After waiting all day at Pocatello, where I put in five or six hours of good sleep on the platform, on the shady side of the depot, with the knapsack for a pillow, I reached Beaver Cañon, on the Utah Northern Railroad, at three A.M., and before daylight slept an hour or two more on the floor of the waiting-room, near a stove that was really comfortable, for the nights were quite cold up there. I had lost so much sleep the past week, I could lie down and take a comfortable nap anywhere I could get a chance. The two nights on the boat, it may be remembered, were not accompanied with many hours of sound repose. The first night out of Portland, I talked with friends on the train who were to return home by the Northern Pacific, till late, and then I wrote till after one o’clock. After that there was not much rest sitting bolt upright, for every seat in the car was taken. The next night it required more force of will to stop off at Shoshone than anything I had done during the trip, for these reasons: I was going towards home, after four months and a half of constant traveling away from it. That thought alone made me very happy, and I could not bear to be delayed even for a day; and besides, I had laid down with four seats all to myself even before dark that night, with the intention of having a good long night’s rest. But I did not want to miss any great sight so near as that to my route, and so I took short naps all night till three in the morning, for I did not want to be carried by the station. The next night I took the train at the same hour that I left it the previous night; and thus I had had only one good night’s sleep in over a week, when I started out due east early in the morning, Aug. 22d, for the Yellowstone.
Distance on the wheel, 3,251 miles.
Chapter XXI.
In the Yellowstone Park.
Next morning I left Beaver Cañon, taking some luncheon along with me, and it was well I did, for there was no place to get food, and I saw no one all day. But the roads were excellent, level, and running through some beautiful meadows, with hills on either side covered thick with pines. There were many streams to ford, though, and taking off my shoes and stockings so often was the cause of much delay. It was the first delay of this kind during the trip. However, I reached the Half-Way Hotel sometime before sundown, after riding fifty-five miles, and was obliged to stop there, for the next ranch was twenty miles farther on.
This hotel is a log hut, with rows of tents on the sides, for sleeping-rooms, and is situated close to Snake River, a splendid trouting stream, the hills in the rear being covered with heavy timber. About dark nearly a dozen passengers arrived in the stages bound for the Yellowstone, and the sleeping apartments were taxed to their utmost; so when the bar-tender offered me a bed with him, on the ground, in his tent, or bar-room rather, I was glad to accept it. Drinks were twenty-five cents there. The next morning one of the horses that had been turned out the night before, was found with a great chunk of flesh torn from his shoulder, and his haunches and other portions of his body badly clawed up. The drivers said it was done by a bear; and that was as near as I came to seeing one on the trip.
FORDING SNAKE RIVER.—(Page 194.)