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Show lit; AIIS, KOADS AM) OTHER A.VIMALS Samantha had heard so many blood-curtling stories about the bears of the Yellowstone that she came pretty near backing out even before we had gone so far as Spring-ville. Spring-ville. A stop was made there and Wal-teo Wal-teo took her through the State Game farm and showed her the deer and the mud liens, then carp and the suckers, and finally she got up enough en-ough courage to say "go ahead." As we neared the park the blood-curtlylng blood-curtlylng got thicker until every stump and every calf became a ferocious fero-cious big bear. The First Bear Just before reaching west Yellowstone Yellow-stone off ahead through the timber and brush a dark, moving animal was seen. We had been fooled so often that Walter just kept on going, as we neared the object we saw that . It.. - 1 T 1, ,1 n r.,. it was reauy a uuui. utiu w 6.-i. win and take the rifle, a .22 short, and cautiously go In front of the car to see if It was safe to pass. When we got a close view of the animal it proved to be the smallest, scrawniest mangy black bear not much bigger than an Airdale pup and not nearly no vicious and as if to make it more rediculous it was tied up with a Jucket chain to a small peg near some one's cabin and for still further furth-er protection, it was surrounded by a chicken wire fence. Well, we had seen our first bear and Samantha's courage returned to stay with her during the rest of the trip. The next time we saw bears they were at the bear's lunch counter near Old Faithful. Faith-ful. Every day the garbage is hauled haul-ed from the camp and the hotel to the dump, this dump is protected by a heavy wire fence to keep the tourists from hurting the bears or helping themselves to the good iliiLi'a there. Once a day a man cuiues down there and given the bears a lecture on good behavior and some of the tourists presently profit by his talk At times there were more bears than tourists. The next bears we saw were at Fishing Bridge Camp. A rattling of tin woke us up about five o'clock in the morning and we found that an old bear and her baby were out side going through the garbage cans. She was a friendly sort of girl and would eat from your hand and pose for her picture. When her baby got its fill she sent it up a near-by tree while she continued her rounds of the camp. En route from Fishing Bridge to the Canyon of the Yellowstone we were held up twice by bears. The old bears will come right down to the road and sit up and beg for cats and it is against the rules to run over them so it -is turn out and go around. It is hard to say how many I been one bear a good many times or la good many bears one time, but at Old Faithful bear's "beanery" there were ten in sight at one time, so with our first bear, the mangy one, and there wore at least ih'.r'ecn elh The morning after the night we stayed at Norris Junction, Samantha heard a noise outside and -jumped out of bed and nearly landed on a big bull elk just outside the camp. She called everyone to "Look, See." It was the most beautiful elk, with enormous, b."au:h horns, just a p r-tect r-tect specimen. He was no more i afraid than cows usually are. lie (stayed around camp for a least two hours. Water Fowl Several flocks of geese "Canadian Honkers" were so tame that they would not fly but just swim out of reach. Great white swans and all varitles of ducks never had heard the sound of a gun, were tame like chickens. Beaver We visited the heaver dams nnd huts, but the beaver were all at home so we did not see any However How-ever Walter while fishing on the Bibbon river saw some at work. Moose and Deer We were not fortunate enough to have seen any moose and the only deer we saw on the trip were the ones in the Sprlngille Game farm: Sage ITens While staying with Mrs. Lovejoy in Jac son Hole, we saw plenty oi sage hens and as it was open season and Walter had a ten days game license, he went out and got six with his .22 rifle one morning. They were mighty good eating. After trying in vain to catch some fish in Yellowstone lake, I asked the ranger if there was no fish in the lake and he said, "there used to be lots of them but they had a cloudburst cloud-burst this spring and most of them got drowned." A young lady asked one of the bell boys at Old Faithful if the hot springs froze up in winter. "Oh, yes," he said "most of them." "Is the ice hot?" she asked. "Sure," ihe replied, "they cut It up in chunks ! and use it for hot water bottles." |
