The proprietors employ about two hundred and fifty horses in the Park, and as we left on the last day of the season, I was curious to know what became of the horses during the winter. I was told that they are all turned loose on the prairie, to paw up their living from under the snow on the foothills where it lies thin, and in the spring they are brought in fatter and stronger than when they went out.
Now that nearly all the buffaloes in the country have been killed, very strict game laws have been put in force for their preservation. I am told that within the Park there is now very little game of any kind. A man was recently fined 100 dollars and costs and imprisoned for six months for killing two elk and eight beaver within the Park, whilst a premium of ten dollars is given for the destruction of a bear.
Let me add that there is some capital trout fishing in the Yellowstone River, just outside the Park, and we had made arrangements to spend a day there and to sleep at "Yankee Jim's," who keeps a small inn by the riverside. Jim is a well-known character throughout the country, but our experience of him did not encourage us to take up our abode in his little shanty. When sober we are told he is a highly respectable character; but when drunk (and he happened to be in that condition when we made his acquaintance) he is a madman, and a spiritualist able to see through mountains, to boot. On the whole, we did not care to cultivate Jim's acquaintance, so we had to give up our day's fishing in the Yellowstone. We may do better by-and-by in the West Gallatin River.
Just before sundown, and as we were passing through "The Golden Gate," I saw a pedestrian coming up the road at a rapid pace. I was sitting on the box-seat, and I said to the driver—
"Where can yonder fellow be going in this direction at this time of day; there is not a house of any kind within twenty miles?"
"It is curious," said he.
When we came up to the pedestrian, "By Jove! it's Frank!" I shouted. "Pull up, driver! Jump up, my boy!" He was looking strong and well, and almost as brown as a red Indian, and he soon explained to me the mystery of my not hearing from him. He had sent a telegram to Chicago, which I never received, requesting me to go straight on to Bozeman, and he had driven in to Bozeman five days successively, twenty-four miles each day, to meet us, and of course was as much bewildered about me as I had been about him. The passenger agent at Bozeman had put wrong initials on the telegram I had sent from St. Paul, and the post-master had refused to give it up for two or three days; when by chance Frank met the passenger agent, who told him about the telegram and explained his mistake to the post-master. At last he got the message, and he then started off at once for Livingston and the Park, and met us coming out of it, instead of accompanying us through it, as I had planned.
In due time we reached Bozeman, and by seven o'clock in the evening of the day after our first meeting we were safely housed in Frank's little log hut.
