STEEP TRAILS 



Missouri and South Saskatchewan, and in 

 its course it flows through two large and beau- 

 tiful lakes, the Flathead and the Pend d'Oreille. 

 All the lakes we have noticed thus far would 

 make charming places of summer resort; but 

 Pend d'Oreille, besides being siirpassingly 

 beautiful, has the advantage of being easily- 

 accessible, since it is on the main line of the 

 Northern Pacific Railroad in the Territory 

 of Idaho. In the purity of its waters it reminds 

 one of Tahoe, whUe its many picturesque 

 islands crowned with evergreens, and its wind- 

 ing shores forming an endless variety of bays 

 and promontories lavishly crowded with spirey 

 spruce and cedar, recall some of the best of 

 the island scenery of Alaska. 



About thirty-five miles below the mouth 

 of Clark's Fork the Columbia is joined by the 

 Ne-whoi-al-pit-ku River from the northwest. 

 Here too are the great Chaudifire, or Kettle, 

 Falls on the main river, with a total descent 

 of about fifty feet. Fifty miles farther down, 

 the Spokane River, a clear, dashing stream, 

 comes in from the east. It is about one hun- 

 dred and twenty miles long, and takes its rise 

 in the beautiful Lake Coeur d'Aldne, in Idaho, 

 which receives the drainage of nearly a hundred 

 miles of the western slopes of the Bitter Root 

 Mountains, through the St. Joseph and Ccexir 



334 



