The air was chill there, and blankets were a great comfort, but the bracing atmosphere put new life into every member of the Overland party.
From the Shoshone region they crossed the Pitchstone Plateau, a broad mountain-bordered plain, then headed east. After fording many small rivers they finally arrived at the base of Mt. Sheridan. This was too high a mountain for them to cross, so on the following day they made a wide detour, rounding Red Mountain, Factory Hill, and so on into the Heart Lake Geyser Basin, a still wilder region with which Jim Badger appeared to be entirely familiar.
Few people were met with in that remote region, though plenty of wild game was seen. That day they sighted three buffalo, some elk and deer, and several black bears. At night they heard the howl of the coyotes, which scented the presence of strangers in their domain. It was a lonely spot where they pitched their camp, but the Riders thoroughly enjoyed the wildness of it all.
“Are there any mountain lion out here?” questioned Hippy as they sat by the campfire that evening.
“Some,” answered the guide. “Been mostly shot off ’cause they did so much damage to other game in the Park.”
This started Stacy Brown, who spun a long yarn about the experiences of the Pony Rider Boys, of which outfit he had been a member, in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, where they had roped instead of shot wild beasts. Jim Badger didn’t believe the stories but pretended that he did. Jim did not know the Pony Rider Boys, and he had yet to learn what the Overland Riders could do in an emergency, though he was beginning to get a glimmer of the truth.
A week was spent amid the rugged scenery of the Heart Lake Geyser Basin, then the Overlanders again broke camp and crossed the Divide, headed northward, intending to make the West Arm of Yellowstone Lake, a large body of water fed by icy streams that flowed down from the surrounding mountain range. It was their intention to connect with the Government road there and perhaps meet some of the tourists who were doing the Park in the old Concord coaches.
The party found the going very rough, with much arduous climbing over intervening mountain ranges. It was not possible to make good time, nor were they particularly eager to do so, but it was noticed that, for some reason, Jim Badger appeared eager to make the West Arm as soon as possible.
They reached the West Arm on the morning of the third day out from the Heart Lake Geyser Basin, and, to their delight, discovered a little lunch station known as the “Thumb Lunch.” What interested them still more was the fact that they were allowed to fish in a little lake hard by the “Thumb.”
After getting a fishing outfit from the station, Badger took them to a little point of land that extended out into the lake.