Massacre of Eagles

“I’m not trying to tell you, Rufus, I am telling you. We came in from the east.”

“But no, that is impossible.”

“We are proof that it is possible.”

“Ah, yes, but you came by horse, and foot, did you not? I suppose one could enter the park that way. But that would not be a practical way to enter for tourists.”

“It would be practical if we built a road,” Cody said.

“Are you saying that you think a road could be built that would enter the park from the east?”

“I believe so,” Cody said. “In fact, I will personally hire surveyors to mark out the route for a road.”

“You are indeed a friend,” Hatch said. “That would be of immense benefit to the park.”

“I see that you are doing a very good business, despite the lack of a road from the east,” Cody said.

“Yes, well, the trains come from Livingston to Cinnabar now, and of course we have stagecoaches that maintain a steady run from the Cinnabar depot to here,” Hatch said. “Oh, by the way, as you will see in the lounge, I have put up posters about the audition you will be holding in Cinnabar for your show. I predict you will get cowboys from all over Wyoming, Montana, and Utah.”

Prentiss Ingraham’s notes from his book in progress:

The hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs is one of the most remarkable hotels I have ever seen. It is built upon a plateau of the vast formations of sulfur and magnesia, deposited by the Hot Springs. A level area of many acres surrounds the hotel, with mountains and forest on every side except far below, where the Gardiner River rushes through a beautiful valley toward its juncture with the Yellowstone.

The hotel is built of wood, except for the chimneys which are of brick. The rooms and corridors are generous in their dimension and surprisingly so in this remote area, illuminated by Mr. Edison’s electric lights. The hotel attracts hunters, settlers, and cowboys as they congregate in the great halls, wearing sombrero hats, high leather boots and leggings, revolvers and cartridge belts.

The residents of Yellowstone expressed a great deal of surprise that we gained entrance to the park from the east, marveling at the fact that we were able to negotiate a pass which rises to nearly nine thousand feet in elevation.

Leaving the hotel and the park, we journeyed by horseback some ten miles, gradually descending in altitude by way of a dusty but well-travelled road to Cinnabar. Here, announcements had been duly posted to attract applicants for the coveted position of being a performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Exhibition. This is no small thing as Buffalo Bill is a man of great honesty and integrity who believes in giving the audiences for his show an authentic look at America’s great West as it really is.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cinnabar, Montana Territory

Perhaps the greatest promoter of Yellowstone Park was the Northern Pacific Railroad.

NORTHERN PACIFIC R.R.

Wonderland Route to the “Land of Geysers”

Yellowstone Park

With colorful brochures and national newspaper advertising, the Northern Pacific brought several hundred visitors per year, discharging them at Livingston, where the Yellowstone tourists would take another train to the depot in Cinnabar. Cinnabar was a town that had grown up specifically to service Yellowstone, and on any given day during the summer season there were many more tourists in town than there were residents. Today Cinnabar was even more crowded than usual, for a large number of cowboys had gathered to audition for a position with the Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Exhibition, and an even larger crowd had gathered to watch the performance.

Although there were several stagecoaches that maintained a route between the Mammoth Springs Hotel and Cinnabar, Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham rode the ten miles, covering the distance in just under an hour.

Cody had given Sherman Canfield the authority to make all the arrangements for him. It was an established relationship, since Canfield had long worked with Cody and had even traveled to Europe with the exhibition. Canfield met them when they arrived in Cinnabar.

“Of course I know who Falcon MacCallister is,” Canfield said when he was introduced. “And Ingraham, it is good to see you again. Are you writing any new books?”

“My boy, I am always writing new books,” he said. He smiled. “But this time, I am actually living the book as I write it.”

“Living the book as you write it? Whatever do you mean?”

“He is following Falcon and me, taking notes on every little detail. We can’t seem to get rid of him,” Cody said.

“You love it, Cody, you know you do,” Ingraham said, laughing.

“Mr. Cody, if you’ll come down here to the end of the street, you’ll see where I’ve got us set up,” Canfield said. “I had some bleachers built especially for the occasion and I expect we’ll have three hundred or more who will show up to watch the auditions.”

“You aren’t charging them, are you?” Cody asked.

“No. Do you think I should have charged them?”

“No, we charge the Easterners, but these people out here are my people, so let anyone in who wants to come. I want it to be more like a party.”

“Well now a lot of them will be tourists, just gettin’ off the train to take the stage into the park,” Canfield said. “So they’ll be Easterners.”

“All the better,” Cody said. “We will whet their appetite so that when they go back East, they will be anxious to see the entire performance. It will just sell more tickets to the exhibition. What about the cowboys? Have many shown up?”

“Ha! I’ll say they have. They’ve come from three or four states. Quite a few of them have been here for a week