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.