There lies in one of these ravines Lake Angus McDonald, of particular interest not only on account of its wild beauty, but because it perpetuates the memory of one of the strangest and most romantic figures into the region of the Selish, and under the influence of the primeval land and its Indian woman, people he married an raised a family of robust sons, one of whom, Duncan McDonald, is famous Children of the Leaves of the old West. Angus McDonald was a full-blood Highland Scotchman who came to this country in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company. His work took him among the Indians today, and himself adopted the language, garb and manners. of the tribe. He was a lover of extreme liberty in living and in thought; therefore Lake Angus McDonald, Flathead Reservation the unrestrained freedom of existence with these simple folk appealed to him, and their picturesque paganism likewise found a responsive chord in his fancy. He was, indeed, something of a pagan himself. He believed in the transmigration of the soul, and he was often heard to say that when death closed his mortal career, he desired to become a wild, white horse with free range over boundless plains. Considering the character of the man, his lionine strength and defiantly primitive life, it seems peculiarly fit that a lake, remote from the beaten path of civilization, presided over by a glacierbearing peak, should do honor to his memory, rather than the conventional monument of stone. There, within that deep-worn cleft in the mountain's heart, hemmed in by luxuriantly green banks, the lake lies cold and passionless and clear -and there is about it a brooding silence as of death, broken only by the desolate cry of the loon or the evasive sighing of the wind among the pines. On the crags and needle-sharp pinnacles above, mountain goats and big horn sheep pick their precarious way, and hidden safe from human sight, the mountain lion crouches in his lair. Such is Lake Angus McDon ald, and if it be that the shade of man returns to visit his mortal abode, surely sometimes in the dark security of night a wild, white horse with noiseless tread may pass like a fleeting moonlight shape and vanish into mist. St. Mary's Lake, or according to the Indians the "Waters of the Forgiven," is likewise in the fastnesses of the range of Sin-yal-min. It is even Sin-yal-min. It is even more isolated than Lake Angus McDonald, and about it clings a nebulous old tradition of murder and expatiation which accounts for the name. The Indians believe that the lake is enchanted, and that deep, down below its placid surface water-sirens dwell, ever watchful for human prey. If, perchance, a brave venture out in his canoe upon those treacherous depths, the sirens rise with seductive song and deadly caress, drawing him downward in their strangling embrace. Or if an Indian camp alone upon those shores, the sirens glide forth decked with narcotic, poisonsweet water flowers, and leaning over his prostrate body, like vampires, drink in his breath until he dies. However simple these tales may be, there is about the lake an atmosphere of depressing melancholy The great Flathead Lake flowing for over forty miles among pleasant hills, serpentining around yellow-green peninsulars and timbered promontories, lies to the north of the valley of Sin-yal-min. The sharply-spiked mountain range extends across the water like the horned spine of a monster, who slumbers through the aeons, oblivious to the passing centuries and the petty doings of man. On a calm On a calm summer day, when the sun's rays are softened by gossamer veils of haze, the water, the mountain peaks and sky are faintly traced in shades of grey and faded rose as in mother-of-pearl. And on such days as this, at rare intervals, a strange phenomenon occurs-the reflection of a reflection. Looking over the rail of a steamer, within the semi-circular curve of the swell at its stern, one may see first the reflection of the shore line, the mountains and trees appearing upside down; then a second shore line perfectly wrought in the mirroring waters right side. up, pine crest touching pine crest, peak poised against peak. Many islands rise from the lake, the largest of them, Wild Horse Island, is timbered, mountainous and so big as to appear like an arm of the mainland. This island was once the home of a band of wild horses, hence the name, but in times more remote, past the memory of the aged and even before the traditions of the tribe took shape, it was inhabited by an ancient race. Upon the lichen-grown cliffs rising sheer and smooth in tablets of stone, crude picture-writings and cabalistic signs which baffle the archaeologist, are still to be seen. These writings occur also on the mainland. There have been many scholastic speculations concerning these hieroglyphics, and endless endless discussions over their meaning and origin, but the Indians. who are after all the best judges, avow complete ignorance of the signs, saying that they are the riddle of a vanished race so ancient that not a myth nor chronicle handed down through the chain. of generations, sheds the light of knowledge upon their mystery. They had their day before the Selish came, and now, like those shadowy specters whose record is merely an untranslatable sign, the Selish, in turn, are passing while vineyard |