The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-01-09
Landscape Of Prickly Pear Creek
and the Valley or Same
Name.
Perspective From the City Of Hell
ena, the Boston Of the
West.
A Vast Scope OF Green Hiil studded with
Soldier statues Knecling Behind
Poised IBayonets.

between the Atlantic md Pacific. II is FED
by tumbling creeks with queer names. like
like Last Chance and Ten Mile, md by tho
intermittent drainage of gulches whose
sands are amber and their gravel gold
Scores of millions Of dollars in grains and
nuggets OF gold have been picked out OF ita
pebbles. The city of Helena--the Boston
Of tho VESTS hiding under the founda-
tions OF its business blocks old placers
whence $lb,Oo0.000 we're taken at the FIRST
upturning, and which have been yielding
good wages to patient searchers ever since.
The broad valley Of the Prickly Pear, AZ
one looks across il from Helena, IL
smooth and grassy as n lawn. but gray in
stead OF green; and it sweeps like q slight
" concave foor from the outermost foot
hills Of the Rockies over to the Belt range
"a broken mass Of heights, dominated BY
one fatherly old peak whose head is white
In tho late May days threads n spots OF
enow lie in their hooks and gullies; anc
sometimes, when the sun strikes them just
right, these fairly glitter, which masses oil
perpetual" SNOW never do. These noun
tains are quito near-only ten or a dozen
miles away; and the brown lower spaces
free from trees. the long dark
blue tongues and patches of forests,
and the pale bare SUBMITS which rise above
timber line are plainly separable. On this
expanse Of varied but subdued and harmoni-
Gus color falls the dappling OF cloud
with neyer-ceasing change and beauty;
beyond are heights fgrther and farther
away. softly and purely turqu%1, na Dare,
hills are all rounded and smooth. There -
not an angular outline nor an ungraceful
curve in their whole series. They arestony,
and vet are covered with short heritage.
Their ridges are reddish yellow, which tones
softly down into olive and gray. wniIe every
little depression and the shallow waterways
are spots and sinuouslines of emerald green
where the fresh grass is starting.
Nothing can be richer than the deep dark
oreen of these mountain forests in May.
WREN YOU are near enough to escape the
blue which clothes everything beyond a cer-
tain distance, and yet are not quite near
enough to distinguish individual trees. Of
ten, as happened last week., q heavy storm
will powder them with snow. which lasts
only q day or two, but gives a hoary, frosted
effect that is extremely beautiful IN con-
trast with the unblemished cap OF white
above Z and the ;a gray1g of sno ssipss 0o'0"'
phe canon. when we have entered it, is
not yery terrible or awe-inspiring, but well
worth looking at. The enjoyment of a
scene Of this kind is largely a matter Of ex-
perieuce, and consequent ability TO make
Comparisons. One who has seen the Royal
GORGE. or the canon of Grand river in Colo
RADIO. or the profound trough OF the Yel-
lowstone. will not think Prickley Pear
amounts to much; but the man who enters
the Rockies for the first time by TINS way
will find his eyes opening pretty widely.
There are places where crnInDlihg
..~tt- - Xnxa o1unnct nVarhAnU the
road at heights of several hundre feet;
and other places where the gorge narrows
into n pasaage betweenth the rocks that hardly
lets river and railroad pass together. But
to me the most interesting. part was near
the upper end, where smooth slopes, coy
cred with short yellow grass, lell Sleepy
down to the ~torrent; and through THESE
slopes protruded ~innumerable points and
triangular lodges and outcrops OF rsdrDrown
rock, tilted upward at a steep angle. 1t was
rs though tho whole vast slope OF the green
hill was studded with soldier-ilke statues
kneeling behind poised b~ayonets.
In among these and dappling the smooth
yellow slopes, grew innumerable flowers. all
lowsdown to the ground except a swift
rowing composite looking like o miniature
sunfiower. There were great numbers OF n
small, moss-like yetch, bearing q tiny dos
som closely resembling our eastern eye
bright or f~orget-me-not; and also a white va
riety. Sometimesthese, and n similar yellow
bloom, would lie SO thickly that n might
hardly walk without crushing them. Else
where the wild peas, yellow and purple, pre-
dominated; but it is too early as yet for the
main list Of foot-hili blossoms.
Toward the lower end OF the
bottom of which, by the way, is filed with
cottonwood and maple trees ard various
local shrubs, o~yertopped here and there by
q spruce or pine-the rock become more
precipituons and are formed of q richly
crimson ~conglomerate, which breaks aioft
into fantastic pinnacles between which are
deep seams and c~revices filled with hashes
and mysterious shadows. The surface OF
these broken, y%ine-hung. conglomerate
cliffs is further adorned with an imrnense
number of lichens, some vivid green, others
nearly brown or gray-blue or lea~ther-black
while q large proportion are warmly orange
scenery. and is a beautiful popularity of
this canon, different from any other local
ity that | can recall.
Through here ran the old stage road to
the gold placers at the mouth of the stream
and To Fort Benton and the northern coun-
try generally. remember very distinctly
my journey along il a dozen years ago, and
the stories with which / was RECALLED by the
driver, who had some adventurous and
often bloody incident for every mile of the
long gorge-such tales as you may read IN
the history Of the v;gilsntes.
lucl We Coiuc oub - AK luibooullg WILMA
boils and swirls, mindful of the long miles
it has been tossed about in the mountains
Those towering blue-black crags, 'spiked
with frs and snow-touche atop, are at thu
''gates of the mountains''-tie spot which
Lewis and Clarke extolled SO highly almost
q century ago. 1t is already a mighty rive:
which escapes their grim portaIs-a river ri
large as the Rari.an at New brunswick,
though nearly three thousand miles from
it, mouth.
We race along its banks, admiring the
rocky bluffs and promontories that plant
their auamantine feet against its encroach-
ing current and fling cataracts of icy and
pure water into its eddying flood; and thus
rapidly get away from this mountains, which
soOn arrange themselves in statuesque
beauty about uG. The world becomes a
vast gallery, whose foof is the olive and
yellow Of the plain, whose background il
the aZue of the sky, and whose hangingi
are sunlit clouds and mountains eculptnred
to such an elegance and variety of outline,
tlinned in such transparent, inimitable tints
and penciliugs of ochre, warm brown. deer
green. blu and white, Swallowed and bien.
ded, firm, yet tender, rs is the despair o
the artist and the inspiration of the poet.
The western sky, as the sun sets and VI
get farther and farther out OF the plains. il
q glare of FURNISHED copper and gold, witt
hangincs of crimson where the clouds Ii
Low The ridges of the dry fluctuations o
the prairie gIeam like the bosses of polishe'
shields of brass: the parapets of some $50
lated buttes are like purple bronze drape'
with velvet, and IN the eastern sky the rail-
is threatening. Their what a picture j
suddenly unfoided there.
Aafac Ia,,rI sha faraovlrpl Of yelta,