"Yakataga went straight to her and asked her to marry him. She burst out into the most terrible cryin' you ever hear. 'As if I could ever marry anybody!' she cries out; and that's all the answer he ever got. We found out she had a little blind sister down in the states. She had to send money to keep her in a blind school. She danced and acted cheerful; but her face was as white as chalk, and her big dark eyes looked like a fawn's eyes when you've shot it and not quite killed it, so's it can't get away from you, nor die, nor anything; but she was always just as sweet as ever.
"Two months after that she—she—killed herself. Yakataga was up in the cricks. He come down and buried her."
It was told, the simple and tragic tale of Lady Belle, and presently Cyanide Bill went away and left me.
The breeze grew cooler; it crested the waves with silver. Pearly clouds floated slowly overhead and were reflected in the depths below.
The mountains surrounding Lake Bennett are of an unusual color. It is a soft old-rose in the distance. The color is not caused by light and shade; nor by the sun; nor by flowers. It is the color of the mountains themselves. They are said to be almost solid mountains of iron, which gives them their name of "Iron-Crowned," I believe; but to me they will always be the Rose-colored Mountains. They soften and enrich the sparkling, almost dazzling, blue atmosphere, and give the horizon a look of sunset even at midday. The color reminded me of the dull old-rose of Columbia Glacier.
Lake Bennett dashes its foam-crested blue waves along the pebbly beaches and stone terraces for a distance of twenty-seven miles. At its widest it is not more than two miles, and it narrows in places to less than half a mile. It winds and curves like a river.
The railway runs along the eastern shore of the lake, and mountains slope abruptly from the opposite shore to a height of five thousand feet. The scenery is never monotonous. It charms constantly, and the air keeps the traveller as fresh and sparkling in spirit as champagne.
For many miles a solid road-bed, four or five feet above the water, is hewn out of the base of the mountains; the terrace from the railway to the water is a solid blaze of bloom; white sails, blown full, drift up and down the blue water avenue; cloud-fragments move silently over the nearer rose-colored mountains; while in the distance, in every direction that the eye may turn, the enchanted traveller is saluted by some lonely and beautiful peak of snow. It is an exquisitely lovely lake.
We had passed Lake Lindeman—named by Lieutenant Schwatka for Dr. Lindeman of the Breman Geographical Society—before reaching Bennett.
Lake Lindeman is a clear and lovely lake seven miles long, half a mile wide, and of a good depth for any navigation required here. A mountain stream pours tumultuously into it, adding to its picturesque beauty.