, bands from far away, distinguished by diversified\nlanguage, curious basketry and articles of handicraft, come as\nspectators to the feasts.\n\nUntil a few years ago these religious festivals were preceded by solemn\nrites of expiation. A kind of open air court was held, the chiefs\nsitting in judgment upon all offenders and acting in the capacity of\njudges. The whole tribe assembled to watch with impassive gravity the\naustere spectacle of the accusation, sentence and chastisement of those\nwho had broken the law. All malefactors were either brought before\nthe chiefs, or spurred by conscience, they came forward voluntarily,\nconfessed their guilt and prayed to be expurgated of sin through the\nsting of the lash. When the accusations and confessions were finished,\nthe multitude dropped upon their knees and prayed. Then those arraigned\nwere examined and such of them as the chiefs decreed guilty, were\nsentenced and immediately suffered the penalty. A blanket was spread\nupon the earth and the offender lay on this, his back exposed to the\nraw-hide lash which marked in welt-raising strokes the degree of his\ntransgression. Even while he smarted, never wincing under this ordeal,\nthe spectators at the bidding of the chiefs, prayed once again for\nthe culprit's reformation and forgiveness. Such was the practice of\nthe Selish handed down from the earliest days. The time and place of\nthe chastisement were regulated in these later years by the Catholic\nfestivals, but public punishment with the lash was a custom of the\ntribe before the missionaries penetrated the West. The confession, the\njudgment and the whipping they believed to be a complete expiation;\nhaving suffered, the sin-soiled were made clean, and thus purified, they\nmet and mingled with the best of their brethren on equal terms, without\nfurther reproach. This was a simple and summary form of justice, suited\nto the people whom it controlled,--was in fact the natural outgrowth of\ntheir moral and ethical code--and it is a pity that the ancient law,\ntogether with much besides that was desirable in the pristine life of\nthe Indian, has been stamped out beneath the master's iron heel.\n\nOne cannot take leave of the missions of the Northwest without looking\nback upon Father De Smet, their founder, and the work which he began.\nThrough his devotion missions were established among many different\nnations, even the unyielding Blackfeet falling under the spell of\ngentleness. And he who lived most of his life either in the wilderness\nor labouring elsewhere for what he believed to be the salvation of its\nbenighted children, died at last at St. Louis in 1873, after meditative\nand reminiscent years spent in recording his travels and his triumphs.\n\nThere are some subtle questions crying out of the silence which are not\nto be pushed back unspoken, even though we can find no answer to their\nriddle. How far have the missionaries succeeded? If completely, why does\nthe Christian Indian still dance to the Sun? And did those Fathers in\ntheir errand of mercy blindly pass to the people they would fain have\nsaved from annihilation the fate they strove to spare them from? Who can\nsay?\n\nThe Indians were probably in their racial infancy when the maturer ranks\nmarched in and absorbed, or otherwise destroyed them. It would seem that\nwith them it is a case of arrested development. If left to themselves,\nthrough centuries they might have brought forth a civilization\ndiametrically opposite to our own. That they never could nor can\nassimilate or profit by our social and educational methods has been\nsufficiently proved. Their race instincts are essentially as foreign to\nours as those of the Hindu, and their evolution must have necessarily\nproceeded along totally different lines. The Indians were decreed to\nwork out their own salvation or die, and the latter thing has come to\npass. One might go on painting mental pictures of what would have been\nthe result if the free, forest-born red race had thrived and grown into\nmaturity. Certainly in their decadence, their spirit-broken second\nchildhood, we find the germ of an original moral sense, of tradition and\npoetry, even of religion, which might have borne rich fruit.\n\nThe Oriental is to us an enigma, and we recognize in his makeup psychic\nqualities but slightly hinted of in ourselves. So in the Indian we\nmust acknowledge a race of distinct and separate values that we can\nnever wholly know or understand. The races are products of countless\ncenturies begotten of habit and environment; we cannot put aside these\ngrowth-accumulations builded like the rings of the pine, nor can we take\nthat which the Creator made and re-create it to suit our finite ends.\nTherefore, instead of helping the Indian we are merely killing him,\nkindly perhaps, with comforts, colleges and sacraments, but none the\nless surely striking at his life.\n\nAnd though they are still amongst us, picturesque figures which we value\nchiefly as relics of a gaily-coloured past, the Indians are the mystery\nof our continent. They speak to us, they smile at us, they sit within\nour churches and use our tongue, but for all that they remain forever\nstrangers. What pagan beliefs vibrating through the chain of unrecorded\nancestry, what hates, loves, aspirations and bitter griefs, separate\nfrom our comprehension as the poles, thrill out of the darkness of\nyesterday and die unspoken, unformed, beneath those calm, bronze brows?\nThey are a problem to be studied, never solved; a riddle one with the\nSphinx, the Cliff Dwellers and the Aztec ruins. For, after all is said,\nwhat do even the good Fathers, with candle, crucifix and creed, know of\ntheir primal souls, of the unsounded depths of their hearts?\n\n\n\n\n_THE PEOPLE OF THE LEAVES_\n\n\n[Illustration: FRANCOIS]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE PEOPLE OF THE LEAVES\n\n\nAmong the early Canadian French the Sioux were known as the _Gens des\nFeuilles_, or People of the Leaves. This poetical title seems very\nobscure in its meaning, at first, but it may have originated in a legend\nof the Creation which is as follows:\n\nIn the ultimate Beginning, the Great Spirit made the world. Under his\npotent, life-giving heat the seeds within the soil burst into bloom\nand the earth was peopled with trees--trees of many kinds and forms,\nthe regal pine and cedar in evergreen beauty and the other hosts whose\nleaves bud with the Spring, change with the Autumn and die with the\nWinter's snow. These trees were all possessed of souls and some of them\nyearned to be free. The Great Spirit, from his throne in the blue\nskies, penetrating the slightest shadow of a leaf, divining the least\nunfolding of a bud with his all-seeing, omnipotently sensitive beams\nradiating like nerves from his golden heart, perceived the sorrow of the\nsighing forests and mourned with tears of rain at their discontent. Then\nhe knew that a world of trees, however beautiful, was not complete and\nhe loosed the souls from their prisons of bark and limb and re-created\nthem in the form of Indians, who lived in the shelter of the woods, knit\nto them by the eternal kinship of primal soul-source--verily the People\nof the Leaves.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not strange that among a nation which adored the sun, the chief\nceremony should have been the Sun Dance, at once a propitiatory offering\nto the Great Spirit and a public test of metal before a young man could\nbecome a brave. The custom was an ancient one, as ancient, perhaps, as\nthe legend of the leaves, and in the accounts of the earliest explorers\nand missionaries we read of this dance to the sun; of the physical\nheroism which was the fruit of the torture and filled the ranks of\nsoldiery with men Spartan in fine scorn of pain and contempt of death.\nIt is interesting to trace similar practices in races widely separate\nin origin, habits and beliefs, and it seems curious that this rite of\ninitiation into the honourable host of the braves, however dissimilar in\nouter form, was not totally unlike in spirit the test of knighthood for\nthe hallowed circle of the Table Round.\n\nThe festival of the Sun Dance was celebrated every year in the month\nof July, when the omnipotent orb reached his greatest strength, is,\nindeed, still celebrated, but without the torture which was its reason\nfor being. A pole was driven deep and solid in the ground and from\nthe top, somewhat after the manner of a May-pole, long, stout thongs\ndepended. After incantations by the Medicine Men, the youths desiring\nto distinguish themselves came forward in the presence of the assembled\nmultitude, to receive the torture which should condemn them as squaw men\nor entitle them to fold their blankets as braves.\n\nWith a scalping knife the skin was slit over each breast and raised so\na thong from the pole could pass beneath and be fastened to the strip\nof flesh. When all were bound thus, the dance began to the time of a\ntom-tom and the chant. Goaded by pride into a kind of frenzy the novices\ndanced faster, more wildly, leaping higher, bending lower, until they\ntore the cords loose from their bleeding bosoms and were free. If,\nduring the ordeal, one fainted or yielded in any way to the agony, he\nwas disgraced before his tribe, cast out as a white-hearted squaw man\nuntil the next year's festival, when he might try to wipe out the stain\nand enter the band of the brave. If, on the other hand, all the young\nmen bore the torture without flinching, their spirits rising superior to\nall bodily pain, they were received as warriors and earned the right to\nwear the medicine bag. Often one of greater puissance than his fellows\nwished further to distinguish himself by a test extraordinary and\nsubmitted to a second torture more heroic than the first. He suffered\nthe skin over his shoulder blades to be slit as his breast had been and\nthrough these gashes thongs were drawn and fastened as before, but this\ntime the ends were attached to a sacred bison's skull, kept for the\npurpose, which the brave dragged over rough, rocky ground and through\nunderbrush, until his strained flesh gave way and freed him of his\nburden. This feat entitled him to additional honors and he was respected\nand held worthy by the great men of the tribe.\n\nAfter the torture, when a youth was declared a brave he retired to the\nwilderness, there in solitude to await the message of the Great Spirit\nwhich would reveal to him his medicine, or charm.\n\nThis \"making medicine\" as it was called, was a rite of most solemn\nsacredness and secrecy and therefore shrouded in mystery. From the\nlips of one who, in days past, when the ancient customs were rigidly\npreserved, followed and watched a newly made brave, the ensuing\nnarrative was gleaned.\n\nAfter dark the young Indian took his way cautiously far off into silent,\nunpeopled places where sharp escarpments cut like cameos against the\nsky. There, poised upon the cliffs, his slim figure silhouetted against\nthe moonlit clouds, he remained rigid as a statue through long hours,\nwaiting for the Voice from Above by whose revelation he should learn\nwherein his power lay. Then lifting his arms towards the heavens he made\nstrange signs to the watchful stars. So he remained 'till dawn paled\nfrom the East, when, having received his message, he went forth to seek\nthe animal which should hereafter be his manitou, or guardian spirit.\nSometimes it was the bison, the elk, the beaver, the weasel or other\nbeast of his native wild. Into his bag he put a tooth or claw and some\nfur of the chosen creature, with herbs which might be propitious. Such\nwas his charm, his medicine-bag, the source of his valour and safety, to\nbe worn sleeping and waking, in peace and in war; to be guarded with his\nlife and to go with him in death back to the Great Spirit by whom it was\nordained.\n\nIf a warrior lost his medicine-bag in battle, he became an outcast among\nhis people and his disgrace was not to be wiped out until he slew and\ntook from an enemy's body the medicine-bag which replaced his own and\nthus retrieved his honour.\n\nOf all the quaint ceremonies connected with the old wood-worship and\nsun-worship, combining the idea of Beginning and End, of pre-existence\nand after-existence, none are more interesting than the rites attending\nthe burial of the dead. As the Indians sprang from the forest trees,\naccording to the myth of the leaves, lived in the shadow of the pleasant\nwoods, so at last, they were received into the strong, embracing\nbranches that tossed over them in wild gestures when the Great Spirit\nspoke in anger from the sky; that tempered the Summer's heat into\ncooling shadow for their repose; that shed their gift of crimson leaves\nupon the Indians' devoted heads even as they, themselves, must shed the\ngarb of flesh before the blast of death. Or, sometimes, the dead were\nexalted upon a naked rock, rising above earth's levels toward the sun.\nWherever his resting place might be, the dead man sat upright, if a\nbrave, dressed in his full war regalia, surrounded by his most prized\npossessions and if he owned a horse, it was shot so its shade might\nbear his spirit on the long, dark, devious way to the Happy Hunting\nGround. No mournful ghost who met his death in darkness could ever bask\nin the celestial light of endless Summer-time; he was doomed to become\na phantom living in perpetual night. That is the reason none but forced\nbattles were fought after dark; the bravest of the braves feared the\ncurse of everlasting shadow. They believed, too, that no warrior who\nlost his scalp could enter the fields of the glorious; hence the taking\nof an enemy's scalp at once killed and damned him. The suicide was\nlikewise barred from Paradise.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYears ago, when the feuds of the hostile tribes still broke into the red\nvengeance of the war-path, the Sioux and Cheyennes did battle with the\nGros Ventres at Squaw Butte, and by some mischance a medicine man of the\nSioux, not engaged in the combat, whose generalship lay in marshalling\nthe manitous to the aid of his people, was killed. A traveller,\njourneying alone in the mountains, found him high upon a cliff with\nhis blanket and war dress tumbling about his bleaching bones, his\nmedicine-bag and all the emblems of his magic preserved intact. In the\nbag was a grizzly bear's claw, an elk's tooth, and among other trinkets,\na small, smooth brass button of the kind worn by the rivermen trading\nup and down the Missouri River between the East and the savage West.\nIt would be interesting to trace the migrations and transfiguration of\nthat little button from its existence as an humble article of dress to\nthe dignity of a charm in the medicine-bag of the old magician on that\nisolated cliff. And the Master of Magic himself; he of prophetic powers\nand knowledge born of intercourse with the gods; there he sat, an arrow\nthrough his skull, his blind, eyeless sockets uplifted to the sun, his\nnecromancy unavailing, his wisdom but a dream! In that remote home which\nhis devoted tribesmen chose for him, no irreverent hand had disturbed\nhis watch, and he is probably still sitting, sitting with blind eyes\ntoward the sun while eagles circle overhead and gray wolves howl to the\nmoon. The years pass on unheeded, the face of the land has changed,\nis changing, will change, and the rustling, swirling leaves of Autumn\nfall thick and fast. Mayhap, after all, the old Magic Master, keeping\nhis eternal vigil, may see from beyond the flesh the thinning woods and\nthe dead leaves dropping from the trees; hear their weary rustle--poor\nghosts, as they flutter before the wintry wind. And among the lessening\ntrees, also driven by the Northern blast, does he see also, a gaunt and\nsilent troop of phantoms--mere Autumn leaves--whirling away before the\nStorm?\n\n\n\n\n_THE PASSING BUFFALO_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE PASSING BUFFALO\n\n\nI\n\nIt was summertime in the mountains--that short, passionate burst of\nwarm life between the long seasons of the snow. The world lay panting\nin the white light of the sun, over gorge and pine-clad hill floated\nstreamers of haze, and along the ground slanted thin, blue shadows.\nThe sky pulsed in ether waves and the distant peaks, azure also, with\ntraceries of silver, were as dim as the memory of a dream. In this\nuntrodden wilderness the passing years have left no record save in the\ngradual growth of forest trees, and in its rugged beauty it is the\nsame as a century ago. Therefore time itself seems arrested, and it is\nscarcely strange to come upon a buffalo skull naked and bleached by sun\nand rain, and close by, half hidden in the loose rocks, an arrow head of\npure, black obsidian.\n\nThis, then, was once the scene of a brave chase when wind-swift Indians\npursued mad, hurtling herds over mountain slope and plain. These empty\nfastnesses thrilled to the shock of thousands of beating hoofs, these\nhills flung back the echo to the brooding silence as the black tide\nflowed on, pressed by deadly huntsmen armed with barb and bow. And even\nthen, far over the horizon, unseen by hunted and hunters, silent as the\nshadow of a cloud, inevitable as destiny, came the White Race, moving\nswifter than either one, driving them unawares toward the great abyss\nwhere they should vanish forever into the Happy Hunting Ground, lighted\nby perpetual Summer and peopled by immortal herds and tribes.\n\n\nII\n\nIn such a remote and deserted place as this, no great effort of the\nimagination is needed to call up the shades of those who once inhabited\nit, to react their part in the tragedy of progress. Let us fancy that a\nriper, richer glow is upon the mountains, that the white light of the\nsun has deepened into an amber flood which quivers between the arch of\nlapis-lazuli sky and the warm, balsam-scented earth that sighs forth\nthe life of the woods. Already the trees not of the evergreen kind are\nhung with bewilderingly gorgeous leaves of scarlet, russet-brown and\nyellowing green; the haze has grown denser and its ghostly presence\ninsinuates itself among the very needles of the pines. It is Autumn.\nThe gush of life has reached its climax and is ebbing. High on the\nsteepled mountains is a wreath of filmy white that trails low in the\nravines. It seems as fragile as a bridal veil, but it is the foreword\nof Winter which will soon descend with driving blast and piping gale,\nlancing sleet and enshrouding snow to chill the last red ember-glow of\nthe brilliant autumnal days. It was at this time that the Indian's blood\nran hot with longing for the hunt. Lodges were abandoned and only those\ntoo weak to stand the hardship of the march were left behind. Chiefs\nand braves, women and children struck out for the haunts of the buffalo\nwhere the fat herds grazed before the impending cold.\n\nThese children of the forest sought their prey with the woodcraft handed\ndown from old to young through unnumbered generations. Indeed, it was\nnecessary for them to outwit the game by strategy in the early days\nbefore the wealthy and progressive Nez Perc\u00e9 Kayuses, who were first to\nbreak the wild horses of the western plains, brought the domesticated\npony among them. In passing, it is interesting to know that the term\n\"cayuse\" applied to all Indian horses, had its origin with this tribe,\nsince the chief article of trade of the Kayuses was the horse, the\nhorse of Indian commerce became known as a \"cayuse.\" The Selish used\nthe method of the stockade. After the march into the buffalo country,\nthey camped in a spot where they could easily fashion an enclosed park\nby means of barricades built among the trees. A great council of the\nchiefs and warriors was held and this august body appointed a company\nof braves to guard the camp and prevent any person from leaving its\nboundaries lest in so doing the wily buffalo should become alarmed and\nquit the neighbouring hills. The council proclaimed anew the ancient\nlaws of the chase, and then began the building of the pen. This was a\nkind of communal work in which the entire tribe engaged, and as all\ncontributed labor so all should benefit alike from its fruits. There\nwithin the mock park, whose pleasant green fringe of trees was in\nreality a prison wall, would be trapped and killed the food for the\nsterile winter months, when, but for that bounty, starvation would stalk\ngaunt among them and lay the strongest warrior as low as a new born\nbabe or the feebly old who totter on the threshold of death. The place\nchosen for the pen was a level glade and the enclosure was built with\na single opening facing a cleft in the surrounding hills. From this\nopening, an avenue also cunningly fenced and gradually widening towards\nthe hills, was constructed, so that the animals driven thither, could\nescape neither to the right nor the left, but must needs plunge into the\nimprisoning park.\n\nNext came the election of the Master of Ceremonies, the Lord of the\nPen. He was a man seasoned with experience, mighty with the knowledge\nof occult things--one of the _Wah-Kon_, Medicine Men or jugglers, who\npossessed the power of communicating with the Great Spirit. This high\nfunctionary determined the crucial moment when the hunt should begin,\nand when the buffalo, roused from the inertia of grazing, should be\ndriven into the snare. In the center of the clearing he posted the\n\"medicine-mast,\" made potent by three charms, \"a streamer of scarlet\ncloth two or three yards long, a piece of tobacco and a buffalo horn,\"\nwhich were supposed to entice the animals to their doom. It was he who,\nin the early dawn, aroused the sleeping camp with the beating of his\ndrum and the chanting of incantations; who conferred with the great\nManitous of the buffalo to divine when the time for the chase had come.\n\nUnder the Grand Master were four swift runners who penetrated into the\nsurrounding country to find where the buffalo were browsing and to\nassist by material observation the promptings of the spirits of the\nhunt. They were provided by the Grand Master with a _Wah-Kon_ ball of\nskin stuffed with hair, and when the herds were found in a favourable\nspot and the wind blew from the direction of the animals to the pen, one\nof the runners, breathless with haste, bearing in his hand the magic\nball, appeared before the Grand Master and proclaimed the joyful news.\nThere was a mighty beating of the Grand Master's drum, and out of the\nlodges ran the excited people, all bent with concentrated energy upon\nthe approaching sport. Every horseman mounted, and those less fortunate\narmed themselves and took their positions in two lines extending from\nthe entrance to the enclosure toward the open, separating more widely as\nthe distance from the pen increased, thus forming a V shape with but a\nnarrow gateway where the lines converged.\n\nThen through the silent, human barricade rode the bravest of the braves,\nastride the fleetest horse and he went unarmed, always against the wind,\nenveloped in a buffalo skin which hung down over his mount. All was\nquiet. Only the light Autumn wind flowing through the trees carried the\ncurious, crisp, cropping noise of thousands of iron-strong jaws tearing\nthe lush, green grass. And as the rider came upon the crest of the hill\nand looked at the panorama of waving verdure peopled by multitudes of\nbison stretching far away across the meadows and over the rolling ground\nbeyond, it must have been a sight to quicken the pulses and stir the\nblood. Suddenly there sounded a prolonged and distressing cry--the cry\nof a buffalo calf which wailed shrilly for a moment, then ceased. It\ncame from the brave alone in the open, shrouded in the buffalo hide.\n\nThere was a movement in the herd. Every heavily maned head rose, and\nquivering nostrils snuffed the running wind. At first the buffalo\nadvanced slowly, as if in doubt; gradually their pace quickened to a\ntrot, a gallop, then lo! the whole vast band came hurtling and lurching\nin its furious career like the swells of a tempestuous, black sea,\nbreaking into angry waves at every shock. And from those deep throats\ncame a mighty roar, ponderous and resonant as the thunder of the surf.\n\nStill the cry of the calf reverberated and re-echoed, and the single\nhorseman crouching beneath his masquerade, led the herd on and on,\neluding their onslaught, luring them forward between the lines of his\ncompanions who stood silent, trembling with eagerness for the sport.\nThen pell-mell the mounted hunters rushed out from cover and the wide\nextremes of the V shaped line closed in so that the horsemen were behind\nthe herd. This done, the wind blowing toward the corral, took the scent\nof the Indians to the buffalo. Pandemonium reigned. Men, women and\nchildren on foot, leaped out from their hiding places with demoniac\nyells, brandishing spears, hurling stones and shooting arrows from\ntheir bows. The stampeded animals, surrounded save for the one loophole\nahead, plunged into the pen. The chase was over and the slaughter began.\nThe tribe would live well that Winter-time!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAmong the Omawhaws of the first part of the last century, the hunt\nwas preceded by much preparation and ceremony. Generally by the month\nof June their stores of jerked buffalo meat were well-nigh exhausted,\nand the little crops of maize, pumpkins, beans and water-melons, with\nthe yield of the small hunting parties pursuing beaver, otter, elk,\ndeer and other game, were scarcely sufficient to fill the wants of\nthe tribe. So, after the harvesting and trading were done, the chiefs\ncalled a council and ordered a feast to be held in the lodge of one of\nthe most distinguished of their number, to which all hunters, warriors\nand chiefs should be invited. Accordingly the squaws of the chosen host\nwere commanded by him to make ready the choicest maize and the plumpest\ndog for the ceremonial board. When all was in readiness the host called\ntwo or three venerable criers to his lodge. He smoked the calumet with\nthem, then whispered that they should go through the village proclaiming\nthe feast and bidding the guests whom he named. He instructed the\ncriers to \"speak in a loud voice and tell them to bring their bowls and\nspoons.\" They sallied forth singing among the lodges, calling to the\ndistinguished personages to come to the banquet. After these summons\nthe criers went back to the lodge of the host, quickly followed by the\nguests who were seated according to their rank. The ceremony of smoking\nwas performed first, then the Head Chief arose, thanked his braves for\ncoming and explained to them the object of the assembly, which was the\nselection of a hunting ground and the appointment of a time to start.\nAfter him the others spoke, each giving his opinion frankly, but always\ncareful to be respectful of the opinions of others.\n\nNeither squaws nor children were suffered to be present. The criers\ntended the kettle and when the speech-making was done, one dipped out\na ladle of soup, held it toward the North, South, East and West, and\ncast it into the ashes of the fire. He also flung a bit of the best\npart of the meat into the flame as a sacrifice to _Wahconda_, the Great\nSpirit. The guests then received their portions, the excellence of which\ndepended upon their rank. The feast closed as it began, with the smoking\nof the calumet and at its conclusion the criers went forth again,\nchanting loud songs in praise of the generosity of the host, enumerating\nthe chiefs and warriors who partook of his bounty, finally proclaiming\nthe decision of the council and announcing the time and place of the\nhunt. This was an occasion of great rejoicing. The squaws at once began\nto mend the clothing and the weapons of their lords and pack their\ngoods; and the young braves, gay with paint and bright raiment, beguiled\nthe hours with gaming and dancing in the presence of the chiefs.\n\nWhen the day of the journey arrived the whole community departed,\nthe chiefs and wealthy warriors on horseback, the poorer folk afoot.\nSometimes the quest of the buffalo was prolonged over weary weeks, and a\nmeager diet of _Pomme blanche_ or ground-apple, was insufficient to stay\nthe pangs of hunger that assailed the tribe. The hunters preceded the\nmain body, carefully reconnoitering the country for bison or foes. When\nat length herds were discovered, the hunters threw up their robes as a\nsignal, the tribe halted and the advance party returned to report. They\nwere received with pomp and dignity by the chiefs and medicine men who\nsat before the people solemnly smoking and offering articulate thanks to\n_Wahconda_. In a low voice the hunters informed the dignitaries of the\npresence of buffalo. These mighty personages, in turn, questioned the\nhuntsmen as to the numbers and respective distances of the herds, and\nthey replied by illustrating with small sticks the relative positions of\nthe bands.\n\nAn old man of high standing then addressed the people, telling them that\nthe coveted game at length was nigh, and that on the morrow they would\nbe rewarded for the long fast and fatigue.\n\nThat night a council was held and a corps of stout warriors elected to\nkeep order. These officers painted themselves black, wore the _crow_ and\nwere armed with war-clubs in order that they might enforce the mandates\nof the council and preserve due decorum among the excited tribe folk.\n\nEarly in the morning the hunters on horseback, carrying only bows and\narrows and the warriors provided with war-clubs, led by the pipe-bearer\nwho bore the sacred calumet, advanced on foot. Once in view of the\nsplendid, living masses covering the green plains as with a giant sable\nrobe, they halted for the pipe-bearer, the representative of the Magi,\nto perform the propitiatory rite of smoking. He lighted his calumet of\nred, baked clay, bowed his head in silence, then held the stem in the\ndirection of the herds. After this he smoked, exhaling the aromatic\nclouds towards the buffalo, the heavens, the earth and the four points\nof the compass, called by them the \"sunrise, sunset, cold country and\nwarm country,\" or by the collective term of the \"four winds.\" At the\ncompletion of this ceremony the head chief gave the signal and the\nhuntsmen charged upon their prey.\n\nFrom this point their methods were somewhat the same as those of the\nSelish, except that instead of building a stockade, they, themselves,\nenclosed the herd in a living circle, pressing closer and closer upon\nit until the killing was complete. This surrounding hunt was called\n_Ta-wan-a-sa_.\n\nThe chase was the grand event, the test of horsemanship, of archery, of\nfine game-craft and often the opportunity for glory on the war-path as\nwell--for where the buffalo abounded there lurked the hidden enemy, also\nseeking the coveted herds, and an encounter meant battle to the death.\nBoth ponies and hunters were trained to the ultimate perfection of skill\nand the favoured buffalo horse served no other purpose than to bear\nhis master in the chase. As the cavalcade descended upon the startled\ngame, the rider caressed his faithful steed, called him \"father,\"\n\"brother,\" \"uncle,\" conjured him not to fear the angry beasts yet not\nto be too bold lest he be hurt by goring horns and stamping hoofs, and\nurged him with honeyed speech to the full fruit of his strength and\ncunning. And the horse, responding, flew with wing\u00e9d stride, unguided\nby reins to the edge of the compact, fleeing band, never hesitating,\nnever halting until the shoulder of the animal pursued, was exposed to\nthe death-dealing shot. It was just behind the shoulder blade that the\nhuntsman sought to strike. The inclination of his body in one direction\nor another was sufficient to send the horse speeding after fresh prey.\n\nThe hunters, themselves, scorned danger and knew not fear. If they were\nuncertain how deep the arrow had penetrated they rode close to the\ninfuriated brute to examine the nature of the shot, and if necessary\nto shoot again. And even though in the grand _mel\u00e9e_, a single animal\nwas often pierced with many arrows, there were seldom quarrels as to\nwhom the quarry belonged, so nicely could they reckon the value of the\ndifferent shots and determine which had dealt the most speedy death.\n\nOnward and onward they sped, circling and advancing at once, like a\nwhirlwind on the face of the prairie. At length, the darting riders\nwere seen more and more vividly as they compressed their line about the\nrouted band, until finally, only a heap of carcasses lay where the herd\nhad been. Then the tribe came upon the scene. The squaws cut and packed\nthe meat. If a hunter were unfortunate and killed no game, he helped\ndissect the buffalo of a lucky rival. On completion of his task he stuck\nhis knife in the portion of the meat he desired and it was given to him\nas compensation for his labor.\n\nSomeone, either by order of the chief or of his own free will, presented\nhis kill to the Medicine for a feast. There was great revelry and joy,\ndancing and eating of marrow bones, to celebrate the aftermath of the\nroyal sport.\n\n\nIII\n\nAlthough the meat of the buffalo was the Indians' chief article of\nfood, this was by no means the only bond between the red man and\nthe aboriginal herds of the plains. Besides the almost innumerable\nutilitarian purposes for which the different parts of the animals were\nused, there was scarcely a phase of life or a ceremony in which they\ndid not figure. In the dance, a rite of the first importance, in the\npractice of the _Wah-Kon_, or medicine, in the legends of the creation\nand the after-death, the buffalo had his place. Such lore might make a\nquaint and curious volume, but we shall consider only the more striking\nuses and traditions of the bison in their relation to the life of the\nearly West.\n\nThe buffalo was, in truth, the great political factor among the tribes;\nnearly all of the bitter warfare between nation and nation was for no\nother purpose than to maintain or gain the right to hunt in favourable\nfields. Thus the Judith Basin, the region of the Musselshell and many\nother haunts of the herds, became also battle fields of bloodshed and\ndeath. Not only did the bison cause hostilities among the nations, but\nthey were likewise the reason of internal strife. It is said that the\nAssiniboines, or Sioux of the Mountains, separated from the main body of\nthe tribe on account of a dispute between the wives of two rival chiefs,\neach of whom persisted in having for her portion the entire heart of a\nfine bison slain in the chase. This was the beginning of a feud which\nsplit the nation into independent, antagonistic tribes.\n\nThe utmost economy was generally observed by the early Indians in the\nuse of the buffalo. Each part of the animal served some particular\npurpose. The tongue, the hump and the marrow bones of the thighs were\nconsidered the greatest delicacies. The animals killed for meat were\nalmost always cows, for the flesh of buffalo bulls could be eaten only\nduring the months of May and June.\n\nAmong the Omawhaws of nearly two centuries ago, all the meat save the\nhump and chosen parts reserved for immediate use, was cut into \"large,\nthin slices\" and either dried by the heat of the sun or \"jerked over\na slow fire on a low scaffold.\" After being thoroughly cured it was\ncompressed into \"quadrangular packages\" of a convenient size to carry on\na pack saddle. The small intestines were carefully cleaned and turned\ninside out to preserve the outer coating of fat, then dried and woven\ninto a kind of mat. These mats were packed into parcels of the same\nshape and size as the meat. Even the muscular coating of the stomach was\npreserved. The large intestines were stuffed with flesh and used without\ndelay. The vertebrae were pulverized with a stone axe after which the\ncrushed bone was boiled. The very rich grease that arose to the surface\nwas skimmed and preserved in bladders for future use. The stomach and\nbladder were filled with this and other sorts of fat, or converted into\nwater bottles. All of the cured meat was _cached_, in French-Canadian\nphrase, until hunger drove the Indians to draw upon these stores.\n\nThe pemmican of song and history was a kind of hash made by toasting\nbuffalo meat, then pulverizing it to a fine consistency with a stone\nhammer. Mr. James Mooney in the _Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau\nof Ethnology_, describes the process as follows; \"In the old times a\nhole was dug in the ground and a buffalo hide was staked over so as to\nform a skin dish, into which the meat was thrown to be pounded. The hide\nwas that from the neck of the buffalo, the toughest part of the skin,\nthe same used for shields, and the only part which would stand the wear\nand tear of the hammers. In the meantime the marrow bones are split\nup and boiled in water until all the grease and oil comes to the top,\nwhen it is skimmed off and poured over the pounded beef. As soon as the\nmixture cools, it is sewed up into skin bags (not the ordinary painted\nparfl\u00e9che cases) and laid away until needed. It was sometimes buried or\notherwise cached. Pemmican thus prepared will keep indefinitely. When\nprepared for immediate use, it is usually sweetened with sugar, mesquite\npods, or some wild fruit mixed and beaten up with it in the pounding.\nIt is extremely nourishing, and has a very agreeable taste to one\naccustomed to it. On the march it was to the prairie Indian what parched\ncorn was to the hunter of the timber tribes, and has been found so\nvaluable as a condensed nutriment that it is extensively used by arctic\ntravellers and explorers. A similar preparation is used upon the pampas\nof South America and in the desert region of South Africa, while the\ncanned beef of commerce is an adaptation from the Indian idea. The name\ncomes from the Cree language, and indicates something mixed with grease\nor fat. (Lacombe.)\"\n\nAmong the Sioux at Pine Ridge and Rosebud, in the ceremony of the Ghost\nDance, pemmican was celebrated in the sacred songs. Mr. Mooney gives the\ntranslation of one of them:\n\n    _\"Give me my knife,_\n    _Give me my knife,_\n    _I shall hang up the meat to dry--Ye'ye'!_\n    _I shall hang up the meat to dry--Ye'ye'!_\n    _Says grandmother--Yo'yo'!_\n    _Says grandmother--Yo'yo'!_\n    _When it is dry I shall make pemmican,_\n    _When it is dry I shall make pemmican,_\n    _Says grandmother--Yo'yo'!_\n    _Says grandmother--Yo'yo'!\"_\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThough at first the main object for which the buffalo was hunted was the\nflesh, next in importance and afterwards foremost, was the hide made\ninto the buffalo robe of commerce. Since these robes played such an\nimportant part in the early traffic and were partly responsible for the\nannihilation of the bison, it is worth while to consider how they were\nprocured and treated. The skins to be dressed were taken in the early\nSpring while the fur was long, thick and luxuriant. Those obtained in\nthe Autumn called \"Summer skins\" were used only in the making of lodges,\nclothing, and for other domestic purposes. To the squaws was assigned\nthe preparation of the hides as well as the cutting and curing of the\nmeat. Immediately after the hunt while in the \"green\" state the skins\nwere stretched and dried. After this, they were taken to the village and\nsubjected to a process of curing which was carried on during the leisure\nof the women. The hide was nearly always cut down the center of the back\nso that it could be more easily manipulated. The two parts were then\nspread upon the ground and scraped with a tool like an adze until every\nparticle of flesh was removed. In this way all unnecessary thickness was\nobviated and the hide was made light and pliable. When the skin had been\nreduced to the proper thinness a dressing made of the liver and brains\nof the animal were spread over it. This mixture was allowed to dry and\nthe same process was repeated save that in the second instance while the\nhide was wet it was stretched in a frame, carefully scraped with pumice\nstone, sharp-edged rocks or a kind of hoe, until it was dry. To make it\nas flexible as possible, it was then drawn back and forth over twisted\nsinew. The parts were sewed together with sinew and the buffalo robe was\nready for the trader's hands.\n\nAs early as 1819 these robes were in great demand and one trader\nreported that in a single year he shipped fifteen thousand to St. Louis.\n\nIn the everyday life of the Indians the products of the buffalo yielded\nnearly every comfort and necessity. The hides were used not only for\nrobes and portable lodges which furnished shelter on the march, but they\nwere made into battle shields; upon their tanned surface the primitive\nartist traced his painted record of the chase, the fray, or the mystic\nmedicine. They were laid upon the earth for the young braves to play\ntheir endless games of chance upon, and the wounded were taken from the\nfield on stretchers of buffalo hides swung between a pair of ponies.\nFrom them two kinds of boats were made. One, described by James in his\naccount of the journey of his party in 1819-20 is as follows:\n\n\"Our heavy baggage was ferried across in a portable canoe, consisting\nof a single bison hide, which we carried constantly with us. Its\nconstruction was extremely simple; the margin of the hide being pierced\nwith several small holes, admits a cord, by which it is drawn into the\nform of a shallow basin. This is placed upon the water, and is kept\nsufficiently distended by the baggage which it receives; it is then\ntowed or pushed across. A canoe of this kind will carry from four to\nfive hundred pounds.\"\n\nThe second variety, known as a \"bull-boat,\" was made of willows woven\ninto a round basket and lined with buffalo hide.\n\nThe grease of these beasts was used to anoint the Indians' bodies and to\nseason the maize or corn.\n\nFrom the horns were made spoons, sometimes holding half a pint, and\noften ornamented upon the handles with curious carving.\n\nThe shoulder blade fastened to a stick served for a hoe or a plow.\n\nFrom the hide of unborn buffalo calves bags were made to contain the\nwar-paint of braves.\n\nIt would be at once possible and profitable to continue enumerating the\npractical uses of the buffalo, but far more interesting than these facts\nwere the ceremonies, superstitions and traditions in which they were\nbound up.\n\nPerhaps, first among the rites in sacred significance and solemn dignity\nwas the smoking of the calumet. This was supposed to be not only an\nexpression of peace among men and nations, but a propitiatory offering\nto the Manitous, or guardian spirits, and to the Master of Life.\n\nAccording to Colonel Mallory in the _Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau\nof Ethnology_, the Sioux believed that this supreme emblem of good will\nwas brought to them by a white buffalo cow, in the old days when the\ndifferent bands of the nation were torn with internal strife. During\nthis period of hostility a beautiful white buffalo cow appeared, bearing\na pipe and four grains of corn, each of a different colour. From the\nmilk which dripped from her body, sprang the living corn, so from the\nbeginning the grain and the buffalo meat were decreed to be the food\nof the Indians. She gave to the rival factions, the pipe which was the\nsacred calumet, instructing them that it was the symbol of peace among\nmen and he who smoked it with his fellows, by that act sealed the bond\nof brotherhood. After staying for awhile among the grateful people, and\nteaching them to call her \"Grandmother,\" which is a term of affectionate\nreverence among the Indians, she led them to plentiful herds of her own\nkind and vanished into the spiritland whence she came.\n\nThe odour of the buffalo was believed to be agreeable to the Great\nSpirit so that the tobacco or kinnikinick of the calumet was flavoured\nwith animal's excrement in order that the aroma wafted upward might be\nmost pleasing. This custom of flavouring the pipe with the scent of the\nbuffalo was carefully observed by the Pawnee Loups of the olden time,\na tribe which claimed descent from the ancient Mexicans, in the awful\nceremonies preceding a human sacrifice to Venus, the \"Great Star.\" Upon\nthis austere occasion four great buffalo skulls were placed within the\nlodge where the celebration was held and they were offered the sacred\n_nawishkaro_ or calumet. The bodies of their chiefs or those who died\ngloriously in war were robed in buffalo skins, furnished with food and\nweapons, and placed sitting upright, in a little lodge near a route\nof travel or a camp in order that the passers by might see that they\nhad met their death with honour. The Pawnees also used bison skulls as\nsignals, and we find in James' _Travels_ this interesting account:\n\n\"At a little distance in front of the entrance of this breastwork, was\na semi-circular row of sixteen bison skulls, with their noses pointing\ndown the river. Near the center of the circle which this row would\ndescribe if continued, was another skull marked with a number of red\nlines.\n\n\"Our interpreter informed us that this arrangement of skulls and other\nmarks here discovered, were designed to communicate the following\ninformation, namely, that the camp had been occupied by a war party of\nthe Pawnee Loup Indians, who had lately come from an excursion against\nthe Cumancias, Tetans or some of the Western tribes. The number of red\nlines traced on the painted skull indicated the number of the party to\nhave been thirty-six; the position in which the skulls were placed, that\nthey were on their return to their own country. Two small rods stuck\nin the ground, with a few hairs tied in two parcels to the end of each\nsignified that four scalps had been taken.\"\n\nThere are many other similar instances recorded by different adventurers\nwho braved the early West, yet this was but one of numerous uses of\nbuffalo skulls and heads. Among the Aricaras upon each lodge was a\ntrophy of the war path or the chase composed of strangely painted\nbuffalo heads topped with all kinds of weapons.\n\nThere was a curious belief among the Minitarees that the bones of the\nbuffalo killed in the chase became rehabilitated with flesh and lived\nagain, to be hunted the following year. In support of this superstition\nthey had a legend that once upon a time on a great hunt a boy of the\ntribe was lost. His people gave him up for dead but the succeeding\nseason a huge bison was slain and when the body was opened the boy\nstepped out alive and well. He related to his dumbfounded companions,\nhow the year before, he had become separated from them as he pursued a\nsplendid bull. He felled his game with an arrow, but so far had he gone\nthat it was too late to overtake and rejoin the tribe before nightfall.\nTherefore, he cut into the bison's body, removed a portion of the\nintestines and feeling the keen frost of evening upon his unsheltered\nbody, sought warmth within the carcass. But, lo! when the boy awakened\nthe buffalo was whole again and he was a prisoner within his whilom prey!\n\nThe Gros Ventres, in the day of Lewis and Clark, thought that if the\nhead of the slain buffalo were treated well, the living herd would come\nin plentiful numbers to yield an abundance of meat.\n\nOf the many bands into which the Omawhaw nation was divided there were\ntwo, the _Ta-pa-eta-je_ and the _Ta-sin-da_, bison tail, which had the\nbuffalo for their medicine. The first of these were sworn to abstain\nfrom touching buffalo heads, and the second were forbidden the flesh\nof the calves until the young animals were more than one year old. If\nthese vows were broken by a member of the band and the sacred pledge\nso violated, a judgment such as blindness, white hair or disease was\nbelieved to be sent upon the offender. Even should one innocently\ntransgress the law, a visitation of sickness was accounted his condign\nportion and not only he but his family were included in the wrath and\npunishment of the outraged Manitous.\n\nThe Crow Indians, Up-sa-ro-ka, or Absaroka, used the buffalo as a part\nof their great medicine. An early traveller, Dougherty, describes an\nextraordinary \"arrangement of the magi.\" In his own words, \"the upper\nportion of a cottonwood tree was emplanted with its base in the earth,\nand around it was a sweat house, the upper part of the top of the tree\narising through the roof. A _gray_ bison skin, extended with oziers on\nthe inside so as to exhibit a natural appearance, was suspended above\nthe house, and on the branches were attached several pairs of children's\nmoccasins and leggings, and from one limb of the tree, a very large fan\nmade of war-eagles' feathers was dependent.\"\n\nThis leads to an interesting superstition of the Indians, which was\nthat any variation in the usual colour of the buffalo was caused by the\nspecial interference of the Master of Life, and a beast so distinguished\nfrom his kind was venerated religiously, much as the ancient Egyptians\nworshipped the sacred bull. Once a \"grayish-white\" bison was seen and\nupon another occasion a calf with white forefeet and a white frontal\nmark. An early traveller once saw in an Indian lodge, the head of a\nbuffalo perfectly preserved, which was marked by a white star. The man\nto whom it belonged treasured it as his medicine, nor would he part with\nit at any price.\n\n\"'The herds come every season,' he said, 'into the vicinity to seek\ntheir white-faced companion!'\"\n\nMaximilian, in his _Travels in North America_, gives an interesting\ndescription of the martial and sacred significance of the robes of white\nbuffalo cows among the Mandans and Minitarees. He says that the brave\nwho has never possessed this emblem is without honour, and the merest\nyouth who has obtained it ranks above the most venerable patriarch who\nhas never owned the precious hide. Indeed, \"of all the distinctions\nof any man the white buffalo hide\" was supreme. As the white buffalo\nwere extremely rare it was seldom a hunter killed one for himself. The\nrobes were brought by other tribes, often from far distant parts of the\ncountry, to the Mandans who traded from ten to fifteen horses for a\nperfect specimen. It was necessary for the hide to be that of a young\ncow not more than two years old, and it had to be cured \"with the horns,\nnose, hoofs and tail\" complete, In Maximilian's words: \"The Mandans\nhave peculiar ceremonies at the dedication of the hide. As soon as they\nhave obtained it they engage an eminent medicine man, who must throw it\nover him; he then walks around the village in the apparent direction\nof the sun's course, and sings a medicine song. When the owner, after\ncollecting articles of value for three or four years, desires to offer\nhis treasure to the lord of life, or to the first man, he rolls it up,\nafter adding some wormwood or a head of maize, and the skin then remains\nsuspended on a high pole till it rots away. At the time of my visit\nthere was such an offering at _Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kush_, near the stages for\nthe dead without the village. Sometimes, when the ceremony of dedication\nis finished, the hide is cut into small strips, and the members of the\nfamily wear parts of it tied over the head, or across the forehead,\nwhen they are in full dress. If a Mandan kills a young white buffalo\ncow it is accounted to him as more than an exploit, or having killed an\nenemy. He does not cut up the animal himself, but employs another man,\nto whom he gives a horse for his trouble. He alone who has killed such\nan animal is allowed to wear a narrow strip of the skin in his ears.\nThe whole robe is not ornamented, being esteemed superior to any other\ndress, however fine. The traders have, sometimes, sold such hides to the\nIndians, who gave them as many as sixty other robes in exchange. Buffalo\nskins with white spots are likewise highly valued by the Mandans; but\nthere is a race of these animals with very soft, silky hair, which has a\nbeautiful gold lustre when in the sunshine; these are, likewise, highly\nprized.\"\n\nThere are numerous myths of a white buffalo cow, who at will, assumed\nthe form of a beautiful maiden.\n\nThe Sioux in common with the Aricaras and the Minitarees observed the\ncustom of fasting before going to war or upon the hunt. They had a\n\"medicine lodge,\" where a buffalo robe was spread and a red painted post\nwas planted. Upon the top of the lodge was tied a buffalo calf skin\nholding various sacred objects. After preliminary rites they tortured\nthemselves, one favorite method being to make a gash under their\nshoulder blades, run cords through the wounds and drag two large bison\nheads to a hill about a mile distant from their village, where they\ndanced until they fell fainting with exhaustion.\n\nSome of the tribes performed the _Ta-nuguh-wat-che_, or bison dance.\nThe participants were painted black, wore a head dress made of the skin\nof a buffalo head which was cut after the fashion of a cap. It was\nadjusted in a manner to resemble a live animal, and extending from this\nhead dress, over the half-naked and blackened bodies of the dancers,\ndepended a long strip of hide from the back of the buffalo which hung\ndown like a tail.\n\nThe Omawhaws believed that the Great Wahconda appeared sometimes in the\nshape of a bison bull and they, like other tribes, cherished legends of\na fabulous age when animals spoke together, did battle and possessed\nintelligence equal to that of men. The following myth of the bison bull,\nthe ant and the tortoise, related by James, is an interesting example of\nthese fables:\n\nOnce upon a time an ant, a tortoise and a buffalo bull formed themselves\ninto a war party and determined to attack the village of an enemy in\nthe vicinity. They decided in council that the tortoise being sluggish\nand slow of movement, should start in advance and the ant and bull\nshould time their departure so as to overtake him on the way. This plan\nwas adopted and the awkward tortoise floundered forth on his hostile\nmission alone. In due time the bison bull took the ant upon his back,\nlest on account of his minuteness he be lost, and together they set out\nfor the enemy's country. At length they came to a treacherous bog where\nthey found the poor tortoise struggling vainly to free himself. This\ncaused the ant and the bull much merriment as they crossed safely to\nsolid ground. But the tortoise, scorning to ask the aid of his brothers\nin war, replied cheerfully to their taunts and insisted that he would\nmeet them at the hostile village.\n\nThe ant and the bison advanced with noise and bravado and the watchful\nenemy perceiving them, issued from their lodges and wounded both,\ndriving them to headlong, inglorious retreat.\n\nFinally the tortoise with sore travail, reached his destination to find\nhis companions flown, and because he could not flee also, he fell into\nthe hands of the foe--a prisoner. These cruel people decided to put him\nto death at once. They threatened him with slow roasting in red coals\nof fire, with boiling and many awful tortures, but the astute tortoise\nexpressed his willingness to suffer any of these penalties. Therefore\nthe enemy consulted together again and held over his head the fate of\ndrowning. Against this he protested with such frenzied vehemence that\nhis captors immediately executed the sentence, and bearing him to a deep\npart of the river which flowed through their country, flung him in. Thus\nrestored to his native element he plunged to the bottom of the stream,\nthen arose to the surface to see his enemies gaping from the bank in\nexpectation of his agony. He grabbed several of them, dragged them\ndown and killed them, and appeared once more triumphantly displaying\ntheir scalps to the bewildered multitude of thwarted warriors who were\nhelpless to avenge their brethren. The tortoise, satisfied with his\nachievement, returned to his home where he found the ant and the bull\nprone upon the floor of the lodge, wounded, humbled and fordone.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFinally, the Minitarees and other tribes had a curious legend of their\norigin. They believed that their forefathers once dwelt in dark,\nsubterranean caverns, beyond a great, swift-running river. Two youths\ndisappeared from amongst them and after a short absence returned to\nproclaim that they had found a land lighted by an orb which warmed\nthe earth to fecundity, where deep waters shimmered crystal white and\ncountless herds of bison covered grass and flower-decked plains. So the\nyouths led the people up out of the primal darkness into the pleasant\nvalleys where they dwelt evermore. And as the bison were celebrated in\nthis child-like tradition of the Beginning, so likewise, did they figure\nin the primitive conception of the hereafter. That region of Summer\nwhere the good Indian should find repose, was pictured as an ideal\ncountry, fair with verdure and rich with herds of buffalo which the good\nspirits would go seeking through the golden vistas of eternity.\n\n\nIV\n\nWhen the first explorers penetrated the fastnesses of the New World the\nbuffalo was lord of the continent. Coronado on his march northward from\nMexico saw hordes of these unknown beasts which a chronicler of 1600\ndescribed na\u00efvely as \"crooked-backed oxen.\" The mighty herds roamed\nthrough the blue grass of Kentucky, the Carolinas, that region now\nthe state of New York, and probably every favorable portion of North\nAmerica. Very gradually they were pushed farther and farther westward\nto the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, which was for many years their\nrefuge and retreat. In 1819 the official expedition sent by John C.\nCalhoun to examine the Rocky Mountains, their tribes, animal and plant\nlife, found the buffalo reduced in numbers, though in the wild stretches\nof country lying South along the Arkansas, they were seen in countless\nhordes. The report says:\n\n\"During these few days past, the bisons have occurred in vast and almost\ncontinuous herds, and in such infinite numbers as seemed to indicate the\ngreat bend of the Arkansas as their chief and general rendezvous.\"\n\nThe account continues to narrate how the scent of the white men borne\nto the farthest animal, a distance of two miles, started the multitudes\nspeeding away, and yet so limitless were those millions, that, day\nafter day, they flowed past like a sea until their presence became as\na part of the landscape, and by night their thunderous bellow echoed\nthrough the savage wastes.\n\nIn Bradbury's _Travels_ there is a description of a fight among buffalo\nbulls. He says:\n\n\"On my return to the boats, as the wind had in some degree abated, we\nproceeded and had not gone more than five or six miles before we were\nsurprised by a dull, hollow sound, the cause of which we could not\npossibly imagine. It seemed to be one or two miles below us; but as our\ndescent was rapid, it increased every moment in loudness, and before we\nhad proceeded far, our ears were able to catch some distinct tones, like\nthe bellowing of buffaloes. When opposite to the place from whence it\nproceeded, we landed, ascended the bank, and entered a small skirting\nof trees and shrubs, that separated the river from an extensive plain.\nOn gaining a view of it, such a scene opened to us as will fall to the\nlot of few travellers to witness. This plain was literally covered\nwith buffaloes as far as we could see, and we soon discovered that\nit consisted in part of females. The males were fighting in every\ndirection, with a fury which I have never seen paralleled, each having\nsingled out his antagonist. We judged that the number must have amounted\nto some thousands, and that there were many hundreds of these battles\ngoing on at the same time, some not eighty yards from us. The noise\noccasioned by the trampling and bellowing was far beyond description.\"\n\nAt that time the bison paths were like well trodden roadways and served\nas such to the explorers. These paths always led by most direct routes\nto fresh water, and therefore were of the greatest assistance to\ntravellers unacquainted with the undiscovered lands.\n\nSuch were the legions of the plains even when the East had refused them\nshelter. And although it was roughly estimated that the tribes dwelling\nalong the Missouri River killed yearly 100,000 for food, saddle covers\nand clothes, this did not appreciably lessen their hosts. Not until the\nwhite tide flowed faster and faster over the wilds was the doom of the\nbuffalo sounded, together with that of the forests which sheltered them,\nand the Indians who were at once their foes and their friends.\n\nThen the destruction was swift beyond belief. The royal game which\nCoronado saw in 1585, which Lewis and Clark in their adventurous journey\ninto the unknown West encountered at every turn, was nearly gone. They\nendured in such numbers that as late as 1840 Father De Smet said:\n\n\"The scene realized in some sort the ancient tradition of the holy\nscriptures, speaking of the vast pastoral countries of the Orient, and\nof the cattle upon a thousand hills.\"\n\nIt was inconceivable to the Indians that civilization should wreak\nsuch utter desolation. They could not comprehend the passing of the\nmighty herds any more than they could appreciate the destruction of\nthe forests or their own decline. They did not know that the railroad\nwhich traversed the highway of the plains between the East and West ran\nthrough miles upon miles of country whitened with buffalo bones; that\nveritably the prairies which had been the pasture of the herds were\nnow become their graveyard--a graveyard of unburied dead. They did not\nknow that armies of workingmen and settlers had drawn upon the buffalo\nfor food and warmth, that the beasts had been harried and hunted North,\nSouth, East and West, sometimes legitimately, but too often in cruel,\nwanton sport, until, at last, it became an evident fact that they were\nvisibly nearing their end. A kind of stampede possessed the terrified\nbeasts. Their old haunts were usurped. Where the fostering forests had\ngiven them shelter, towns arose. Baffled and dismayed they fled, hither\nand thither, only to crash headlong within the range of the huntsman's\ngun. So they charged at random, ever pressed closer and closer to bay by\nthe encroaching life which was their death.\n\nAbout the year of 1883 it was known that the last thinned and vagrant\nremnant of the buffalo was virtually gone. Maddened into desperate\nbewilderment they had done an unprecedented thing. Instead of going\nnorthward as their habit had been since man first observed their kind,\nthey turned and fled South. This was their end. The half-breeds of the\nRed River, the Sioux of the Missouri, and most relentless of all, the\nwhite hide-hunter, beset the wild, retreating band. Their greed spared\nneither beast that tottered with age, nor calf fresh from its mother's\nwomb. All fell prey to the mastering greed of the lords of the great\nfree land.\n\nUpon the shores of the Cannonball River, so-called from the heaps of\nround stones upon its banks, on the edge of the Dakotas, the buffalo\nmade their last stand. Driven to bay they stood and fell together, the\nlatest offspring of a vanished race.\n\nBut the poor Indian, he who had shared the freedom of the continent\nwith his horned friend, could not yet understand that the buffalo were\ngone--gone as the sheltering woods were going, even as he, himself, must\ngo. Evolution is cruel as well as beneficent and there is a pang for\neach poor, lesser existence crushed out in the race, as there is joy\nin the survival of the strongest and best. And those who are superior\nto-day must themselves be superseded to-morrow and fall into the abysmal\nyesterday, mere stepping stones toward the Infinite. The Indians,\nknowing none of these things, became troubled and perplexed. In vain\nthey sought the herds on their old-time hunting grounds, but only stark,\nbleached bones were there and they went back to their lodges, hungry,\ngaunt and wan.\n\nIn years past the buffalo had disappeared at intervals to unknown\npastures, then returned multiplied and reinforced. Was it not possible\nthat they had gone upon such a journey, perhaps to the ultimate North\nwhere the Old Man dwelt, to seek refuge in a mighty polar cave under\nhis benign protection? So from their meager stores the Indians offered\nsacrifices of horses and other of their most valued possessions, to the\nOld Man, that he might drive the buffalo back to the deserted pasture\nlands near the Rocky Mountains.\n\n\"They are tired,\" said Long Tree of the Sioux, \"with much running. They\nhave had no rest. They have been chased and chased over the rocks and\ngravel of the prairie and their feet are sore, worn down, like those of\na tender-footed horse. When the buffalo have rested and their feet have\ngrown out again, they will return to us in larger numbers, stronger,\nwith better robes and fatter than they ever were.\"\n\nStill the years passed and the buffalo came not, and some there were\nwho said that if the Old Man, the Great Spirit of the North, loved\nhis children of the forest, he would not have left them to suffer so\npainfully and long.\n\nThen out of dumb despair came sudden hope; out of the bitter silence\nsounded a Voice and a prophet came \"preaching through the wilderness,\"\neven as John the Baptist had come, centuries ago, bringing a message of\npeace and the promise of salvation. This prophet was _Wovoka_, founder\nof the Ghost Dance religion, who arose in \"the land of the setting sun,\"\nin the shadow of the Sierras. He told the wrapt people that when \"the\nsun died\" he went to heaven where he saw God, the spirits of those long\ndead and vast herds of revivified buffalo feeding in the pastures of the\nskies. Heaven would not be perfect to the Indian without the buffalo,\nand the red man, less jealous than ourselves of his paradise, was\nwilling to share the bliss of immortality with his old-time companions\nof the plains. The tenets of the new creed were gentle, teaching peace,\ntruth, honesty and universal brotherhood. Under the thrall of the Ghost\nDance, devotees dropped to earth insensible and had visions of the\nspirit-world. Wovoka prophesied that at the appointed time the ghostly\nlegions, led by a spirit captain, would descend from heaven, striking\ndown the unbelievers and restoring to the Indians and the buffalo\ndominion over the earth.\n\nWith the awful desperation of a last hope the Indians leaped high into\nthe Night surrounding them to grasp at a star--a star, alas! which\nproved to be but a will-o'-the-wisp set over a quagmire of death.\nNothing seemed impossible to their excited fancy. Had not the white race\nkilled the Christ upon a Cross of torture, and would he not come to\nearth again as an Indian, to gather his children together in everlasting\nhappiness when the grass should be green with the Spring? Meantime they\nmust dance, dance through the weary days and nights in order that the\nprophesy might be fulfilled.\n\nAn alarm spread through the country. What meant this frenzied dance of\ncircling, whirling mystics who strained with wide eyes to look beyond\nthe skies? An order came that the dance must cease. This decree was but\nhuman, the one which bade them dance they believed to be divine. And\ndance they did, wildly, madly, to the sharp time of musketry until the\nhurrying feet were stilled and the dancers lay cold and stark on the\nfield of Wounded Knee.\n\nIn all the annals of the Indians' tragic tale there is nothing more\npitiful than this Dance of Death. The poor victims, together with the\nlast hope of a despairing race, were buried at Wounded Knee, and the\nwhite man wrought his will.\n\nSlowly and steadily the woods were laid low, inevitably the Indians\nretreated farther and farther back, closer pressed, routed as the\nbuffalo had been. All hope of the return of the beloved herds left their\nhearts and they knew at last that they would find them only in those\nElysian fields of perpetual summertime--the Happy Hunting Ground.\n\n\nV\n\nThe sun set red behind the mountains. The shadows stole down, gray\nand mystical as ghosts. From afar the coyote's dolorous cry plained\nthrough the silence and the owl hooted dismally as he awakened at the\napproach of night. There in the pallid dusk lay the bleached skull\nand the arrowhead of black obsidian, mute reliques of the past. The\nroyal buffalo is no more, the hunter that hurled the bolt is gone. We\nmay find the inferior offspring of the one in city parks, of the other\non ever-lessening reservations, but degeneracy is more pitiful than\ndeath, and the old, free herds that ranged the continent are past as the\nfleet-footed, strong-hearted tribes have vanished from the plains.\n\nSo the story of the two fallen races is told eloquently by this whitened\nskull on the hillside and the jet-black arrow head flung by the stilled\nred hand.\n\n\n\n\n_LAKE McDONALD & ITS TRAIL_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nLAKE McDONALD AND ITS TRAIL\n\n\nIn the northern part of Montana, towards the Canadian border, the Main\nRange of the Rocky Mountains has been rent and carved by glacial action\nduring ages gone by, until the peaks, like tusks, stand separate and\ndistinct in a mighty, serrated line. No one of these reaches so great a\nheight as Shasta, Rainier or Hood, but here the huge, horned spine rises\nalmost sheer from the sweep of tawny prairie, and not one, but hosts of\npinnacles, sharp as lances, stand clean cut against the sky. Approaching\nthe range from the East, in the saffron glow of sunset, one might fancy\nit was wrought of amethyst, so intense and pure is the colour, so clear\nand true the minutest detail of the grandly sculptured outline. Within\nthe ice-locked barriers of those heights live glaciers still grind\ntheir passages through channels of stone; down in shadowy ravines,\nvoiceful with silver-tongued falls, lie fair lakes in the embrace of\nover-shadowing altitudes. The largest of these lakes, McDonald, is the\nheart of a vast and marvelous country, the center of many trails.\n\nThe road to Lake McDonald winds along the shores of the Flathead River\nfor half a mile or more, skirting the swift current now churned into\nwhite foam by rapids, then calm and transparent, revealing the least\nstone and tress of moss in its bed, in shades of limpid emerald. Leaving\nthe river, the way lies through dense forests of pine and tamarack,\ncedar and spruce, and so closely do the spreading boughs interlace that\nthe sun falls but slightly, in quivering, pale gold splashes upon the\npads of moss and the fragrant damp mold which bursts into brilliant\norange-coloured fungus and viciously bright toadstools. Each fallen\nlog, each boulder wrested from its place and hurled down by glacier\nor avalanche, is dressed in a faery garb of moss and tiny, fragrant\nshell-pink bells called twinflowers, because two blossoms, perfect\ntwins, always hang pendent from a single stem as slender as spun\nglass, and these small bells scent the air with an odour as sweet as\nheliotrope. Within the forest dim with perpetual twilight, one feels the\nvastness of great spaces, the silence of great solitudes.\n\nSuddenly there bursts upon one, with all the up-bearing exhilaration of\na first sight of the sea, a scene which, once engraved upon the heart,\nwill remain forever. The trees part like a curtain drawn aside and the\ndistance opens magnificently. The intense blue of the cloudless sky\narches overhead, the royal waters of the lake flow blue and green with\nthe colours of a peacock's tail or the variegated beauty of an abalone\nshell; sweeping upward from the shores are tall, timbered hills, so\nthickly sown with pine that each tree seems but a spear of grass and the\nwhole forest but a lawn, and towering beyond, yet seeming very near in\nthe pure, white light, is a host of peaks silvered with the benediction\nof the clouds--the deathless snow. The haze that tints their base is of\na shade one sometimes finds in violets, in amethysts, in dreams. Indeed,\nthese mountains seem to descend from heaven to earth rather than to soar\nfrom earth towards heaven, so great is their sublimity.\n\nAs one floats away on the lake the view changes. New vistas open and\nclose, new peaks appear above and beyond as though their legion would\nnever come to an end. Straight ahead two irregular, rugged mountains\nwith roots of stone emplanted in the water, rise like a mighty portal,\nand between the two, seeming to bridge them, is a ridge called the\n\"Garden Wall.\" The detail of the more immediate steeps grows distinct\nand we see from their naked crests down their timbered sides, deep\nfurrows, the tracks of avalanches which have rushed from the snow fields\nof Winter, uprooting trees and crushing them in the fury of the mad\ndescent. A long, comparatively level stretch, not unlike a gun sight\nset among the bristling, craggy summits, is the \"Gunsight Pass,\" the\ndifficult way to the Great St. Mary's Lakes, the Blackfeet Glacier and\nthe wonderful, remote region on the Eastern slope of the range. Huge,\nwhite patches mark glaciers and snow fields, for it is within these same\nmountains that the Piegan (Sperry) and many others lie. And as we drift\non and on across the smooth expanse of water, the magic of it steals\nupon our souls. For there is about the lake a charm apart from the\nbeauty of the waters and the glory of the peaks; of spirit rather than\nsubstance; of soul-essence rather than earthly form. That mysterious\nforce, whatever it may be, rising from the water and the forest\nsolitudes and descending from the mountain tops, flows into our veins\nwith the amber sunshine and we feel the sweeping uplift of altitudes\nheaven-aspiring that take us back through infinite ages to the Source\nwhich is Nature and God.\n\n[Illustration: GLACIER CAMP]\n\nThe good old captain of the little craft weaves fact and fancy into\nwonderful yarns as he steers his launch straight for the long,\npurplish-green point which is the landing. To him no ocean greyhound is\nmore seaworthy than his boat, and he likes to tell of timid tender-feet\nentreating him to keep to shore when the lake was tumultuous with storm,\nand how he, spurning danger, guided them all safely through the trough\nof the waves. He keeps a little log wherein each passenger is asked to\nwrite his name. The poor old man has a maimed hand, his eyes are filmy\nwith years and his gums are all but toothless, but it would seem that\nnature has compensated him for his afflictions by concentrating his\nwhole strength in his tongue. He knows each landmark well, and gravely\npoints out to the credulous traveller, the highest mountain in the\nworld; calls attention to the 18,000 fathoms of lake depth whence no\ndrowned man ever rises, and other marvels, each the greatest of its kind\nupon the circumference of the globe. There came a day soon after when\nthe lake chafed beneath a lashing gale and the little craft and her\ngallant captain were dumped ingloriously upon the beach. But accidents\nhappen to the best of seamen, and the launch, after a furious expulsion\nof steam, and much hiccoughing, was dragged once more into her place\nupon the wave.\n\nAlthough there is evidence that Lake McDonald was long ago frequented\nby some of the Indian tribes, it was not known to the world until\ncomparatively recent times. There are two stories of its discovery and\nnaming, both of which have a foundation of truth. The first is that Sir\nJohn McDonald, the famous Canadian politician, riding across the border\nwith a party, cut a trail through the pathless woods and happening to\npenetrate to the lake, blazed his name upon a tree to commemorate the\nevent, thus linking his fame with the newly found natural treasure. The\nold trail remains--probably the virgin way into the wilderness. The\nsecond story--which is from the lips of Duncan McDonald, son of Angus,\nruns thus: He and a little band of Selish were crossing from their own\nland of the Jocko into the country of the Blackfeet which lies East\nof the Main Range, to recover some ponies stolen by the latter tribe,\nwhen they came in view of this lake hitherto unknown to them. Duncan\nMcDonald, who was the leader or _partizan_, as the French-Canadians say,\nblazed the name \"McDonald\" upon some pines along the shore. It matters\nlittle who was actually the first to set foot on these unpeopled banks,\nbut it is a strange coincidence that the two pathfinders should have\nborne the same name.\n\nThe purplish-green point draws nearer, log cabins appear among the\ntrees, each one decorated with a bear skin hung near its door. This\nis a fur trading center as well as a resort of nature lovers, and\nupon the broad porch of the club house is a heap of pelts of silver\ntip, black and brown bear, mountain lion and lynx, and from the walls\nwithin, bighorn sheep and mountain goats' heads peer down. The trappers\nthemselves, quaint, old hunters of the wilderness, come out of their\nretreats to trade. But even now their day is passing. With the advent\nof outside life these characters, scarcely less shy than the game they\nseek, move farther back into uncontaminated solitudes. They are the\nlast, lingering fragment of that old West which is so nearly a sad,\nsweet memory, a loving regret.\n\nEach hour of the day traces its lapse in light and shadow on the lake,\nuntil the sunset flowing in a copper tide, draws aureoles of golden\ncloud over the white-browed peaks, transforming their huge and rugged\nbulk into luminous light-giving bodies of faded roses and lavender.\nAs the evening wanes the mountains burn out in ashes of roses, still\nlightened here and there upon their ultimate heights, with a glow as\nfaint as the memory of a dead love, and the living halo of the clouds\ndeepens into coral crowns. Then the lake becomes a vast opal, kindling\nwith fires that flash and die in the growing dusk.\n\nThe dark forests that cloak the lake shores, are threaded with trails\neach leading to some treasure store of Nature far off in the secrecy\nof the hills. One of great beauty starts from the head of the lake,\nbeneath the shadow of the mountains, and overhangs the boisterous,\nrock-rent torrent of McDonald's Creek. The narrow way is padded thick\nwith pine needles ground into sweet, brown powder which deadens the\nleast intrusive footfall, as though the whole wood were harkening to\nthe singing of the waters through the silence of the trees. Along the\ntrail are mosses of multitudinous kinds. The delicate star moss unfolds\nits feathery points of green; a strange variety with thick, mottled\nleaves grows like a full blown rose around decayed trees, and a small,\npale, gray-green trumpet-shaped moss rears hosts of elfin horns. Only\na skilled botanist could classify these rich carpets which Nature has\nspread over the dead royalty of her forests, so that even in their death\nthere is resurrection; even in their decay, new life. Bluebells and\ntwinflowers, those delicate faery-bells of pink, sweet grass, pigeon\nberry and many another blossom beautiful in its strangeness, weave their\ncolour into gay patterns on the green; blend their fragrance with the\nbalsam sweetness of the woods. And all around, the stately pine trees\ngrow bearded with long, gray moss which marks their antiquity and\nforetells their doom. The stream below, flowing between steep banks\nthat it has cut during centuries of ceaseless washing, raises its song\nto a roar as it flings its swift current over a parapet of stone in a\nbanner of shimmering, white foam. Above, the water breaks in whirling\nrapids and farther still is another fall. Towering in the distance is an\nexalted peak, the father of this stream, whose snowy gift pours down its\nperennial blessing into the clear tide of the lake.\n\nSo it is, the streams that issue from the glaciers yield their pure\ntribute to Lake McDonald, and all the trails, uncoiling their devious\nand dizzy ways over the mountains, bring us back to these shores. And\nevery time that we return it breaks upon us with renewed freshness of\nmood. It may be ridden by a wind that lashes it into running waves\nof purple and wine colour, marked with the white foot-prints of the\ngale. It may be still as the first thought of love, holding in its\nbroad mirror the bending sky and mountains peering into its secrecy. It\nmay be ephemeral with mist that dims the mountains into pale, shadowy\nghosts; or it may be like a voluptuous beauty glittering with jewels\nand clad in robes of silken sheen; again, it may be Quakerish in its\npallid monotone. The changing cycle of the day and night each brings its\ndifferent gift of beauty, and likewise, the passing seasons deck the\nmountains and the waters with a glory all their own, until, with martial\nhosts of cloud, with banners streaming silver and emblazoned with\nlightning-gleam, Winter spreads its garment of white upon the mystery of\nthe wild. Perhaps the lake is never so exquisite as then. At least it\nseems so, as with closed eyes and passive soul, a memory undimmed arises\nout of the past.\n\nIt is night in the dead of Winter. The silence of deep sleep and\nisolation is on the world. The snow has fallen like a flock of white\nbirds and the air has cleared to the degree of scintillating brilliance\nthat mocks the diamond's flash. The full moon is beneath a cloud and\nits veiled light, filtering through the vapor, shows dimly the shadowy\nwaters and the wan peaks fainting far away. Then the cloud passes. The\nmoon leaps into the heavens and a flood of white light illumines the\nwater, the sky and the mountains, transforming the whole into a faery\nscene of arctic splendour. It is as though the last breath of life had\nvanished in that chaste frozen atmosphere, and the earth had become a\nPalace of Dreams.\n\nAnd though that Palace of Dreams vanishes as dreams must, like a melting\nsnow crystal or a frosty sigh upon the night, there remains in our\nhearts a yearning which shall bear us back to the reality of beauty\nthat rewards each pilgrim who returns to the deathless glory of the\nmountain-married lake.\n\n\n\n\n_ABOVE THE CLOUDS_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nABOVE THE CLOUDS\n\n\nOf all the trails in the McDonald country, there is none more travelled,\nor more worthy of the toil than that which leads to the Piegan glacier.\nFrom the moment we stand in expectant readiness in the little clearing\nbehind the log cabins comprising the hotel, a new phase of existence has\nbegun for us. So strange are the place and the conditions that it seems\nwe must have stepped back fifty years or more, into that West whose\nglamour lives in story and song. Strong, tanned, sinewy guides who wear\ncartridge belts and six-shooters, load grunting pack-horses and \"throw\"\ndiamond-hitches in businesslike silence. When at last all is ready, the\nriders mount the Indian ponies or \"cayuses\"--Allie Sand, the yellow cow\npony; Babe, the slumbrous; Bunchie, but recently subdued, and Baldy,\nnicknamed \"Foolish\" because of the musical pack of kettles, camp stoves\nand sundries that jingle and jump up and down upon his back, lightening\nthe way with merriment for those who follow. With a quickened beating\nof the heart, the good cheer and Godspeed of friendly voices ringing in\nour ears, we take leave of the last haunt of civilization and strike out\ninto the virgin solitude of heaven-aspiring peaks.\n\nAs the feeling of remoteness smites the spirit when we pass beyond\nthe railway station of Belton and follow in creaking wagons the\nshadow-curtained road to the lake, so now it returns with stronger\nimpulse, calling to life new emotions begotten of the Wild. The\nworld-rush calms into the great stillness of untrodden places, the\nworld-voices sigh out in the murmuring breeze, the petty traffic of the\ncities is forgotten in the soulful silence of the trees. And out of\nthis newly found affinity with the Nature forces, the love of adventure\nthrills into being, together with the fine scorn of danger and the\nresolve to do that which we set out to do no matter what the cost or the\nperil. Here the \"white feather\" is the greatest badge of dishonour, and\nhe who fails through cowardice to win his goal is a man among men no\nmore. This spirit is the faint, far-off echo of the hero-bearing days of\nthe early West.\n\nOur guide is a stocky, little man of soldierly bearing, clad in khaki\nsuit and cow-boy hat, whom his fellows call \"Scotty.\" He is brown\nwith exposure, smoothly shaven, and his keen, blue eyes are slightly\ncontracted at the corners from the strain of peering through vast\ndistances--a characteristic of men who follow woodcraft and hunting.\nHe rides ahead silently but for a rebuke to the slumbrous \"Babe,\" such\nas, \"Go on, you lazy coyote,\" or a familiar, half-caressing remark to\nBunchie, the ex-outlaw, who is his favourite. Indeed, he, like most men\nwho have ridden the range, has the habit of talking to the ponies as\nthough they knew and understood. And who can be sure they do not?\n\nThe forests begin as soon as the bit of clearing is passed, then\nsingle file the little cavalcade moves on through huckleberry fields,\npurplish-black with luscious, ripe berries, where bears come to feed\nand fatten, where, also, thirsty wayfarers stop to eat the juicy fruit.\nThe pines clasp branches overhead in a lacy, broken roof whose pattern\nof needle and burr shows in dark traceries against patches of blue sky\nremote and far beyond. A thick, sweet shadow dappled now and again with\nsplashes of yellow sun tempers the air which presses its cool touch upon\nour brows. On either hand a dense, even lawn of tender green fern and\nmist-maiden covers the earth and through the silence sounds the merry\nclamour of a stream. It ripples gaily along between wooded banks,\nbreaking into little crests of foam upon the rocks, showing through the\nglassy medium of its waters, every stone and pebble of its speckled bed\npolished and rounded by ceaseless flowing. The horses splash through\nthe creek and upon the opposite side begins anew the delicate lawn of\nmist-maiden and fern, so freshly, tenderly green with the pale greenness\nof things that live away from the sun, so ephemerally exquisite as to\nembarrass coarse, mortal presence. It is a spot fit for fairies to dance\nupon; fit for wood-nymphs and white hinds to make merry in; fit for the\nflute-like melody of Pan to awake to dancing echoes as he calls the\nforest sprites unto high revelry.\n\nA forest ranger joins us. He is tramping to the Gunsight Pass with his\naxe upon his shoulder and his kit upon his back, to repair the trail to\nthe Great St. Mary's Lakes.\n\nThe shades of brown and green, the shadow threaded with an occasional\nstrand of gold, are livened by crimson patches of Indian Paint Brush,\nbluebells, white starry lilies called Queen's Cups, trembling feathers\nof coral pink, sun-yellow and white syringa. Beneath the overhanging\nverdure, around and upon the mossy rocks, the ever-present twinflowers\nopen their delicate petals and sweeten the air, and from clumps of\ncoarse grass rise cones of minute white blossoms, the bear-grass, one\nof the most curious of the mountain flowers. This ranger knows the\ncommon names of nearly all the plants, and at every turn new varieties\nspring up. He stops to gather each kind of bloom until we have a great\nbouquet--a _potpourri_ of all the floral beauty of the multitudes that\npeople our path.\n\nThe way is very fair, ministering to the senses; troops of new,\nforest forms and colours pass before the eye, the mingled sweets of\nthe flowers, the pungent mould and balsam of spruce and pine breathe\nsensuously into the nostrils, and the fingers of the wind caress and\nsoothe as they pass. Through the voiceful silence, sounds that are on\nthe borderland between fancy and reality, thrill for a moment, then are\nlost in the grand chorus of trees and rushing rivers. A stream of volume\nand velocity flowing through a deep gorge falls twice in its downward\nrush. These two falls, the Wynona and Minneopa, flash great, white\nplumes among steeps of green forest.\n\nWith sharp descent and stubborn climb, the trail, that seems the merest\nthread, untangles its skein and leads, at length, into a small basin\npartly enclosed within sheer, naked rock-walls, whence three delicate\nsilver streams trickle down and join the creek that waters a little\npark. Beyond, the peaks loom up masterfully, sheathing their icy lances\nin the clouds. High over the lip of the mighty rock-wall, rising like\nthe giant counterpart of an ancient battlement, lies the glacier. Up\nthat precipitous, overhanging parapet we must make our way, but where\nthe footing or how the ascent is to be won, fancy cannot fathom, for\nit would seem no living thing save a mountain goat, a bighorn sheep\nor an eagle could scale this stronghold of Nature. Across the basin,\nwhere there is a gentler slope, the mountain side is dotted with groups\nof tall, spire-like pines. The level meadow is grassy and shaded with\nsmall spruce of the size of Christmas trees. And in this peaceful spot,\ngirt with grim, challenging steeps, the tinkle of the stream sounds\npastorally sweet, while the more distant and powerful roar of the three\ntumbling streams chants a solemn undertone to the merry lilt.\n\nHere the camp is made. A fire crackles gaily and our tents are\npitched beneath the trees. Suddenly a shadow falls,--dimly, almost\nimperceptibly. The sun has gone. It is only six o'clock in mid-summer,\nbut so lofty are the barrier-heights that even now we are in a world of\nshade,--shade of a strangely luminous kind, hinting of ruddy lights that\nare obscured but not quenched. Through the quiet, echo the whistle of\nthe marmot, the metallic whirr of contentious squirrels going off like\nsmall alarm clocks, and the mellow, drowsy note of bells ringing to the\nrhythmic crop of browsing ponies. So the long beautiful twilight settles\nover the mountains until the sounds are stilled save the tinkling bells\nand the water-voices singing their ceaseless song. The forest sleeps.\nLong, mystical fancy-bearing moments and tens of moments pass, and\nsomething of awe closes down with the gloaming. Then through the dim,\nmonkish grey shadow pulses a red-gold stream of light that runs in long,\nuneven streamers across the face of the grim, dark walls, transfiguring\nthem into radiant shapes of living golden-rose. In that effulgence\nof glory, lost peaks gleam for a second out of the dusk and vanish\ninto nothingness again, snowy diadems flash into being and fade like\na dream. The life-blood of the day ebbs and flows, sending out long,\nslender fingers to trace its fleeting message on the rocks, then with a\ndeepening, crimson glow it flickers and is fled. Night settles fast and\nthe flare of the camp fire, shedding its spark-spangles in brilliant\nshowers, reclaims one little spot from the devouring blackness. It is\na magical thing--this campfire, and the living ring around it is an\nenchanted circle. Perhaps its warmth penetrates even to the heart,\nor perhaps the bond of human fellowship asserts itself more strongly\nwhen only the precarious, flamboyant fire-light, leaping and waning,\nthrowing forth a rain of sparks, or searing grey with sudden decline,\nseparates our little group from utter desolation. Whatever the charm may\nbe, it falls upon us all, and with eyes fixed on the ember-pictures or\nraised to the starry skies, we listen to tales of the long ago and of\na present as unfamiliar as the past. The reserve of our guide is quite\nbroken and he tells in a low, reminiscent voice, of wonder-spots in the\nrange,--for he knows its every peak and gorge,--of the animals that\ndwell in its solitary recesses and of how the Piegan Glacier got its\nname.\n\nThe Piegan Indians are a branch of the Blackfeet tribe, and in the\nearly days they were almost as noted horse raiders as the Absarokes who\nflourished near the Three Tetons, in the country of the Yellowstone.\nBack and forth across the passes they came and went in their nefarious\ntraffic, secure from pursuit among the horns of these lonely heights.\nThe vicinity of the eternal ice-fields, probably this little basin\nitself, sheltered the shadowy bands, and thus the glacier became known\nby their name. Still, you may look in vain on the maps for Piegan\nGlacier; you will find it called Sperry instead. The old name was\ndiscarded for that of a Professor who spent some weeks exploring its\ncrevasses and under whose supervision a corps of college students spent\na part of one summer's vacation, building the glacier trail. Yet there\nare those who love the old names as they love the traditions for which\nthey stand, and to them the glacier will forever bear the time-honoured\ntitle of these Indians who have long since disappeared from its\nsolitudes.\n\nAs the hours pass we draw from our guide and story-teller something\nof himself. Little by little, in fragmentary allusions and always\nincidentally, during that even-tide and the days following, we learn\nthus much of his life. He was born in those troublous days of Indian\nfighting on the frontier, shortly after his father, an army officer,\nwas ordered out on campaign against the Sioux. When he was but a few\nweeks old word came to his mother that her husband had been killed,\nand she, sick and heart-broken, died, leaving besides this infant one\nother boy. The two children were left to the care of the officers at\nFort Kehoe, but they were separated while both were so young that they\ndid not realize the parting nor remember each other. Our guide became\nthe ward of a lieutenant who had been a friend of his father. He played\namong the soldiers and Indian scouts at the Fort until he came to the\nage when he felt the desire to learn, then he went East to school,\nafterwards to college, always returning in the summer to ride the range\nor to lose himself in the mountains. And when the college days were done\nthat old cry of the West, that old craving for the life that knows no\nrestraint nor hindering bonds, beckoned him back inevitably as Fate.\nAgain and again he had gone forth on the world's highway, once to serve\nin Cuba in the war with Spain, where in a yellow-fever hospital he met\nfor the first time his older brother, who even then was dying of the\npestilence, but always he returned to the freedom of the wilderness.\nHe is a type in himself, who belongs to the time of Lewis and Clark,\nrather than to this century--a man who lives too late. And there is\nabout him, for all his carefree indifference to the world, something\nof indefinable pathos. He is quite alone--he has no kinsfolk and few\nfriends. He is a man without a home but the forests, who has renounced\nhuman companionship for the solitudes, without a love but the mountains,\nto whom the greatest sorrow would be the knowledge that he might never\nlook upon them again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA cloud, heavy with rain, drifts across the sky, and big, cool drops\nsplash with a hissing noise in the fire, upon our upturned faces, upon\nthe warm, flower-sown earth which exhales, like incense, the odours\nof sun-heated soil and summer shower. The bright flames deepen to a\nblood-red glow and ashes gather like hoar frost on the cooling logs and\nboughs. The circle around the fire disperses to seek the narcotic gift\nbreathed by the pines, sung as a lullaby by the voices of trees and\nstreams.\n\nThe start for the glacier is made while the day is young. Pack horses\nand camp are left behind and with the guide leading the way, the\ntortuous climb is begun. Sheer as those rock-walls seemed to be, there\nis a footing for the careful ponies, as from narrow ledge to ledge\nthey turn and zigzag up the mountain-face; and naked as those steeps\nappeared, they are animated with frisking conies and marmots, and hidden\namong the stones are rarely exquisite flowers. Here the mountain lilies\ngrow, blossoms with brown eyes in each of their three white petals,\ncovered with soft, silvery fur which makes them seem of the texture\nof velvet. These lilies are somewhat similar to the Mariposa lily of\nthe California Sierras. The ground-cedar, a minute and delicate plant;\nstrange varieties of fern and moss, and everchanging, unfamiliar\nflowers appear as we ascend, until, wheeling dizzily hundreds of\nfeet above the basin upon the slight and slippery trail, with things\nbeneath dwarfed by distance into a pigmy world and things above looming\nformidably, the increasing altitude shears the rocks and leaves them\nbare and grim. The air grows sharp with icy chill, great billowy,\nlow-trailing clouds drag over the mountain-tops, down the ravines and\nfloat in detached banners in free spaces below. Broad stretches of snow\nlie ahead. The painstaking ponies pick their way across them, for it is\nfifteen feet down to solid ground. Sluggish streams creep between banks\ncrusty with old ice, and pretty falls, broken into lacy meshes of foam,\ncascade down a parapet of rock and baptize us as we pass. In this spot\nthe stone wall has been worn into a grotto where the water plays as in a\nfountain. From every little fissure ferns dart their long green lances\nand feathery fronds, and the rocks are grown over with moss.\n\nFrom our eyrie we look down into a small lake called Peary's, sunk\nwithin dark and desolate cliffs, shattered and ground down into\nfantastic forms. It is but partly thawed and its cold, blue-green centre\nis enclosed in opaque, greenish-white ice and drifts of snow. Indeed\nsnow is everywhere in broken drifts--in the furrowed mountain-combs\nand along the level in smooth white stretches. Close to the margin of\nthe ice-sealed shores is a grotesque, sapless, scrubby vegetation,\nas strange in its way as the brilliant-hued waters or the rocks that\nimpress us with huge antiquity and elemental crudeness, as though we\nstood face to face with Earth's infancy, close in the wake of ebbing,\nprimeval seas. But for all the savage roughness and arctic chill this is\na scene to cherish and remember--the blue cup of heaven, flecked with a\nthistledown of clouds, the black menace of shivered rock-crests, the\ndazzle of the snow and the darkly beautiful waters that are neither blue\nnor green yet seemingly of both colours, held fast in the circle of\ncold, pale ice.\n\nAbove this lake, down an overhanging wall, are more little falls, indeed\nthe whole country is interlaced with them as though the life-blood of\nthe mountains flowed in silver veins upon the surface. Within the hollow\nover the stone barrier lies Nansen's Lake, even more frigid in its\nice-sheath, more palely green in the little patch of water which the\nsun has laid bare. And although the mountains soar tremendously, yet\never and anon the course lies upward over the frowning brows, over the\nvery crowns of the Range, until the high peaks, stripped of atmospheric\nillusion, stand stark and naked to the gaze. There is in this sudden\nintimacy with the fellows of the clouds, the veiled lords of upper air,\nan awe which we feel before powers incomprehensible.\n\nAt last the trail ceases; overhead are cliffs no horse could climb.\nThe guide ties the ponies, and with a stout rope clambers ahead up a\nsmoothly sculptured parapet. We follow him and find ourselves on a\nbleak waste which leads to a small basin, strewn with great boulders\nand lesser rocks, dark and of the colour of slate. Growing upon these\nrock-heaps are masses of flowering moss starred by tiny pink buds and\nblossoms, or white spattered with the crimson of heart's blood. And now\nthe guide begins to whistle--a long, plaintive note which is answered\npresently by a similar sound and a shrill, infantile treble, cheeping,\ncheeping among the stones. Then from the security of her home a\nPtarmigan, or Arctic Grouse, hops into the open with her family of five\nchicks jumping on her patient back, and tumbling, the merest puff-balls,\nat her feet. She chirps softly to them, proud and dignified in her\nmaternity, ever watchful of her pretty little brood. She is dressed in\nQuakerish summer-garb of mottled grey, the feathers covering her to the\nutmost extremity of her toes. Once the winter snows descend, these birds\nbecome as white as the frigid regions which they inhabit. Ordinarily\nthey are very wild, but this little mother, knowing only friendliness\nfrom human visitors, comes forth trustfully with her beloved young,\nsuffers them to be handled and caressed and she, herself, with wings\ndropped in the semblance of a pretty courtesy, jumps into the hand of\nthe guide, and from that perch feeds daintily on the pink and white buds\nof the moss, as fragilely lovely as the snowflakes to which they appear\nstrangely akin. Indeed, the bird, the flowers and the environing snow\nall seem more of the cloud-land than of the earth.\n\nBut there is a sequel to the story of this little grouse, which is,\nunhappily, a tragedy. Not long after she greeted us, giving an air of\nfriendliness to the forbidding, wind-swept rocks, a Tyrolese came\nhunting through the mountains. He made his camp near the home of the\nPtarmigan and her little ones, and one day when the guide came calling\nto her there was no answer but the empty whistling of the wind. He\ncalled again and again; he searched among the crags and the rock-heaps,\nthen he came upon the ashes of a camp-fire and the mottled feathers\nand silken down of the Ptarmigan and her chicks. She had been betrayed\nat last by her trustfulness, and she and her brood had been cruelly\nsacrificed to the blood-lust and appetite of that enemy of poor dumb\nthings--the man with the gun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom the mossy basin of the Ptarmigan we climb with ropes up a broken\nescarpment and there upon the very lip of the glacier are blossoms so\nunearthly in form and colour as to seem the merest ghosts of flowers.\nOne is a dark, ocean-blue bell and another an ashen-green thing furred\nover with a beard as soft and colorless as a moth's wing. From\nthis eminence a stormy, wind-tossed little lake, the Gem, flashes\nangrily-bright waters beneath snow splashed, wonderfully stratified\npeaks, and there, through a gateway in the mountains, spreading out in\na vast plateau of white, lies the glacier, undulating in frozen waves\nlike a polar sea. Even under its shroud of snow one can trace its course\nby the seams and wrinkles of a congealed current. It is flanked on all\nsides by the savage, beetling peaks marshalled in endless ranks like\nthe spears and unsheathed lances of war-gods in their domain midway\nbetween earth and heaven. Out across the death-white pallor of snow, in\nthe death-chill of the ice-fields, we strike out slowly, cautiously,\nfor the surface of the ice, now hidden by snow, is cleft by crevasses\neven to the mountain's core, and a misstep, a fall into their depths\nwould be doom. Far away over the white stretches, a gaunt, spectral\ncoyote watches our painful progress. On and on we go by a tusk-like\npeak, the \"Little Matterhorn,\" and ever on to a point where the giant\npanorama unfolds its mountain-multitudes, its barricaded lakes, and the\necho breaks into a chorus that peals out as though each separate crest\nwere possessed of a brazen tongue. These grimly naked heights, split and\nrent with elemental shocks and the resistance to huge forces, are the\ncradle of the lightning and the thunder-bolt, the citadel whence the\nstorm-hosts ride down on blackwinged clouds upon the world. And even now\nphantom troops of clouds come gliding up out of the moist laps of the\nvalleys, out of lakes and streams, passing in shifting wraith-shapes\nover the mountains, spreading their filmy scarfs across the sky until\nthe livid expanse of snow, showing colourlessly in the grey light,\nbrings to one a vivid picture of the ice-age, of a frozen world and the\ncold, pitiless illumination of a burnt-out sun.\n\n[Illustration: GEM LAKE]\n\nFine, pricking points of snow cut with the sharpness of needle-thrusts;\nthe wind whips through the bleak gaps in the Range and over the glacier,\ngathering cold and speed as it comes. A chilling numbness deadens our\nfeet and hands. So, wind-buffeted, storm-driven, with the trumpeting\ngale in our ears, we turn back from the kingdom where Winter is\nunbroken, and descend through alternate shadow and sun into the blooming\nbeauty, into the golden Summer that swims in the world below, whence\nsnow and cold are only hinted of in a white-breasted, mountain-kissing\ncloud.\n\n\n\n\n_THE LITTLE SAINT MARY'S_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE LITTLE SAINT MARY'S\n\n\nPerhaps the most sublime sweep of view within the entire Range is\ngained from the summit of Mount Lincoln. To accomplish this ascent it\nis necessary to leave the tortuous \"switch-back\" trail in full view of\nGunsight Pass and strike out over a trackless mass of shattered rock,\nupward toward the peak. The way is steep and difficult, the footing\nslippery and insecure. The muscles strain to quivering tension, the\nbreath comes in gusty sighs and still the mighty heap of dull rose and\ngreen rock rears its jagged crest against the throbbing sky. But even\nif the climb were tenfold longer and the goal tenfold harder to win, it\nwould be a faint-hearted seeker after the beautiful who would hesitate\nto make the sacrifice of toil for the magnificent reward that awaits him.\n\nThe rugged pedestal of stone that crowns the peak, drops almost\nprecipitately three thousand six hundred feet, and directly below,\nin a gorge formed by this and a second chain of lofty mountains, lie\ntwo jade-green lakes, the Little Saint Mary's, joined by a slender,\nfar-leaping waterfall. So immense is the distance, that this fall,\nspanning the seventeen hundred feet between the upper and lower lakes,\ndoes not break the brooding quiet with the whisper of an echo. The\nslim, white column parts upon the rocks into a diamond shape, and when,\nhappily, the sunshine catches in its spray, it becomes a tangle of\nrainbows. But now, it unfolds its silver scarf silently, colourlessly\nas a ghost, and the green lake, so far below, receives the pouring tide\nwith never a ripple to mar its smooth surface. The shadow gathers in the\ngorge and along the mountains, the pines are darkly green and in sharp\ncontrast, the unmelted snow fields lie pale and gray-white to the very\nrim of the lakes forming a setting as of old silver. After the first\nshock of that sublimity has left the senses free of its thrall, a vast\npanorama unfolds, dominated by the majesty of mountain-lords flanked and\ncrowded by range upon range of others, rising in lessening undulations\nto the horizon's rim, as though a sea whose giant billows strove to\nsmite the sky in the throes of an awful storm, were suddenly transformed\nto stone.\n\nIn the crushing might of these great spaces, peering over the brink\nof the mountain top into the bosom of the smooth, still lakes as\ncoldly beautiful as an emerald's heart, that half-mad idea of\nself-annihilation clutches at the mind. Perhaps it is the exhilarating\nleap of the waterfall that tempts one, or perhaps the hypnotic charm\nof the deep-set, jewel-bright pools, or perhaps some unguessed\nsecret of gravity which impels the tottering atom into the depths of\nlife-absorbing space. It is the same terrible, savage joy, the magnetism\nof elemental force which we feel as we stand on the brink of the Grand\nCa\u00f1on of the Yellowstone, with the glorious, brave call to death crying\nfrom the water voices, while the whisper of life sounds sweetly from the\nvocal winds of heaven.\n\nAnd even as we gaze, the sun's light dies and the world is ashen pale.\nSuddenly over the distant ranges, storm clouds come trooping in black\nhosts. A heavy silence falls, broken now and again by the boom of\nthunder and the frightened cry of shelter-seeking birds. Perched upon a\npoint of rock, silhouetted against the sky, a bighorn sheep watches the\ngathering tempest, unmindful of the muttering thunder and the ominous\nglow of lightning kindling in the sable-winged array. There is something\nnoble about him as he turns his crest upward to bear the onslaught of\nthe blast. The purple of the mountains overhanging the lake deepens\nto black--the blue-black of a clear, night sky--and the snow filling\nthe ravines lies passionless and white as death. Beneath the driving\nstorm-banners, a luridly vivid light casts its reflection upon the earth\nin a gilded path, revealing the smallest detail of valley and height\nbefore the darkness wraps them in its mantle. The Kootenais for one\nbrief instant shine like towers of brass and a pallid mist overhanging\nan arm of the remote Flathead Lake becomes a golden fleece, then the\ngarish glare passes and mystery and shadow settle down. Violet tongues\nof lightning dart from the trailing clouds, the martial fifing of the\nwind makes shrill music through the bleak cairns and empty wastes, and\ngreat, splashes of rain fall fragrantly, refreshingly upon the warm\nground. But in all the tumult, the cold, jade-green lakes lie unshaken,\ncalm. So truly are they the mountains' brides, held securely in their\nembrace of stone, that not even the wild riding of the gale nor the\nshivering thunderbolt disturbs their untroubled depths, while their\nchampions, the peaks, in helmets of pale ice do battle with the elements.\n\nThe deafening cannonade becomes fainter, the sword-thrust of lightning\nstrikes at other quarry, and the storm, with torn banners dragging low\ndown the mountain sides, like routed hosts in retreat, follow the wake\nof the thunder, the lightning and the tempest-ridden wind. And as the\nsun shines forth from the heavens a transformation beams like a blessing\nfrom every crag and rock. Still wet with the summer rain, they take on\nstrangely beautiful hues of sparkling rose colour, and green like that\nof the mother ocean, and the naked, glacier-ground escarpments reveal\nthe exquisite illuminations wrought in flowing, multi-colored bands, in\nsubtle shade and wordless rune, of the record book wherein is writ the\nhistory of \u00e6ons.\n\nThrough the dazzle of the sun the sea of mountains re-appears, a flowing\ntide of purple billows growing more ethereally blue in the distance\nuntil they seem but the azure shadow of heaven. And far beneath in the\ndeep, dark gorge, cool with perpetual shade, flanked by mighty mountain\nwalls, are the polished jade-green lakes and the fall, spinning its\nendless silver skein into the untroubled waters below.\n\n\n\n\n_TRACK OF THE AVALANCHE_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE TRACK OF THE AVALANCHE\n\n\nThe trail to Avalanche Basin starts from the shores of Lake McDonald\nand plunges almost immediately into forests mysterious with primeval\ngrandeur. Perhaps their denseness is the reason for the wealth of\nrank-growing weed and shrub that forms one vast screen beneath the\nspreading branches of pine, tamarack and kingly cedar trees. Whether\nthis is the cause or not, the trail is richer in vegetation than\nany other that lays open the secrets of the forest's heart. Tall,\njuicy-stalked bear-weed, devil's walking cane, prickly with venomous\nthorns, slim, graceful stems of wild hollyhock crowned with pale,\nlavender blossoms, and broad-leafed thimble berry, bearing fragile,\ncrapy-petalled flowers, weave their verdure into a tangled mass. An\noccasional path crushed down freshly shows where a bear has lately been,\nfor these lavish brakes are a haunt of the three varieties that dwell\nin the surrounding mountains--the black, the brown and the silver tip,\nor grizzly. Strange sounds come up out of the silence, borne through\ndim, dark vistas where shy things peep and dry twigs snap under careful,\nstealthy tread. A woodpecker drums resonantly on the bole of a tree;\nshrill, elfin music quavers with reedy sweetness from the security of\ndense thickets. A haunting spell steals over the heart and turns the\nmind to thoughts of sirens, water sprites, and Piping Pan, for in spite\nof generations of culture, somewhat of that ancient worship of the Wild\nis revived in us when we are in the virgin woods. The hypnotic charm of\nthe great silence and solitude possesses us and there comes a feeling\nas of memory of half-forgotten things lived in a dream,--or was it\nreality? The inarticulate voices of the past come calling in sylvan\nmelody out of the closed lips of the centuries, re-awakening the life of\nour forebears and revealing to us a fleeting glimpse of something which\nwe cannot define or understand. In this spell of the wilderness we not\nonly feel the emotion of young world-life and race-childhood, but that\nof our own more personal childhood when the pursuit of a butterfly or a\nflower winged our feet and warmed our hearts. It may be the scent of a\nfamiliar shrub, the flight of a bird, or even the shimmer of dew that\nbrings us afresh, for a moment, that gaily painted memory which the\nyears may dim but never quite obliterate.\n\nThe trail is dark with shadow,--the awe of the woods,--roofed with\nboughs and so still that we seem to hear the breathing of the trees.\nA sudden turn unfolds a little lake, bright with a living pattern of\nlily-pads, bursting buds and golden water-lilies. Through a rift in\nthe pines the distant mountains appear; then the green tide of branches\nflows together and there is nothing but silence and shadow and the\nforest. The woods deepen. Low, bushy maples grow among the pines,\nColorado spruce sheds its silver sheen amidst the more somber foliage,\nand towering high above the loftiest pines and tamaracks, of magnificent\ncircumference and sweep of limb, are the cedars, the Lords of the\nForest. Off to one side of the trail, among the thick-sown trees, is a\ngiant boulder completely covered with moss, a throne fit for Pan. The\npines around it are of goodly size, yet they sprang and grew, perhaps\ncenturies after that huge stone came hurtling downward in a great\navalanche, or was borne from the mountain tops by the slow progress of a\nglacier.\n\nAgain the forest pageant changes. There are groves of pine stricken\nwith hoary age, bearded like patriarchs with long, pendent streamers\nof colourless moss; then comes a young growth of pine, fore-doomed to\nearly death which already shows in the bronze of premature decay. It is\na beautiful spot, nevertheless, balsam-sweet and strewn with needles\nthat nurture violets of yellow and purple, twin flowers and Queen's Cups.\n\nThere is a sound like wind among the trees though not a branch stirs,\nand presently there bursts into view a sight of wild, exhilarating\ngrandeur. A swift, tumultuous stream rushing down a steep, narrow\nchannel, clean-cut as a sabre stroke, dashes headlong into a\nrainbow-ridden fall. The volume of water is churned into a passion of\nswirling foam that flings its light mist heavenward to descend again in\nrain. Ferny, mist-fed, moss-grown banks slope gently to the declivity\nand over smooth, emerald cushions, lacy leaf and trailing boughs, tiny,\ncrystal drops, glinting prismatic hues, tremble and pass away. The air\nis very sweet with a new and unfamiliar fragrance, and amidst the moss,\nhalf hidden beneath grosser leaf and protruding root, is a flower, the\nloveliest of all the lovely woodland host. It is a small, snowy blossom\nof five petals and a golden heart, growing on a slender stem from a\ncluster of glossy, earth-clinging leaves, and as though to hide its\nchaste, shy beauty, the modest flower turns its face downward towards\nthe ground. Its scent is strong and heavy like that of the magnolia. The\nguide, who travels the mountains over from the earliest budding to the\nultimate passing of the flowers, has never seen this stranger blossom\nbefore, and we find it on no other trail. It was unknown, unnamed, so we\ncall it the Star of the Mountains and leave it blooming in the secrecy\nof that elfin dell.\n\nAbove the thunder of the fall sounds a slight, shrill bird note and\nthrough the clouds of spray darts a little brown bird, dipping almost\ninto the boiling current, rising upward with a graceful swell and a\nwild, free lilt, perching finally on a tiny point of rock just over the\nshock and roar of the flood. This strange little winged sprite is a\nwater-ouzel who makes her home and raises her young upon these insecure,\nspray-drenched walls, with the water-challenge pealing its menace and\nbreathing its chill on her nest. She and her kind haunt the lonely\nmountain creeks and rivers, seeking some fall or cataract that flings\nits spray and sings its song to the silent, ice-imprisoned world. Once\nthe mating season is over and the young are fledged, each bird takes its\nsolitary flight and becomes a veritable spirit of the woodland streams.\n\nThe dense forests become broken and sheer cliffs rise to stupendous\nheights. Upon their sharp and slender pinnacles wild goat and bighorn\nsheep dwell, and in passing we see a goat so far away on those dizzy\nsteeps that he seems the merest patch of white. Through this gorge,\nbetween the mountains, are deep hewn furrows where year after year,\ncentury after century, the burden of ice from the peaks descends in\navalanches. In the Spring when the first thaw begins, a deafening roar\nlike a cannonade heralds the furious onslaught of ice and snow. At such\ntimes the Avalanche Trail is a dangerous way to travel, and even now a\ndistant booming reminds us that the mountain forces are never idle, that\nin their serenity there is force, in their mystery there is still the\nenergy of creation.\n\nThrough this narrow passage between overhanging crags, the trail\ncontinues until, bearing upward, it suddenly crosses a pretty,\nmilky-hued stream, and thence to a hill-side overlooking a sheet of\nwater opaque and pearly white, in a setting of dark-browed woods. It\nis Avalanche Lake. The water is perfectly calm, not a breath of air\nrustles the slightest leaf, but there is no reflection of throbbing,\nblue sky, of green woods or purple mountains--it does not thrill to the\npassion of the Summer, flash back azure and gold and picture in its\nresponsive heart the glories of earth and heaven. Because of this, it is\ndifferent from all the other lakes of these mountains and the shell-like\nwhiteness of its surface, pallidly beautiful as a great pearl, has a\npeculiar beauty none the less striking for its strangeness. The cause\nof the milkiness of these waters seems at first without satisfactory\nexplanation, but as we examine them more closely we see that they are\ncharged with infinite multitudes of tiny air bubbles, and every stream\nthat feeds the lake, having fallen from enormous heights, is likewise\nfull of infinitesimal air beads. On the other hand, some contend that\nthe water, pouring down from the glacier is white with particles of\nfinely pulverized rock.\n\nPushing straight past the lake, through almost impenetrable thickets\nof whipping willows that fight like live things to guard from vandal\nfootsteps what lies beyond, the journey reaches its climax in Avalanche\nBasin. There, in that vast amphitheatre sculptured from the living rock\nby glaciers, carved and scarred by innumerable avalanches descending\nthrough the ages, overhung by the Piegan ice fields, six silver streams\nleap the full height of the great rock walls. The falls seem to melt\naway before they touch the reality of earth, veritable spirits, born of\nthe snowdrift and the sun; white ghosts spending themselves in spray to\nreascend into the clouds.\n\n[Illustration: ON THE TRAIL TO MT. LINCOLN]\n\nA rich growth of green grass, coloured with broad splashes of Indian\nPaint Brush, covers the sloping floor of the basin. Standing on its\nextreme elevation upon a platform of rock, and thence overlooking the\ncountry that lies ahead, the scene is one of uplifting majesty. Below,\nwithin the sombre circle of the pines, is the lake, palely fair as a\nwhite sea shell or a milk opal whose latent colours never quite shine\nforth from its cloudy depths. Farther still, is the gorge, opening\nlike a gateway into the region of the avalanche, and farther still,\nis Heaven's Peak, mingling with the cloudless sky. The strata on these\nmountains laid bare as though but yesterday they were rent asunder, flow\nin undulating ribbons of colour varying from red-violet to dull, antique\ngold. But between the quivering sky of Summer and the warm, flower-sown\nearth, is a ghostly tide of purple haze, an amethystine shadow which\ntouches every rock and tree and peak with magical illusion. And through\nthat veil, as through enchantment, each rock, each tree, each peak is\ntransfigured and for a brief hour is given a semblance of the divine.\nThe gorge is filled with flowing purple, the glorified gateway might be\nHeaven's Gate, even as the dominant mountain, royal in the thickening\nblue distance, is Heaven's Peak.\n\nHere the sordid world seems to melt away; the sunshine has got into our\nblood and the transfiguring haze has penetrated even to our hearts.\nWe seem so intimately a part of this mighty, primeval place where the\ninfinity of the past and the infinity of the future are married in one\ngreat mystery, that we dare to listen for secrets of the one from the\nchant of the falls; to lift the veil of circumventing blue and peer into\nthe other. So, standing upon that rock platform, from the reality of the\npresent we speed our souls into the ideality of Time's poles. Though the\nsong of the water-voices that have sung \u00e6ons, rings in our ears, and the\nliving letter of the world-book is shown in the mountain's open page,\nwe may not know the portent of either message. And though we gaze with\nseeking vision through the shadow into the ultimate blue above, the haze\ndraws its protecting garment thicker, closer about the treasure-house of\nNature, and the sun darts amber lances earthward to blind aspiring eyes.\nSo we pass humbly upon our way, the water-voices singing in our ears,\nthe arch of Heaven trailing its garment over earth, still guarding the\nriddle of the future in its azure keep.\n\n\n\n\n_INDIAN SUMMER_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nINDIAN SUMMER\n\n\nAfter the Summer's ripe maturity has vanished with the first autumnal\nstorm, there steals over the world a magical Presence. It has no place\nin the almanac; it comes with a flooding of amber light and a deepening\nof amethyst haze; it plays like a passing smile on the face of the\nuniverse and like one, vanishes with the stern rebuff of the wintry\nblast. What jugglery the sun and earth and the four winds of heaven have\nwrought no mortal man can tell, but certainly by some divine alchemy\nthe deadening blight is turned into gold, and upon the lap of the\nworld there lies, instead of the appointed Fall, a changeling season,\nthe faery-child of Nature, illusive, fleeting as a flock of yellow\nbutterflies, a shimmer of radiant wings--the Indian Summer!\n\nThe whole earth is under the spell of the mad, sweet witchery. The\nforests are decked in a gay masquerade, too glorious to be real, and\nour own sober senses are half-mastered by the delusion that the dead\nSummer is come to life again. In open places where the fingers of the\nsun still warm the moist ground, absent-minded bluebells, strawberries\nand yellow violets bloom on forgetful that they should already be taking\ntheir winter's rest. And it is strange with what pleasure we seize upon\nthese fragile blossom-friends; with what childish joy we caress their\npale petals so soon to be laid low. Yet in the warm air lurks a hidden\nsting, the bittersweet of sun and frost; in the very effulgence of life\nis the foreshadowing of death. Already on the heights streamers of cloud\ngather, leaving in their wake the dazzle of fresh snow. And beneath\nthese low-streaming clouds, slanting earthward in broad, down-pouring\nrays, is a pure white light upon the mountains. The light on the\nmountains! What a revelation it is! The windows of heaven are flung open\nand the celestial beams of Paradise illumine God's Cathedral Domes, the\npeaks, for a brief space before sky-wrought vestments of snow cover the\naltar of His Sanctuaries.\n\nThe trails of yesterday are barred. For prudence sake we must keep to\nthe low country or risk the fate of being \"snowed in.\" Therefore we\nchoose the Kintla Road and Camas Creek, where a large band of moose\nroams in the forest solitudes, hoping to reach Quartz Lakes near the\nCanadian line before we shall be driven back by the cold. The pine-sweet\nair fills us with the very spirit of the woods as we strike out over\nthe gilded trail through forests transfigured into a welter of gorgeous\nhues, past deep-cleft ravines purple as the heart of a violet, to dim\nlilac mountains that melt into the blue. What is it that is mystical,\nspiritual, if you will, in this colour of violet? It is not like the\nrobust, tangible green of the trees, the definite reality of the\nflowers' multi-coloured petals. We cannot lay our hands upon it any more\nthan we can grasp a sunbeam, for like hope deferred, it lies forever\nbeyond our reach. We see it unwind its royal haze through gorge and\nforest; we watch it fade into pale lavender on the ultimate pinnacles\nof the range, but if we follow it what do we find? Mere yawning cleft\nor greenwood grove or jagged strata of dull rock. Where is the subtle\nviolet, the dim dream lavender? Fled as subtly as the shadow of a wing!\nPerhaps it _is_ a shadow of the divine, the soul-essence common to man\nand the flower at his feet, the dumb, stone mountains, the living air\nand the heaven that embraces all in its enduring keep.\n\nWe pass into the deep, unbroken shadow of virgin woods where bushes burn\nwith crimson rosehips, the thimbleberry shines in its autumn garb of\nyellow, the tamarack gleams golden among its somber brethren, the pines,\nand strange, bright shrubs set us forever guessing. We emerge into a\nbillowing field of wild hay, fringed with trees, above which we can see\nthe metallic sharpness of the mountains. Shining over all impartially,\nshedding its glory upon our souls, is the dominant sun whose broad rays\nbreak into a mist of ruddy gold. Again we dip into eternal shadow, the\nhorses' hoofs sound with a dull cluck as they sink in and are lifted\nfrom the soft mold. Often we are startled by the sudden whirr of wings\nas frightened grouse fly to shelter. Fungus thrusts evil, flame-coloured\ntongues from the damp, sweet soil and a marvelous variety of moss\nand lichen trace their patterns on logs, tree stumps and upon the\nwind-thrown forest trees that toss their gnarled roots high above our\nheads in an agony of everlasting despair. We splash through Dutch Creek,\nCamas Creek and many another, and as we pause to eat a frugal midday\nmeal on the banks of one of these, we find upon a trailing limb, a dying\nbutterfly. Poor little sprite of yesterday! Its bright wings palpitate\nfeebly and it suffers us to take it in our hands without making an\neffort to escape. The last of its gay brethren, the blossom-lovers,\nits hour is come and with its final strength it has fluttered to this\nfriendly leaf to die. So, very gently we put it back upon its chosen\nresting place, leaving it to join ghostly bright winged flocks in the\nsunshine of some immortal Arcady.\n\nFrom a high ridge which falls away abruptly into a water-hewn declivity,\nwe look through broad, open vistas far below at the North Fork of\nthe Flathead River. The stream takes its way between banks of fine\ngray pebbles, parting now over a sandy bar in slender green ribbons,\nthen uniting in one broad current, again separating to curl in white\nfoam-frills around a boulder or little island. Mild and limpid as the\nriver now appears there is evidence of its flood-tide fury in uprooted\ntrees and livid scars along its banks. Working silently and secretly\nnear the water's edge is a beaver. We can scarcely distinguish him as\nhe toils patiently, bringing to our minds the old Selish legend that\nthe beavers are a fallen tribe of Indians, doomed by the Great Spirit\nto expiate an ancient wrong by constant labor in their present shape.\nBut some day after the appointed penance, the Indians believe that the\nbeavers will resume the form of men and come into their own again.\n\nFor two days we ride farther and farther into the wilderness, camping\nby night and taking up the trail with the early dawn. And as we\npenetrate deeper into the wild the pageant changes only to become\nmore sublime. Clumps of slenderly graceful silver poplars with gray,\nsatin-smooth boles and branches that burst into a shower of golden\nleaves, shed glory upon our way. Dense woods of yellow pine whose giant\ntrunks hold all the shades of faded rose, and silvery-green Colorado\nspruce overshadow us and once we find ourselves in a grove of yellow\ntamarack hung with streamers of black moss. Years upon years ago a\nforest fire whose fury was nearly spent had scorched these trees with\nits hot breath, changing the feathery moss into flowing streamers of\nblack--veritable mourning weeds--which contrast sharply with the golden\nfoliage. Even now it is easy to fancy that the fire still burns and each\ntall tamarack is a pillar of living flame.\n\nThe nights are no less wonderful than the days. The melon-coloured\nharvest moon floats high in the blue-black heavens, touching the\npriestly trees with its white rays. We sit beside our camp fire\nlistening to the crackle of dry twigs beneath a cautious tread, the\noccasional whistle of a stag and the ominous note of an owl hooting\namong the pines. Sometimes we fancy that green and amber eyes burn the\ndarkness, and we cling close, close to the primal birthright of the\nrace--the flaming brand--which raises its bright barrier now as in the\nage of stone, between mankind and the predatory beasts of the wild. The\nwooded hosts seem to press down with stifling persistence upon us and an\nindefinable terror creeps into our hearts, the inherent fear of man, the\natom, of Nature, the fathomless, the unknown.\n\nAs these nights wear on and we lie upon our couches of fragrant cedar\nboughs, up out of the gulf of silence the lean-flanked coyotes howl to\nthe moon, and later still, when the pale disc dips beneath the horizon\nand the shrouded secrecy of before-dawn steals, like a timid ghost,\nout of the Infinite, the trees find tongue and murmur together though\nthere is no wind and the stream sings with a music as of hidden bells.\nStrange, elfin sounds, the merest echo of a whisper thrill out of the\nquiet and sigh into silence again. A faint patter-patter as of falling\nthistledown is heard constantly, insistently, inevitably. Can it be the\nbeat of gossamer wings, the trip of faery feet as the woodland sprites\nhang the grass, the leaves, the finest-spun thread of cobweb with beads\nof dew, and trim the dark pines, like Christmas trees, with tinsel frost?\n\nTruly the pale morning light breaks upon a transformed and enchanted\nworld. Silver filigree adorns the most commonplace limb and twig. Each\npine needle twinkles with a gem giving forth rainbow-hued rays beneath\nthe first steel-cold beams of the sun. The thorn-apple, whose wine-red\nbranches are furred with a white beard, is etherealized into delicate\npastel shades of lavender and mauve by a film of hoar frost. Ragged\nstreamers of fantastic mist-shapes rise and float heavily through the\nmoist air, obscuring, then revealing stretches of stream-laced woods\nand finally rolling away in lessening vapour into the lingering dusk\nof ravines. There is a mighty scene-shifting of Nature in progress. The\nnight phantoms, the colourless dawn-shapes are hurried off, while the\nsun, riding high in the deepening blue, touches stream and tree and peak\nwith the illumination of the new day.\n\nAs we wander about breathing the balsam sweetness of the pine-breath\nof the new dawn, we make curiously interesting discoveries. By an\nunfortunate accident we roll a hollow log over and uncover a squirrel's\nwinter larder of small pine cones, and at the same time we hear above\nour heads, in trees so lofty that we cannot penetrate the dense\ncanopy of interlocked limb, the domestic troubles of a pair of these\ncontentious little forest folk. In high treble voices they quarrel and\ndispute in a perfect hysteria of rage. Upon the damp trail near camp we\nfind large, cloven hoof prints too big for those of a deer, so probably\nour mysterious visitor of the evening before was no less a personage\nthan a lordly moose.\n\nWe linger on heedlessly, much the same as the absent-minded flowers,\nclinging as desperately to the woodland as the dying butterfly,\ndeceiving ourselves into the half-belief that Winter is far away. The\nair is still warm and the light shines on the mountains. And that light\nlures us on by its thrall to higher altitudes. Down the gorges the snow\ngathers in deepening drifts and the utmost peaks are white as carven\nivory. Still we resolve to make one brave dash for the Quartz Lakes,\nset one above the other in a chain among sheltering ca\u00f1ons and flanking\ncliffs. Under the inspiration of the camp fire we discuss the morrow's\njourney. How splendid it will be to race with the sun; to dare the\nsudden blizzard that might cut off our retreat, for one brief glimpse of\nthat Upper World we have grown to love with a passion akin to madness.\nBut even as we speak a shadow falls, and looking upward we see that a\ngray moth-wing of cloud hides the moon. Surely it is a passing vapour,\nthe merest mist-breath exhaled by the languid night. But no! darker and\nheavier it unrolls. Wraith shapes glide out from the black mass until\nthe stars are dead and the deep blue dome of heaven is shrouded by an\nimpenetrable pall. That night the heavy rain drops beat a tattoo on the\ntent and the mournful pines weep the sorrow of ages.\n\nUndaunted we take up the trail, assuring ourselves that soon the fickle\nweather will be fair again. Occasionally a patch of clear blue shows\nthrough the broken flock of hurrying clouds and a wan sun ray steals\ndown for a moment to kiss the woods goodbye. The forests are already\ndrenched and each bough that strikes us pours upon us a little flood of\nrain. The trees line up in somber walls and as the storm settles into a\nsteady downpour, between their dark fringes flows a narrow, ashen stream\nof sky. Through the brooding shadow tamaracks kindle, silver poplars\nhuddle together with quivering aureoles of gold, and the austere dusk\nbeneath their boughs is lighted with yellow-leafed thimbleberry, glowing\nlike sunbeams. It seems as though the foliage of those receptive trees\nand shrubs has absorbed the summer sun to give it forth again when the\nworld should be cloaked in shadow. So complete is the illusion that\noftentimes, as a shaft of light gleams through the tree tops, we cry\nexultantly:\n\n\"The sun is shining!\"\n\nIn another second we see that it is but the tamaracks burning like tall,\nyellow candles through the autumnal gloom, shedding their blessed gift\nof light to cheer us on our way.\n\nWhen we gain the lower Quartz Lake, a deep green sheet of water bordered\nby wooded shores, the heavy clouds drag low and a rainbow arches the\nlake. We halt, uncertain, raising our eyes questioningly to the heights\nbeyond that frown blackly through the tattered tapestry of the clouds.\nThe mountains are angry! Very reluctantly, sorrowfully, we turn to\nretrace our steps, thinking of future seasons of sun and warmth and\nother quests of the sublime that shall end in triumph. At each gust the\nshearing wind despoils the silver poplars of their crowns until the\nnaked branches leap wildly in a fantastic dance of death.\n\nThe changeling season, the faery-child of Nature has fled as\nmysteriously as it came--fled like a flock of yellow butterflies into\nsome ethereal region to await its perennial resurrection. Dull Autumn\nsettles drab as a moth upon the saddened world and the light has died\nfrom the mountains.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected.\n\nPunctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant\npreference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.\n\nThis book uses both \"leggins\" and \"leggings\".\n\nReference to page 90 in the List of Illustrations should be to page 116.\n\nPage 206: \"complete, In Maximilian's\" is printed with a comma in the\nbook and unchanged here.","title":"Trails Through Western Woods","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":43978}