70 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



shining with snow, or up to the ragged basaltic cliffs 

 above the canon. It matters not what picture the 

 vista frames, the light is glittering clear, every detail of a 

 cliff wall five miles away is as sharp as through a field 

 glass, the air is vibrant with its own purity. In such an 

 orchard, in such an atmosphere, the mind turns toward 

 the future, never the past. This is the land of what-is- 

 to-be. 



But a great river does not roll onward mile after mile 

 chafing to get through a mountain rampart, biting an 

 ever deeper canon into the basalt rock and disclosing 

 at its junction with confluent streams vistas into wild 

 gorges or glimpses of lofty summits, snow-mantled, 

 whence those tributaries come, without luring the 

 traveller to climb the ragged walls and go exploring, to 

 leave the river for the hills. So we were lured, and so 

 we found Lake Chelan, said by some to be the most 

 beautiful lake on the North American continent. I 

 have not seen all the lakes on the North American 

 continent, so I make no comparisons myself, content to 

 state that it is the most beautiful lake I ever saw, awake 

 or in my dreams. 



We had gone northward from Wenatchee up the 

 canon of the Columbia, the walls narrowing in upon us, 

 the orchards on the bank growing fewer and smaller. 

 We alighted at a station called Chelan Falls, and the 

 train went on, leaving us apparently the sole occu- 

 pants of the river gorge. The sage-green Columbia, just 



