Copyright, 1910, by
THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY
Published, July 1, 1910
THE PREMIER PRESS
NEW YORK
DEDICATION
To the West that is passing; to the days
that are no more and to the brave,
free life of the Wilderness that
lives only in the memory of
those who mourn its loss
[PREFACE]
The writing of this book has been primarily a labour of love, undertaken in the hope that through the harmonious mingling of Indian tradition and descriptions of the region—too little known—where the lessening tribes still dwell, there may be a fuller understanding both of the Indians and of the poetical West.
A wealth of folk-lore will pass with the passing of the Flathead Reservation, therefore it is well to stop and listen before the light is quite vanished from the hill-tops, while still the streams sing the songs of old and the trees murmur regretfully of things lost forever and a time that will come no more. We of the workaday world are too prone to believe that our own country is lacking in myth and tradition, in hero-tale and romance; yet here in our midst is a legended region where every landmark is a symbol in the great, natural record book of a folk whose day is done and whose song is but an echo.