Necessity stimulates thought. The only thing remaining in Everts's pockets was a little field-glass. Remembering that a lens would concentrate the sun's rays, he concluded that with his glass he might start a fire, and in this he succeeded.
Onward he traveled. If a day came with the sky overcast, he had to camp at night without a fire. To relieve the discomfort of this, for several days he carried a brand, but this burned his hands and smoked his eyes so severely, and so often went out, that at last he abandoned it and depended entirely upon the lens. One afternoon he stopped with the intention of building a fire. But the lens was missing. Almost exhausted, he dragged himself back to his last camp, and there, fortunately, the lens was found.
During a storm a benumbed bird fell into his hands, and he devoured it raw. In vain he tried to catch fish. As he stood on the margin of Yellowstone Lake, a gull's wing drifted ashore. This supplied his only satisfying meal. It was instantly stripped of its feathers, pounded between stones, and boiled in a tin can which Everts had found. Hastily devouring the unsalted soup, he lay down and slept for several hours.
He had resolution and will-power, and greatly needed them. His stomach rebelled at thistle-roots. His mind wandered. He lost track of time. But his determination drove him on, though he was growing weaker each day. During the thirty-seven days he had traveled in a northerly course from south of Yellowstone Park to the summit of one of the bluffs, several miles to the east of Mammoth Hot Springs. Here, barely alive, he was rescued by two men of the final searching party sent out by his companions.
Everts not only recovered, but lived for thirty-one years after his terrible experience, dying at the age of eighty-five. One of the peaks in the Park, Mount Everts, is named for him.
The adventures of Colter and Everts are inspiring achievements. They give thrilling views of primitive life, and are striking instances of men, empty-handed, successfully combating Nature. The stability, the will-power, the insistent, tenacious hopefulness of these men were extraordinary. Courageously they met and mastered the swiftly coming obstacles and afflictions that fate thrust thick and fast upon them. Their deeds are a part of our helpful heritage in the Yellowstone wonderland.
II
THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
On the western slope of the Sierra, about one hundred and forty miles east of San Francisco, lies the Yosemite National Park, with an area of 1124 square miles. It is slightly larger than Rhode Island. Its lower sections on the west have an altitude of about 3000 feet. From this elevation it rises through bold terraces into the High Sierra. Mount Lyell has an altitude of 13,090 feet; Mount Dana, 13,050 feet. Gibbs Mountain and a number of other peaks have slightly lower altitudes. The elevational range, then, of this one Park runs through 10,000 feet, or nearly two vertical miles.