URING THE coming autumn, the Flathead reservation will be thrown open to settlement in pursuance with the Governmental policy of turning the Indian from

his natural, nomadic life, and through the peaceable coercion of husbandry, "absorbing him into our civilization." The experiment is a precarious one for the Indian, since it involves at once the seizure of immense tracts of lands that were his and the destruction of the race-old habits of his kind. But the solving of the Indian problem, or in plainer words, his right to exist, is of lesser interest to the general public than the fact that thousands and tens of thousands of commercially valuable acres will be opened to the eager white settlers who still push westward, hunting for something of that legended treasure which tempted the early argonauts to brave the hardships and perils of the wilderness.

The home of the Flathead, or more properly speaking, the Selish tribe, was destined inevitably to become the prey of the home-seeker, for in all these United States there are few fairer valleys than Sin-yal-min, few more magnificent heights than the snow-topped mountains that protect it, and few more noble bodies of water

than the Flathead Lake, flowing like an inland sea among hills of tender green. Not only is the country rich in grandeur of scene-it is likewise possessed of a wealth of tradition and historical incident soon to sink forever into the oblivion of an unrecorded past.

Before the final division and disintegration, when storied landmark and mythhallowed object will be swept aside by the rush of the incoming world, it is profitable and pleasant to look back upon the past of Sin-yal-min and its environs. The huge, mountain-locked valley was for generations the secret of the Indians until Alexander, the Kalispehlm chief, led the Jesuit fathers thither to establish the Mission of St. Ignatius, thus delivering to them, as the greatest proof of confidence and love, a second Promised Land.

The fields were rich with wild grain, the neighboring foothills sheltered abundant game, and the streams, feeling their way with silver fingers from the mountains, swarmed with trout. There in the outspread palm of the valley, the good priests established their mission, and some of the Indians settled about the little community of log cabins, which was destined to become one of the most important institutions of its kind in the Northwest. Of these Indians there were a few who became independently well off, and the wealthiest of them all, Michel Pablo, a half-breed,