Down the Yellowstone

on Station

"gee-pole" and badly wrenching one of his ankles. A fierce thunder-storm overtook us about seven. The vivid flashes of the lightning produced a most striking effect in illuminating the inky clouds as they were blown across the snowy peaks

kering with the receiver. The chap seems to be an inventive genius. He has, so the soldiers told me, dissected over a dozen clocks in an effort to secure the machinery for a model of an automobile sled he is working on. His last model was destroyed by his dog, which took the strangely acting thing for a bir

destruction," he asked us, "if it wasn't because the Lord thought he stood in the way of g

g your only obs

"but all the others will be br

ill move mountains there surely ought to be no tro

nable, in my comparative inexperience, to keep the road, I was about to beg off when Clark suggested that I remove my ski and ride the rest of the way by standing on the

hat point has a slope of about forty-five degrees. When he was perhaps a hundred feet above my head, he laid hold of a sapling, swung quickly around, and shot full-tilt for the icy brink. I was sure he intended to kill himself, just a

al, by throwing himself on his side and digging the edges of his ski into the frozen snow. Although he wouldn't admit it, I am certain he kept going an in

ad devised for use in such an emergency. He reckoned that it would not only help in checking his momentum at the proper moment, but would also have a tendency to make his lan

on Station

cleanly from the tee, is to the golfer, what the five rails, fairly taken, is to the cross-country rider, what the dash down a rocky-walled canyon is to the river boatman, the jump is to the ski-runner. But what the foozle is to the golfer,

s off up the hill for a quarter of a mile or so, turns round and coasts down at full speed. Leaving the "take-off" at a mile or more a minute, it is inevitable that he must be shot a considerable distance through

hardly be expected to do as well as that. It was only on the last of a dozen trials that I managed to coast all the way to the brink of the "take-off" without falling, and even then I was not sufficiently under control to stre

on Station

f the world's word painters have only succeeded in stringing together a lot of colours like the variegated tags on a paint company's sample sheet, throwing in a liberal supply of trope and hyperbole, making

mes to the fullest appreciation of the grandeur and beauty of the canyon. It is rather in being gradually taken possession of by the spirit of the pl

ink, with the water gushing forth from under it, has much the appearance of a gigantic alabaster gargoyle. The river shoots down under the snow and leaps out over the chasm in a clean compact stream of bottle-green. Half-w

aynes,

WINTER FROM

ation,

out of the shadowed depths. The lowest and clearest of these semi-circles of irised spray seemed to spring from a patch of bright s

and landed right in the middle of the road, where it had been laid bare by the heat of hot springs. Starting again, we came to the top of a hill and coasted down at a smart gait. As we sped to the bottom I became aware of a dark blur beyond the white of the snow. Then there was a sudden stoppage, and I seemed to see a re-risen moon, with a whole cortège of comets in its

mpass in rotation, and each time landed in the creek. We finally escaped by wading. How we got in without wading will always be a mystery. Carr said the stream was called Trout Creek. Doubtless he is

e-just a rapid succession of deep gutturals. But when some particularly indigestible concoction-served, possibly by subterranean dumb-waiter from the adjacent Devil's Kitchen-interferes with the gastronomies of the old epicure, his voice is anything but prayerful. Carr said it rem

ud Geyser. Building a fire, we warmed and ate a can of salmon. When it was light

gency Cabi

y striking pyramidal peak. Two flat snow-paved slopes of the mighty pile, divided by an even ridge of black rock that rears itself in sharp contrast to the beds of white that bulwark the base, form the sid

s clouds above Steamboat Point and Brimstone Basin. The green ice in the little glaciers near the summit of the big mountain kindle and spa

of the shadow plane, the whole snow-field becomes a shining sheet, as white and clear-cut as thought carved from alabaster. At noon the sun, standing full above the black dividing line of ro

e sunlight like a great sheet of white paper, seems suspended in the air by invisible wires. And there it continues to hang, while the shadows deepen along the shores and creep out over the ice in wav

orning, had at last been turned to the place reserved for it from the dawn of

at-by that little "sins-of-a-world-of-men" touch. It i

Station,

steam jets in the Mammoth Paint Pot throw evanescent lilies and roses in the coloured mud. We were waiting for the Great Fountain, most beautiful of all the geysers of the Park, to get over her fit of coyness and burst into acti

rush. In a moment more, as a maid overcome with the fervour of her love springs to the arms of her lover, the queenly geyser leaped forth in all her splendour, eight feet of beaming, bubbling green and white thrown with precipitate eagerness upon the bosom of the Storm King. Whereupon the latter threw all restraint to the

as the mighty forces controlling them alternated in mastery. When the gusts fell light the geyser played to her full height, melting a wide circle in the snow th

at any rate, as we watched the water sink away into the beryline depths of its crater. But I failed to reckon with the sex of the beauty. This afternoon, returning from a visit to Fairy Falls, we passed over the formation. An indolent young breeze, just awakened from his siesta among the southern hills, came picking his way up the valley of the Madison, and the fickle Fountain was fairly choking in her eagern

tation,

id to be a chap over in the legislature at Helena that can out-cuss Wade under certain conditions, but he is college bred, speaks four languages and has to be under the influence of liquor to do consistent work. Wade requires no artificial stimulants, but he does have to get mad before he can do himself full justice. Today something happened to

aynes,

BIGGEST GEYSER

the bottom over the hard crust, a wildly waving pin-wheel of arms, legs and clattering ski. He was torn, bruised and scratched from the brush and trees, and one of his long "hickories" was snapped at the instep. For the moment he uttered no word, but the soldiers, who knew what was coming, h

s that on the countenance of the Sistine Madonna. For a few moments he was silent, as though putting away earthly things and concentrating his mind on the business in hand. Then he began to summon the powers of heaven and the powers of hell and call the

s the cowboy. He cursed till his face turned from white to red, from red to purple, from purple to black; he cursed till the veins in knots and cords seemed bursting from his forehead; he cursed till

, rather than before, that of Wade. Frankly, the spouting of the mighty Giant se

dison. After carrying our ski for a mile without being able to use them, we decided on Holt's advice, to take the old wood trail over the hills. This, though rough and steep, was well covered with snow. We all took a good many tumbles in dodging trees and scrambling through the brush, Wade being particularly unfortun

hat led off down the hill. "Do you see those claw marks? Nothing like a grizzly

beyond, I waved my pole on high in the approved manner of real ski cracks, and gathered my breath for the downward plunge. And not until the air was beginning to whip my face and my speed was quite beyond control, did I see two great hairy beasts standing up to their shoulders in a hole in the middle of the trail. Ho

f his superlatively clever avoidance of the blockade. Venturing to glance back over my shoulder as I regained the trail, I crossed the points of

still struggled to get up and under way again, there came a crash and a yell from above, followed by a scuffle and a gust of snorts and snarls. When I regained my feet a few seconds later

of the road. Burrowing deep for succulent roots sweet with the first run of spring sap, the biggest grizzly of the lot had escaped the notice of both of us until he reared up on his haunches in an effort to learn what all the racket was about. A push with my pole quickly put me beyond reach of all possible complications. Poor Wade rolled

tation,

e unnatural activity thus brought about is more than likely to result in the destruction of a geyser's digestive system, this offence-and most properly so-is very h

poured the resultant mess down the crater of "The Minute Man." The latter won its name as a consequence of playing with remarkable regularity practically upon the sixtieth tick of the minute from its last spout. Or, at least, that was what was claimed for it. Ikey maintains that he clocked it for half an hour, and that it never did better than once in eighty seconds, and that it was increasing its interval as the sun declined. He held that a geyser that refuse

e vicinity of "The Minute Man." Suddenly a series of heavy reverberations shook the formation beneath our feet, and at the same instant Ikey turned tail and started to run. He was just in time to avoid the deluge from a great gush of water and steam that shot a hundred feet in the air, but not to escape the mountainous discharge of soapsuds that followed in its wake. Within a few seconds that original five gallons of soft soap had been beaten to a million tim

ely. For an hour longer a diminuendo of gasps and gurgles rattled in its racked throat. At last even these ceased, and a death-bed silence fell upon the formation. There has not been the flutter of a pulse since. It real

s Emergency Ca

o, however, he pulled off a coup which he seems to feel has about evened the score. At least I just overheard him telling Carr that, while that "dern'd rep

chemized in the wonderworking laboratory of his mind, produce some golden theories. He holds, for instance, that no wise and beneficent being would cast a devil out of a woman and into a drove of hogs, because hogs were good to eat and women wasn't. Making the hogs run off a cut-bank into the se

s ever endeavoured to herd in the black sheep of the Yellowstone, has all his guns ready to bear at a moment's notice. Naturally, therefore, in a matter of straight argument, he has had me on the run from his opening salvo. But always at the last I have robbed his victories of all sweetnes

y of the "conservashun" of matter with the story of the loaves and the fishes. I snapped out pettishly that I could reconcile myself to the story of the loaves and fishes a darn site easier than I could to the stories of a fish and a loafer. It was a shameful and inexcusable lapse of breeding on my part, especially as Wade, being a hotel wa

ing the going the hardest and most disagreeable of the whole trip. The snow, honey-combed by the rain, offered no support to our ski, and we wallowed to our knees in soft slush. The drizzle increased to a steady downpour as the morning advanced, drenching our clothes till the water ran down and filled ou

avement of broken glass, the going was better, and I managed to pass and cut in ahead of the wallowing watchman just before we came to the long avenue of pines running past Crystal Springs. He seemed barely able to drag one saggin

ed and a pot of coffee boiling. Shouting to Carr to stand by to bring in the remains, I spurted on as fast as I could over the crust which was still far from rotted by the rain. I was a good three hundred yards ahead of

on our outward trip, we had crossed successfully by coasting down the snow-covered top of the log, I assumed that the feat might be performed again, especially as I was far more adept of the ski now than th

lvanic shock to revive his all-but-spent energies. I had just got my head above the slushy ice and started cutting loose my ski thongs when he appeared on the bank above. There was triumph in his fatigue-dra

own for me to climb out by. We did not, nor shall, resume the argument. The man is too terribly in earnest. He has th

t Springs,

s to coat and crust in the mineral-charged water as it trickles down the terraces. Irish and Swedes predominate among both waitresses and shovel-wielders, and as they flock about, open-mouthed with wonder and chattering at the tops of their voices, they remind one of a throng of immigrants just off the steamer. More of the same kind are due today, and still more tomorrow. Then, worst of all, in another wee