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 Fouque 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.”