Our trail led us through one of the few remaining unknown portions of
the United States. It cannot long remain unknown. It is too superb, too
wonderful. And it has mineral in it, silver and copper and probably
coal. The Middle Boy, who is by way of being a chemist and has
systematically blown himself up with home-made explosives for years--the
Middle Boy found at least a dozen silver mines of fabulous value,
although the men in the party insisted that his specimens were iron
pyrites and other unromantic minerals.
XI
LAKE CHELAN TO LYMAN LAKE
Now, as to where we were--those long days of fording rivers and beating
our way through jungle or of dizzy climbs up to the snow, those short
nights, so cold that six blankets hardly kept us warm, while our tired
horses wandered far, searching for such bits of grass as grew among the
shale.
In the north-central part of the State of Washington, Nature has done a
curious thing. She has built a great lake in the eastern shoulders of
the Cascade Mountains. Lake Chelan, more than fifty miles long and
averaging a mile and a half in width, is ten hundred and seventy-five
feet above sea-level, while its bottom is four hundred feet below the
level of the ocean.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112