VII.
The Coming and the Going
WHERE did the Indian of the Columbia River come from?
Crab Creek, on the great plain of the Columbia, in Eastern Washington, is one of the most remarkable streams in the Northwest. At its source near Medical Lake it is a mere brook, and here, in 1870, there were trout, little fingerlings, by the hundreds. A few miles to the Westward the stream disappeared in sand and basaltic rock. Again a few miles below it came to the surface a larger stream than at first, and with larger trout. For 100 miles went this peculiar stream in this way, now sinking and now rising, every reach of open water stocked with trout of appropriate size, until at a point a little
