CHAPTER VIII.
THE BLACK EAGLE'S NEST.
In the log school-house, Lewis and Clarke's Expedition was used as areading-book. Master Mann had adopted it because it was easy to obtain,and served as a sort of local geography and history.
In this book is an account of a great black eagle's nest, on the Falls ofthe Missouri; and the incident seemed intensely to interest thepicturesque mind of Benjamin.
"Let us go see," said Benjamin, one day after this poetic part of Lewisand Clarke's narrative had been read.
"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Mann.
"I carry canoe, and we go and find him!"
"What?"
"The black eagle's nest."
"Why?"
"I'll get a plume--wear it here. Please father. I love to please father."
There was to be a few weeks' vacation in a part of September and October,and Benjamin's suggestion led Mr. Mann to plan an excursion to the Fallsof the Missouri at that time. The old chief would be glad to have Benjamingo with him and help hunt, and carry the canoe. They would follow theSalmon River out of the Columbia, to a point near the then calledJefferson River, and so pass the mountains, and launch themselves on theMissouri, whence the way would be easy to the Falls.
The dream of this expedition seemed to make Benjamin perfectly happy. Hehad already been over a part of this territory, with his father, on avisit to the friendly tribes.
The mid-autumn in the valleys of the Columbia and Missouri Rivers isserene, and yet kindles, with a sort of fiery splendor. The perfect daysof America are here.
Master Mann and Benjamin started on their expedition with a few Indians,who were to see them to the Jefferson River and there leave them.
The Yankee schoolmaster had a prophetic soul, and he felt that he wastreading the territory of future empires.
Launched on the Missouri, the thought of what the vast plains might becomeoverwhelmed him at times, and he would lie silent in his boat, and prayand dream.
The soul of the Indian boy seemed as bright as the golden air of thecloudless days, during most of the time on the Salmon River, and whilepassing through the mountains. But he would sometimes start up suddenly,and a shade would settle on his face.
Master Mann noticed these sudden changes of mood, and he once said to him:
"What makes you turn sad, Benjamin?"
"Potlatch."
"But that is a dance."
"Hawks."
"I think not, Benjamin!"
"You do not know. They have a bitter heart. My father does not sleep. Itis you that keeps him awake. He loves you; you love me and treat me well;he loves you, and want to treat you well--see. _She_ make trouble. Indiansmeet at night--talk bitter. They own the land. They have rights. Theythreaten. Father no sleep. Sorry."
_THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI._
The Falls of the Missouri are not only wonderful and beautiful, but theyabound with grand traditions. Before we follow our young explorer to theplace, let us give you, good reader, some views of this part of Montana asit was and as it now appears.
We recently looked out on the island that once lifted the great blackeagle's nest over the plunging torrent of water--the nest famous,doubtless, among the Indians, long before the days of Lewis and Clarke.
We were shown, in the city of Great Falls, a mounted eagle, which, it wasclaimed, came from this nest amid the mists and rainbows. The fall nearthis island, in the surges, is now known as the Black Eagle's Fall.
This waterfall has not the beauty or the grandeur of the othercataracts--the Rainbow Falls and the Great Falls--a few miles distant. Butit gathers the spell of poetic tradition about it, and strongly appeals tothe sense of the artist and the poet. The romancer would choose it for hiswork, as the black eagles chose it for their home.
Near it is one of the most lovely fountains in the world, called the GiantSpring.
"Close beside the great Missouri, Ere it takes its second leap, Is a spring of sparkling water Like a river broad and deep."
The spring pours out of the earth near the fall in a great naturalfountain, emerald-green, clear as crystal, bordered with water-cresses,and mingles its waters with the clouded surges of the Missouri. If aperson looks down into this fountain from a point near enough for him totouch his nose to the water, all the fairy-like scenes of the SilverSprings and the Waukulla Spring in Florida appear. The royal halls andchambers of Undine meet the view, with gardens of emeralds and gem-bearingferns. It kindles one's fancy to gaze long into these crystal caverns, anda practical mind could hardly resist here the poetic sense of Fouque thatcreated Undine.
The Black Eagle Falls, with its great nest and marvelous fountains, was afavorite resort of the Blackfeet Indians and other Indian tribes. It isrelated in the old traditions that the Piegans, on one of theirexpeditions against the Crows, rested here, and became enchanted with thefountain:
"Hither came the warrior Piegans On their way to fight the Crow; Stood upon its verge, and wondered What could mean the power below."
The Piegans were filled with awe that the fountain rose and fell andgurgled, as if in spasms of pain. They sent for a native medicine-man.
"Why is the fountain troubled?" they asked.
"This," said the Indian prophet, "is the pure stream that flows throughthe earth to the sun. It asks for offerings. We cast the spoils of warinto it, and it carries them away to the Sun's _tepee_, and the Sun isglad, and so shines for us all."
The Blackfeet worshiped the Sun. The Sun River, a few miles above thiscataract, was a medicine or sacred river in the tribal days, and it was inthis region of gleaming streams and thundering waterfalls that the oncefamous Sun-dances were held.
There was a barbarous splendor about these Sun-dances. The tribes gatheredfor the festival in the long, bright days of the year. They wore ornamentsof crystal, quartz, and mica, such as would attract and reflect the raysof the sun. The dance was a glimmering maze of reflections. As it reachedits height, gleaming arrows were shot into the air. Above them, in theirpoetic vision, sat the Sun in his _tepee_. They held that the thunder wascaused by the wings of a great invisible bird. Often, at the close of theSun-dance on the sultry days, the clouds would gather, and thethunder-bird would shake its wings above them and cool the air. Delightfultimes were these old festivals on the Missouri. At evening, in the longNorthern twilights, they would recount the traditions of the past. Some ofthe old tales of the Blackfeet, Piegans, and Chippewas, are as charming asthose of La Fontaine.
The Rainbow Falls are far more beautiful than those of the Black Eagle.They are some six miles from the new city of Great Falls. A long stairwayof two hundred or more steps conducts the tourist into their verymist-land of rocks and surges. Here one is almost deafened by the thunder.When the sun is shining, the air is glorious with rainbows, that haunt themists like a poet's dream.
The Great Fall, some twelve miles from the city, plunges nearly a hundredfeet, and has a roar like that of Niagara. It is one of the greatestwater-powers of the continent.
The city of Great Falls is leaping into life in a legend-haunted region.Its horizon is a borderland of wonders. Afar off gleam the HighwoodMountains, with roofs of glistening snow. Buttes (hills with level tops)rise like giant pyramids here and there, and one may almost imagine thathe is in the land of the Pharaohs. Bench lands diversify the wide plains.Ranches and great flocks are everywhere; armies of cattle; creeks shadedwith cottonwood and box-elder; birds and flowers; and golden eaglesgleaming in the air. The Rockies wall the northern plains.
The Belt Mountain region near Great Falls is a wonder-land, like theGarden of the Gods in Colorado, or the Goblin Land near the Yellowstone.It would seem that it ought to be made a State park. Here one fanciesone's self to be amid the ruins of castles, cathedrals, and fortresses, sofantastic are the shapes of the broken mountain-walls. It is a land ofbirds and flowers; of rock roses, wild sunflowers, golden-rods; ofwax-wings, orioles, sparrows, and eagles. Here roams the s
tealthy mountainlion.
This region, too, has its delightful legends.
One of these legends will awaken great curiosity as the State of Montanagrows, and she seems destined to become the monarch of States.
In 1742 Sieur de la Verendrye, the French Governor of Quebec, sent out anexpedition, under his sons and brother, that discovered the RockyMountains, which were named _La Montana Roches_. On the 12th of May, 1744,this expedition visited the upper Missouri, and planted on an eminence,probably in the near region of Great Falls, a leaden plate bearing thearms of France, and raised a monument above it, which the Verendryes named_Beauharnois_. It is stated that this monument was erected on ariver-bluff, between bowlders, and that it was twenty feet in diameter.
There are people who claim to have discovered this monument, but they failto produce the leaden plate with the arms of France that the explorersburied. The search for this hidden plate will one day begin, and thesubject is likely greatly to interest historical societies in Montana, andto become a very poetic mystery.
Into this wonder-land of waterfalls, sun-dances, and legends, our youngexplorers came, now paddling in their airy canoe, now bearing the canoe ontheir backs around the falls.
Mr. Mann's white face was a surprise to the native tribes that they met onthe way, but Benjamin's brightness and friendly ways made the journey ofboth easy.
They came to the Black Eagle Falls. The great nest still was there. It wasas is described in the book of the early explorers.
It hung over the mists of the rapids, and, strangely enough, there wererevealed three black plumes in the nest.
Benjamin beheld these plumes with a kind of religious awe. His eyesdilated as he pointed to them.
"They are for me," he said. "One for me, one for father, and one for you.I'll get them all."
He glided along a shelf of rocks toward the little island, and mounted thetree. The black eagles were yet there, though their nest was empty. Hepassed up the tree under the wings of the eagles, and came down with ahandful of feathers.
"The book was true," said he.
They went to Medicine River, now called the Sun River, and there witnesseda Sun-dance.
It was a scene to tempt a brilliant painter or poet. The chiefs andwarriors were arrayed in crystals, quartz, and every bright product of theearth and river that would reflect the glory of the sun.
They returned from where the city of Great Falls is now, back to themountains and to the tributaries of the Columbia. Benjamin appearedbefore his father, on his return, with a crest of black eagle's plumes,and this crest the young Indian knight wore until the day of his death.
"I shall wear mine always," he said to his father. "You wear yours."
"Yes," said his father, with a face that showed a full heart.
"Both together," said Benjamin.
"Both together," replied Umatilla.
"Always?" said Benjamin.
"Always," answered the chief.
The Indians remembered these words. Somehow there seemed to be somethingprophetic in them. Wherever, from that day, Umatilla or Young Eagle'sPlume was seen, each wore the black feather from the great eagle's nest,amid the mists and rainbows or mist-bows of the Falls of the Missouri.
It was a touch of poetic sentiment, but these Indian races of the Columbialived in a region that was itself a school of poetry. The Potlatch wassentiment, and the Sun-dance was an actual poem. Many of the tents of skinabounded with picture-writing, and the stories told by the night fireswere full of picturesque figures.
Gretchen's poetic eye found subjects for verse in all these things, andshe often wrote down her impressions, and read them to practical Mrs.Woods, who affected to ignore such things, but yet seemed secretlydelighted with them.
"You have _talons_" she used to say, "but they don't amount to anything,anyway. Nevertheless--"
The expedition to the Falls of the Missouri, and the new and strangesights which Benjamin saw there, led him to desire to make other tripswith the schoolmaster, to whom he became daily more and more attached. Infact, the Indian boy came to follow his teacher about with a kind ofjealous watchfulness. He seemed to be perfectly happy when the latter waswith him, and, when absent from him, he talked of him more than of anyother person.
In the middle of autumn the sky was often clouded with wild geese, whichin V-shaped flocks passed in long processions overhead, _honking_ in atrumpet-like manner. Sometimes a flock of snowy geese would be seen, andthe laughing goose would be heard.
"Where do they go?" said Mr. Mann one day to Benjamin.
The boy told him of a wonderful island, now known as Whidby, where therewere great gatherings of flocks of geese in the fall.
"Let's go see," said he. "The geese are thicker than the bushes there--theponds are all alive with them there--honk--honk--honk! Let's go see."
"When the school is over for the fall we will go," said Mr. Mann.
The Indian boy's face beamed with delight. He dreamed of anotherexpedition like that to the wonderful Falls. He would there show themaster the great water cities of the wild geese, the emigrants of the air.The thought of it made him dance with delight.
Often at nightfall great flocks of the Canada geese would follow theColumbia towards the sea. Benjamin would watch them with a heart full ofanticipation. It made him supremely happy to show the master the wonderfulthings of the beautiful country, and the one ambition of his heart now wasto go to the lakes of the _honks_.