“I assure you I won’t even try,” he replied, “because when I found it I would not know what to do with it.”
I felt guilty sitting there listening to remarks like that, witty as they were, so after awhile I excused myself and retired.
When we wakened this morning we were nearly to Yellowstone Station, and we only just had time to dress and get our baggage ready when we were there. There was four stage coaches waiting to take our party through the park. Of course, I wanted to sit alongside of Kate, but before I realized it I was in the second seat of the first coach, with Mr. Coles on the one side of me and Mr. Lester on the other. Kate was in the driver’s seat with the driver and Mr. Garrett. In the other seats was a married couple and their little boy, and the two old girls that I had an unpleasant time with one of them in the dressing-room the morning after we left Chi.
I wish I was gifted with the pen so as I could describe all we have seen today. I will try and remember as much of it as possible and do the best I can, which is all anybody can do.
First we drove through what they call “Xmas tree park” and they call it that because the trees are the kind they use for Xmas trees. They are beautiful. Soon we were at Madison River and it is a small river, but very beautiful. We passed many points of interest, including some groups of tents where people can come and rent all summer and live in them. I just loved them. I said to Mr. Coles:
“Would not you just love to come and live here all summer?”
“It would depend on who was here with me,” was his reply, and I am afraid I blushed furiously.
On both sides of the river there was high mountains that were perfectly gorgeous and different than anything I had ever seen. Between eleven and noon we came to our first stop at the Fountain Hotel where we stopped and had lunch and it is one of the highest points in the U.S. and over 7,000 miles above the sea level. There was a great many points of interest around there which is called the “Lower Geyser Basin.” The geysers were simply wonderful and different than anything I had ever seen.
“Did you ever see anything more beautiful?” I said to Mr. Coles.
“Nothing that was not human,” he replied.
“Mr. Coles,” I said, trying to speak lightly, “I am afraid you are a great jollier.”
He turned to Kate.
“You do not think so, do you, Miss Hayes?” he said; and poor Kate was so embarrassed she did not know what to say. She is not used to fencing back and forth with men of the other sex.
Besides the geysers there was the Mammoth Paint Pots, and they are the most wonderful things I have ever seen, and they bubble up and down all the time like paint pots. And then there was the pools that are all different colors and boiling all the time, and Mr. Garrett told us there was a guide fell into one of them just a week ago, and before they could get him out he was burned to death though he was a fine swimmer on account of the water being so hot.
“That bird was prepared for Hades before he got there,” said Mr. Lester, and I tried not to laugh, because he said something stronger than Hades; but he put it so funny one could not take offense. Imagine calling a man a bird.
Before it was time for us to get in the coach again, we went back of the hotel where they keep the garbage and the bears come up and get it, and sure enough there was two huge bears coming up for their dinner just as we got there. I thought I would scream when I saw them, and, without realizing it, I dashed over to where Mr. Coles was standing and took a hold of his arm.
“Oh, Mr. Coles,” I said, “are you sure they won’t come after us?”
“You are in no danger from a bear when his taste runs to garbage,” he said.
I am really beginning to think Mr. Coles cannot say anything to a girl without turning it into a compliment. Mr. Garrett told us the bears were really very tame and would eat out of a person’s hand, and that they liked sugar better than anything. Imagine a bear eating sugar; but Mr. Garrett says they do.
The drive from the Fountain Hotel to Old Faithful was simply heavenly. There was several points of interest in rout, including what they call the “Morning Glory Pool,” because they made it to look just like a morning glory. But the most beautiful sight of all was Old Faithful Geyser, which is the geyser right near Old Faithful Inn, where I am now sitting in Kate’s and my room writing. This geyser is simply gorgeous and different than all the others, because it comes up at regular intervals of about every hour and everybody goes down to watch it and tonight when it was dark after supper and it was time for it to throw up again, they turned a searchlight on it from the roof of the hotel, and it was simply gorgeous. Mr. Garrett and Mr. Lester took me down to see it. Mr. Coles said the wind had made him sleepy, and he was going to bed right after supper. Kate said she was sleepy, too, but I guess the poor girl is not having a good time and wanted to be alone. After we had seen Old Faithful by night we walked round awhile and then sat in front of the log fire in the hotel, and Mr. Lester kept us in an uproar.
The hotel itself is perfectly wonderful, and all made out of
