ON THE TRAIL OF A HORSE THIEF 



351 



region around the source of the river has 

 received any public attention. To be 

 sure, David Thompson, the noted Eng- 

 lish explorer, spent a winter on Lake 

 Windermere as long ago as 1810 and 

 built there a fort to defend himself 

 against the Indians — an event of no slight 

 historical importance; for Thompson, 

 whose purpose was to establish English 

 interests in control of the Columbia, de- 

 scended the river the following season 

 only to find, when he arrived at the 

 mouth of the river, the American flag 

 waving at Astoria. He was three months 

 too late. 



Although Thompson afterward wrote 

 an account of his Windermere sojourn 

 and made a rough map of the neighbor- 

 ing region, nearly a century elapsed be- 

 fore the Upper Columbia Valley was 

 known to any except a few ranchers and 

 adventurous miners. Only within several 

 years past has it been possible to reach 

 the valley by railroad, and no detailed 

 map of the country has as yet been made. 



THE SOURCE OE THE COLUMBIA 



The Columbia River finds its source in 

 two lakes — Lake Windermere and Upper 

 Columbia Lake — which lie in the broad 

 basin separating the main range of the 

 Rocky Mountains from the Selkirks at a 

 point about 80 miles north of the Inter- 

 national Boundary. The valley here 

 trends north and south and is some three 

 or four miles wide, being flanked on the 

 east by the foothills of the Rockies and 

 on the west by outlying summits of the 

 Southern Selkirks — sometimes called the 

 Purcell Range. Each range is pierced 

 by deep canyons, through which flow 

 jubilant mountain streams that seem glad 

 to add their volume to the flood of the 

 Columbia. 



The floor of the valley is remarkable 

 for its park-like character. The larger 

 trees — mostly Douglas spruce and yellow 

 pine — never form forests, but stand 

 apart, each with plenty of room, while 

 the aspens and alders and various shrubs 

 are grouped gracefully here and there, 

 with a profusion of wild flowers occupy- 

 ing the open spaces. 



This park-like aspect is naturally much 

 enhanced by the lake scenery. The two 



lakes are nearly equal in size, each cover- 

 ing an area of four or five square miles. 

 Lake Windermere is the more pictur- 

 esque of the two, its winding shores be- 

 ing emphasized by a series of bluffs, 

 prettily terraced, which rise 50 feet or 

 more above the level of the lake (see page 

 353). The Upper Lake, a few miles far- 

 ther up stream, is the real beginning of 

 the Columbia. 



Both lakes are charming in outline, 

 and present, under varying conditions of 

 storm and calm, sunlight and shadow, a 

 never-ending succession of pleasing ef- 

 fects. Seldom does one find a combina- 

 tion of mountain, lake, and open wood- 

 land so profoundly appealing and so 

 commandingly beautiful. Especially note- 

 worthy are those days when there is a 

 gathering of the clouds, now on one 

 range and now on the other. 



Such variety in form, such majesty and 

 yet delicacy of outline, such pearly trans- 

 parency — and then again such leaden 

 density — of substance, such brilliant illu- 

 mination, such marshaling of glory — it 

 is all beyond the power of words to de- 

 scribe. 



The climax of beauty, however, comes 

 in the early fall season, when the trees 

 and shrubs have donned their brightest 

 raiment and there is a riot of color 

 throughout the valley and on the parallel 

 slopes of the mountains — save on the ex- 

 treme summits where rests a coverlet of 

 new-fallen snow. 



DAYS OE HOLY CALM 



Day after day of holy calm prevails. 

 The winds have ceased even their whis- 

 pering, and the lake surfaces reflect with 

 startling exactness every feature, whether 

 of form or color, of the surrounding 

 landscape. One standing by the lake 

 shore at such a time may almost hear the 

 antiphonal chant of rejoicing flung across 

 the valley from one mountain range to 

 the other, and sodden indeed must be the 

 soul which does not feel itself uplifted 

 by the supernal beauty. 



As indicated above, the iron horse has 

 at last found its way to the L T pper Co- 

 lumbia Valley. Previously the trip was 

 made by steamer from the town of 

 Golden, on the main line of the Canadian 



