-to-be-forgotten
first glimpse of the mighty Spirit, the dream river of the North, whose
name evokes the thought of a garden in a bleak land. The unvarying
flatness of the portage with its standing pools, and the interminable
lofty wood that had hemmed them in for three days, had given them the
sense of travelling on the bottom of the world, and that somewhere ahead
must be a hill to climb. What then was their astonishment this
afternoon, when, without warning they emerged from among the trees on
an abrupt grassy terrace, and beheld the great river lying nearly a
thousand feet _below_.

It was a view inimitably gorgeous and sublime. Coming so suddenly upon
it they caught their breaths and gazed in silence; for there was nothing
fitting to say. The high point on which they stood overlooked a deep and
narrow gorge at their left, through which a little river fell to the
great stream; and across this they could look up the vast trough for
miles. In the distance the river seemed to rise, until one would say it
issued molten from the low-hung sun itself.

It had an individual and peculiar look, like no watercourse they had
seen. Its course drew a sharp line between the wooded country and the
prairie. Like a figure dressed in motley, the steep southern bank was
everywhere dark and wooded, while the other side, sweeping up in
countless fantastic knolls and terraces, was bare, except for the brown
grass, and patches of scrub-like hair in the hollows. Far back from the
opposite rim of the vast trough swept the unmeasured prairie, as flat,
in the whole prospect, as the country they had lately traversed.

It was the wealth of colour that most of all bewitched their eyes. The
river itself was of an odd, insistent green--emerald tinged with milk;
the islands on its bosom hung out the rich bottle-green of spruce; the
grass on the north bank was beaver-brown; the wild-rose scrub glowed
blood-crimson in the hollows; and the aspen bluffs, touched with frost,
were as yellow as saffron. The wild and beautiful panorama was made
complete in their eyes by a great golden eagle perched on the brink of
the immediate foreground and, like themselves, gazing over. Though but a
hundred yards or so distant, he contemptuously disregarded their
arrival. When Garth, full of curiosity, came closer, he spread his vast
wings and drifted indifferently out into space.

For a long time they gazed at the scene without speaking. It was Natalie
who finally e