THE BLACK EAGLE'S NEST.
In the log school-house, Lewis and Clarke's Expedition was used as a
reading-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 of
the Missouri; and the incident seemed intensely to interest the
picturesque mind of Benjamin.
"Let us go see," said Benjamin, one day after this poetic part of Lewis
and 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 Falls
of the Missouri at that time. The old chief would be glad to have Benjamin
go with him and help hunt, and carry the canoe. They would follow the
Salmon River out of the Columbia, to a point near the then called
Jefferson River, and so pass the mountains, and launch themselves on the
Missouri, whence the way would be easy to the Falls.
The dream of this expedition seemed to make Benjamin perfectly happy. He
had already been over a part of this territory, with his father, on a
visit to the friendly tribes.
The mid-autumn in the valleys of the Columbia and Missouri Rivers is
serene, and yet kindles, with a sort of fiery splendor. The perfect days
of 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 was
treading the territory of future empires.
Launched on the Missouri, the thought of what the vast plains might become
overwhelmed him at times, and he would lie silent in his boat, and pray
and dream.
The soul of the Indian boy seemed as bright as the golden air of the
cloudless days, during most of the time on the Salmon River, and while
passing 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. It
is 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. Indians
meet at night--talk bitter. They own the land. They have rights. They
threaten. Father no sleep. Sorry."
_THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI._
The Falls of the Missouri are not only wonderful and beautiful, but they
abound with grand traditions. Before we follow our young explorer to the
place, let us give you, good reader, some views of this part of Montana as
it was and as it now appears.
We recently looked out on the island that once lifted the great black
eagle'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 was
claimed, came from this nest amid the mists and rainbows. The fall near
this island, in the surges, is now known as the Black Eagle's Fall.
This waterfall has not the beauty or the grandeur of the other
cataracts--the Rainbow Falls and the Great Falls--a few miles distant. But
it gathers the spell of poetic tradition about it, and strongly appeals to
the sense of the artist and the poet. The romancer would choose it for his
work, as the black eagles chose it for their home.
Near it is one of the most lovely fountains in the world, called the Giant
Spring.
"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 natural
fountain, emerald-green, clear as crystal, bordered with water-cresses,
and mingles its waters with the clouded surges of the Missouri. If a
person looks down into this fountain from a point near enough for him to
touch his nose to the water, all the fairy-like scenes of the Silver
Springs and the Waukulla Spring in Florida appear. The royal halls and
chambers of Undine meet the view, with gardens of emeralds and gem-bearing
ferns. It kindles one's fancy to gaze long into these crystal caverns, and
a practical mind could hardly resist here the poetic sense of Fouqué that
created Undine.
The Black Eagle Falls, with its great nest and marvelous fountains, was a
favorite resort of the Blackfeet Indians and other Indian tribes. It is
related in the old traditions that the Piegans, on one of their
expeditions against the Crows, rested here, and became enchanted with the
fountain:
"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 and
gurgled, 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 through
the earth to the sun. It asks for offerings. We cast the spoils of war
into it, and it carries them away to the Sun's _tepee_, and the Sun is
glad, and so shines for us all."
The Blackfeet worshiped the Sun. The Sun River, a few miles above this
cataract, was a medicine or sacred river in the tribal days, and it was in
this region of gleaming streams and thundering waterfalls that the once
famous Sun-dances were held.
There was a barbarous splendor about these Sun-dances. The tribes gathered
for the festival in the long, bright days of the year. They wore ornaments
of crystal, quartz, and mica, such as would attract and reflect the rays
of the sun. The dance was a glimmering maze of reflections. As it reached
its height, gleaming arrows were shot into the air. Above them, in their
poetic vision, sat the Sun in his _tepee_. They held that the thunder was
caused by the wings of a great invisible bird. Often, at the close of the
Sun-dance on the sultry days, the clouds would gather, and the
thunder-bird would shake its wings above them and cool the air. Delightful
times were these old festivals on the Missouri. At evening, in the long
Northern twilights, they would recount the traditions of the past. Some of
the old tales of the Blackfeet, Piegans, and Chippewas, are as charming as
those 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 stairway
of two hundred or more steps conducts the tourist into their very
mist-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 the
mists like a poet's dream.
The Great Fall, some twelve miles from the city, plunges nearly a hundred
feet, and has a roar like that of Niagara. It is one of the greatest
water-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 Highwood
Mountains, with roofs of glistening snow. Buttes (hills with level tops)
rise like giant pyramids here and there, and one may almost imagine that
he is in the land of the Pharaohs. Bench lands diversify the wide plains.
Ranches and great flocks are everywhere; armies of cattle; creeks shaded
with cottonwood and box-elder; birds and flowers; and golden eagles
gleaming in the air. The Rockies wall the northern plains.
The Belt Mountain region near Great Falls is a wonder-land, like the
Garden 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 fancies
one's self to be amid the ruins of castles, cathedrals, and fortresses, so
fantastic are the shapes of the broken mountain-walls. It is a land of
birds and flowers; of rock roses, wild sunflowers, golden-rods; of
wax-wings, orioles, sparrows, and eagles. Here roams the stealthy mountain
lion.
This region, too, has its delightful legends.
One of these legends will awaken great curiosity as the State of Montana
grows, and she seems destined to become the monarch of States.
In 1742 Sieur de la Verendrye, the French Governor of Quebec, sent out an
expedition, under his sons and brother, that discovered the Rocky
Mountains, 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 the
arms of France, and raised a monument above it, which the Verendryes named
_Beauharnois_. It is stated that this monument was erected on a
river-bluff, between bowlders, and that it was twenty feet in diameter.
There are people who claim to have discovered this monument, but they fail
to produce the leaden plate with the arms of France that the explorers
buried. The search for this hidden plate will one day begin, and the
subject is likely greatly to interest historical societies in Montana, and
to become a very poetic mystery.
Into this wonder-land of waterfalls, sun-dances, and legends, our young
explorers came, now paddling in their airy canoe, now bearing the canoe on
their backs around the falls.
Mr. Mann's white face was a surprise to the native tribes that they met on
the way, but Benjamin's brightness and friendly ways made the journey of
both easy.
They came to the Black Eagle Falls. The great nest still was there. It was
as is described in the book of the early explorers.
It hung over the mists of the rapids, and, strangely enough, there were
revealed three black plumes in the nest.
Benjamin beheld these plumes with a kind of religious awe. His eyes
dilated 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 the
tree. The black eagles were yet there, though their nest was empty. He
passed up the tree under the wings of the eagles, and came down with a
handful of feathers.
"The book was true," said he.
They went to Medicine River, now called the Sun River, and there witnessed
a Sun-dance.
It was a scene to tempt a brilliant painter or poet. The chiefs and
warriors were arrayed in crystals, quartz, and every bright product of the
earth and river that would reflect the glory of the sun.
They returned from where the city of Great Falls is now, back to the
mountains and to the tributaries of the Columbia. Benjamin appeared
before 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 something
prophetic in them. Wherever, from that day, Umatilla or Young Eagle's
Plume 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 Columbia
lived in a region that was itself a school of poetry. The Potlatch was
sentiment, and the Sun-dance was an actual poem. Many of the tents of skin
abounded with picture-writing, and the stories told by the night fires
were full of picturesque figures.
Gretchen's poetic eye found subjects for verse in all these things, and
she often wrote down her impressions, and read them to practical Mrs.
Woods, who affected to ignore such things, but yet seemed secretly
delighted 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 strange
sights which Benjamin saw there, led him to desire to make other trips
with the schoolmaster, to whom he became daily more and more attached. In
fact, the Indian boy came to follow his teacher about with a kind of
jealous watchfulness. He seemed to be perfectly happy when the latter was
with him, and, when absent from him, he talked of him more than of any
other person.
In the middle of autumn the sky was often clouded with wild geese, which
in V-shaped flocks passed in long processions overhead, _honking_ in a
trumpet-like manner. Sometimes a flock of snowy geese would be seen, and
the 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 there
were great gatherings of flocks of geese in the fall.
"Let's go see," said he. "The geese are thicker than the bushes there--the
ponds 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 another
expedition like that to the wonderful Falls. He would there show the
master 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 the
Columbia towards the sea. Benjamin would watch them with a heart full of
anticipation. It made him supremely happy to show the master the wonderful
things of the beautiful country, and the one ambition of his heart now was
to go to the lakes of the _honks_.