II
The Jocko or Spotted Lakes are enchanted waters also. They lie high up in the crown of the continent—the main range of the Rocky Mountains. To reach them the traveller needs patience and strength of body and soul, for the trail is long and tortuous, winding along the rim of sickening-steep ravines, across treacherous swamps, amid mighty forests to great altitudes. There are three lakes in this group, one above the other, the last being sometimes called the Clearwater Lake because it is within the borders of that terrible wilderness whose savage fastnesses have claimed their prey of lost wanderers.
The first lake is inexpressibly ghostly. The flanks of the mountains rise sheer and frown down on murky waters, leaving scarcely any shore, and around their margin, gray-white drift-wood lies scattered like unburied bones. It is a spectral spot, unearthly, colourless as a moth, preyed upon by a lamentable sadness which broods unbroken in the solitude. There the fox-fire kindles in the darkness, the owl wheels in his midnight flight and pale shades of mist unwind their shroud-like scarfs. It is a pool of the dead, a region of lost hopes and throttling despair.
From this lake the trail bears upward through dense jungles and morasses, venomously beautiful with huge, brilliantly coloured flowers growing to the height of a man. Their scarlet and yellow disks exhale an overpowering fragrance, insidious, almost narcotic in its strength. Beneath rank stalk and leaf, rearing blossom and entangling vine, creeping things with mortal sting dwell in the dank, sultry-sweet shadow. One is dazzled with the colour and the scent; charmed and repelled; tempted on into treacherous sinkholes by a wild extravagance of beauty too wanton to be good.
At length the second lake unfolds itself from the living screen of tree and wooded steep. A point of land, stained blood-red, juts out into the water and over it tumbles and cascades a foam-whitened fall. This stain of crimson is a thick-spun carpet of Indian Paint Brush interwoven with lush grass. The mountains show traces of orange and green, apparently a mineral wash hinting of undiscovered treasure.
Looking into the depths of the lake one is impressed with its freckled appearance. A blotch of milky white, then one of dull yellow mottles the water and even as one watches, a shadow darkens the surface, concentrating, scattering in kaleidoscopic variety, then disappearing as mysteriously as it came. There is no cloud in the sky, nor overhanging tree, nor passing bird to cause that shade without substance. At first it seems inexplicable and the Indians, finding no natural reason for its being, believe it to be the forms of water sirens gliding to and fro. On this account, here as at the Waters of the Forgiven no Indian dares to come alone and even with human company he fears the sirens' spell. For as the victim sleeps they come, drawing closer and breathing his breath until he dies. If one watches patiently he may see that the dark shadows are made by shoals of fish, gathering and dispersing, and in so doing, accentuating and lessening the sable spots. The lake is as uneven in temperature as it is in colour. It has hot pools and icy shallows, so it is probably fed by springs as well as by the torrent which falls from the peaks. A strong, sulphurous odour taints the air; the water is unpleasant to the taste and the sedgy weeds which grow about the shores are stained. And as the waters recede during the summer heat, along the banks, in uneven streaks a mineral deposit traces their retreat. Towards the end of July or August a curious thing may be seen in this Lake of the Jocko. A current eddies around and around in a gigantic whirlpool, transforming it into a mighty funnel with an underground vent. At a considerable distance below a stream bursts forth from the mountain side with terrific energy of pressure and plunges downward in a foaming torrent. It is the Jocko River,—the gentle, merry-voiced Jocko of the prairie which winds its course among lines of friendly trees and blossoms. Who would guess that it drew its nurture from the Lake of the Jocko, siren-haunted, poison-breathed, which careful Indians avoid as a region of the accursed? Still it is so and the menace of that mysterious lake becomes the blessing of the plains.
*****
Such are the Waters of the Forgiven and the Jocko, secure in their solitude, guarded more potently by their spell of evil than by wall of stone or armed hosts, holding within their deep, dark bosoms the charm of the water sirens whose sad, sweet song quavers in the music of fall and stream, whose pallid, white faces flash lily-like from the depths, whose entangling tresses spread in flowing masses of sedgy green.
And of the strange things which have happened on those shores, of the braves lured to the death-sleep on couches of moss and pillows of lily pad, scarcely an echo shrills down from the white-shrouded peaks to give warning to the adventurers who would seek out the awful beauty of those Enchanted Waters.