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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.

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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 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

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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. 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 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

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Dance camp near the Mission of St. Ignatius, Flathead Reservation

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We have read much of late years concerning the Hopi, their gentleness and peaceable pursuits, but we have heard little or nothing of the Selish, living in their valley home, along the Jocko river or among the sheltering foothills beneath the heights of Sin-yal-min. Happily, the home of the Hopi is remote, their pueblos lie upon citadels of stone, and the way to them is paved with the burning sands of the desert. They possess nothing that greed can covet, so the Hopi are safe enough for a time, at least, until the pressure of civilization sends forth a tidal wave so sweeping that even the deserts shall not be spared. Paradoxical as it sounds, the Selish, in being more fortunate, have been proportionately more unfortunate. Dwelling in a fertile valley lush with grain and berry, watered with streams and lakes, their holdings were too valuable an asset for commerce to over

look, and it was therefore ordained that the pumpkin should flourish where the Bitter Root had bloomed and the ploughshare should supplant the arrow.

Before the last traces of the customs of the Selish vanish utterly under the blight of artificial conditions, it is well to stop and look back at their history, first in the light of recorded fact and then in the diaphanous glow of their own quaint myths and hero-tales.

When Lewis and Clark penetrated the unknown in their adventurous journey, they found a particularly gentle and hospitable people who called themselves the Selish, living in the Bitter Root Valley. A few of these Indians had seen the Sieur de la Verendrye and his cavaliers on their futile search for a highway to the Pacific sea, but of the entire tribe there was but a handful of aged hunters who had looked upon the face of a white man. They welcomed the strangers, offered them the hospitality of their lodges and manifested a spirit of friendliness which sent the explorers rejoicing on their way. The white

men described them as simple, straightforward people, the women distinguished for their virtue and the men for their bravery in the battle and the chase. They were cleanly in their habits and honorable in their dealings with each other. If a man lost his bow or other valuable, the one who found it delivered it to the chief, the Great Father, and he caused it to be hung in a place where it might be seen by all. Then when the owner came seeking his goods, the Chief restored it to him. They were also charitable. If a man were hungry, no one said him nay, and he was welcome even at the board of the head men, to share the best of their fare. In appearance they were of the shade of the "palest new copper after being freshly rubbed." They were well formed, supple and tall, but Lewis and Clark confusing them with certain of the tribes living about the mouth of the Columbia River, called them the Flatheads, though they had never practiced the barbarous custom of flattening the heads of their offspring. However, in the early journals they were given the misnomer, and it has clung to them, libelous as it is, through the centuries.

The Selish remained in their native

Bitter Root valley, hunting buffalo and warring over that noble game with their enemies, the Blackfeet, without disturbance from the outer world, until a party of Iroquois came amongst them, led by one Ignace La Mousse, bringing tidings of a mysterious faith. That was the beginning of an impulse to seek the "Medicine" of the white man, and expedition after expedition-four in all--were sacrificed to the cause before a missionary from St. Louis came to teach the Indians the word of God. However sincere of purpose these good fathers wereand surely their black-robed figures loom heroically against the background of the past-they were the first feeble impulse of that civilization which was to bring destruction to the natives of the wilderness. In the footsteps of the fathers followed the gold-seekers and the settlers, the armed troops and Governmental grasp, and the Indians, struggling with demoniac fury were beaten back and driven from their own. In this sweeping survey it must be remembered that the Selish took no part in the reign of bloodshed and death. Peaceably they toiled in their garden plots after the buffalo were no more, or hunted smaller game.

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