Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/403

Rh feet. Joining at the foot of the terrace in one foaming torrent the waters of the Basin plunge in one fall of two hundred feet, thence pass under a snow tunnel and down a rocky chute swept clean by the flood to augment the already raging waters of the Stehekin. The Horseshoe Basin, though not grander, not so sublimely terrible, in fact, as some other scenes in the cañon, has that indescribable look of perfectness which belongs to the immortal works of nature and art. It has a symmetry of form and colour beyond any other in the entire region. The dark-red minarets which form the outer escarpment, ten thousand feet above sea-level, form a marvellous contrast and yet harmony with the green and blue and white of the glacier and the snow-field, and this in turn is margined with the deep-green and olive hues of the lower terrace, while joining and unifying all is the flashing and opalescent splendour of the cataracts.

At the mouth of the Horseshoe Creek, lodged on a little rocky island, is a shattered cabin. We camp near this, and while we are engaged in preparing an appetising meal of fish and venison, a grizzled prospector appears coming down the trail. After the manner of the mountains, he makes himself at home and camps with us for the night. In the course of his conversation he narrates many stories of this wild region and of the prospecting and hunting adventures that have happened in it. Finally he tells us the story of the lost cabin, a story that certainly contains all the elements of a romance. It appears that some years ago two young fellows from the East, cousins, had come to the Stehekin to prospect. The old man who told us the story was then the only prospector in