The outside world of ordinary people has pushed in and taken possession of Fort Yellowstone in the fortnight since I left here, and the invasion of the rest of the Park will speedily follow. Two hundred labourers for road work and the first installment of the hotel help arrived last night and today they are swarming over the formations, gaping into the depths of the springs, and setting nails and horseshoes to coat and crust in the mineral-charged water as it trickles down the terraces. Irish and Swedes predominate among both waitresses and shovel-wielders, and as they flock about, open-mouthed with wonder and chattering at the tops of their voices, they remind one of a throng of immigrants just off the steamer. More of the same kind are due today, and still more tomorrow. Then, worst of all, in another week will come the tourists. But Lob, the good god of the snows and all his works will be gone by then, thank heaven, and so shall I. Today there has come a letter from "Yankee Jim" stating that he has located a boat which he reckons will do for a start down the Yellowstone. He fails to say what he reckons it will do after it starts, but I shall doubtless know more on that score at the end of a couple of days.
CHAPTER IV
RUNNING "YANKEE JIM'S CANYON"
Thirty or forty years ago, before the railway came, "Yankee Jim" held the gate to Yellowstone Park very much as Horatius held the bridge across the Tiber. Or perhaps it was more as St. Peter holds the gate to heaven. Horatius stopped all-comers, while Jim, like St. Peter, passed all whom he deemed worthy—that is to say, those able to pay the toll. For the old chap had graded a road over the rocky cliffs hemming in what has since been called "Yankee Jim's Canyon of the Yellowstone," and this would-be Park tourists were permitted to travel at so much per head. As there was no other road into the Park in the early days, Jim established more or less intimate contact with all visitors, both going and coming. As there were several spare rooms in his comfortable cabin home at the head of the Canyon, many, like Kipling, stopped over for a few days to enjoy the fishing. The fishing never disappointed them, and neither did Jim.
But people found Jim interesting and likable for very diverse reasons—that became plain to me before ever I met the delicious old character and was able to form an opinion of my own. A city official of Spokane who had fished at Jim's canyon sometime in the nineties characterized him to me as the most luridly picturesque liar in the North-west. A few days later a fairly well known revivalist, who shared my seat on the train to Butte, averred that "Yankee Jim" was one of the gentlest and most saintly characters he ever expected to meet outside of heaven. This same divergence of opinion I found to run through all the accounts of those who had written of Jim in connection with their Park visits. He had undoubtedly poured some amazingly bloodthirsty stories into the ready ears of the youthful Kipling when the latter, homeward bound from India, visited the Yellowstone in the late eighties. Some hint of these yarns is given in the second volume of "From Sea to Sea." Yet it could not have been much earlier than this that Bob Ingersoll and Jim struck sparks, when the famous orator endeavoured to expound his atheistic doctrines on the lecture platform in Livingston. And the witty Bob admitted that on this occasion he found himself more preached against than preaching.
It remained for the Sheriff of Park County, whom I met in Livingston on my way to the Park, to reveal the secret spring of Jim's dual personality. "It all depends upon whether old 'Yankee' is drinking or not," he said. "He puts in on an average of about five days lapping up corn juice and telling the whoppingest lies ever incubated on the Yellowstone and ten days neutralizing the effects of them by talking and living religion. Latterly he's been more and more inclining to spiritualism and clairvoyance. Tells you what is going to happen to you. Rather uncanny, some of the stuff he gets off; but on the whole a young fellow like you that's looking for copy will find him to pan out better when the black bottle's setting on the table and the talk runs to Injun atrocities. But you're sure to get spirits in any event—if old 'Yankee' isn't pouring 'em he'll be talking with 'em."
"Spirits are good in any form," I said, nodding gravely and crooking a finger at the bar-keeper of the old Albermarle; "but—yes—without doubt the black bottle promises better returns from my standpoint."
| Courtesy Northern Pacific R. R. "YANKEE JIM'S" CABIN |