Down the Yellowstone

by Lewis R. Freeman

As I had planned my Yellowstone-to-New-Orleans voyage as a strictly one-man trip the ruling consideration I had had in mind in ordering my outfit was lightness and compactness. I hoped also to find serviceability in combination with these other qualifications, but the latter were the things that I insisted on in advance. Serviceability could only be proved by use. So I simply combed the sporting magazine pages, picked out the lightest, tightest boat, engine, tent, sleeping bag and other stuff I needed and let it go at that for a starter. No article that I ordered was of a type I had ever used before. If anything failed to stand up under use I knew that some sort of substitute could be provided along the way. That is one distinct advantage boating on the upper Yellowstone has over tackling such a stretch as the Big Bend of the Columbia in Canada, or the remoter waters of any of the great South American, African or Asian rivers.

First and last, of course, my boat was the main consideration. I knew that I could get on with a wooden boat as a last resort, for I had handled one alone over three hundred miles of the lower Columbia the previous season. But I wanted to give at least a try-out to something lighter than wood. I was certain there would be many occasions when my ability to take my boat completely out of the water might be the means of saving it from swamping, and possibly complete destruction. I also knew there would be many places where such things as mud or too steep a slope to the bank would make this quite out of the question with a wooden boat weighing three hundred pounds or more. Lightness, also, would mean easier pulling as well as greater mileage for the same amount of engine power.

Investigation showed that the only practicable alternatives to wood were steel and canvas. Canvas is extremely light and fairly strong, and there are occasions—such as a journey on which both overland and water travel are combined—when a properly designed folding canvas boat is incomparably preferable to any other. This is the case, however, only when there are frequent and difficult portages and very considerable distances by land to be traversed. On a comparatively unbroken river voyage the softness, the lack of rigidity, of a folding canvas boat fail by a big margin to compensate for its lightness. This consideration eliminated canvas for my purpose, though I readily grant its usefulness under conditions favourable to it.

That committed me to steel. I found various types on the market, and after several weeks of writing and wiring decided to take my chance with a fourteen-foot sectional skiff put out by the Darrow Boat Company of Albion, Michigan. The model I ordered weighed one hundred and fifty pounds, according to the catalogue, and was amply stiff and strong. I was willing to take the catalogue's word on the score of weight; the matter of strength would have to be proved. The company admitted they made no boat specially designed for rough-water work, and suggested it might be best to build me one to order with a higher side. I knew that four inches more side would be better than two, but didn't feel that I could spare the ten days the job would require. That was the reason I was taking a chance with a stock model that is probably most used for duck-hunting on lakes and marshes. My only reason for ordering a sectional type was the very considerable saving in express on account of the comparatively small amount of space required for the knocked-down boat in shipment.

I must confess that my first sight of the crated boat in the express office at Livingston was a bit of a shock. There was no question about the lightness of it, to be sure—I could pick it up, crate and all with one hand. Rather, indeed, it looked to me too light. I did not see how material so thin could withstand a collision with a sharp, mid-stream boulder without puncturing. But that was of less concern to me than the lack of freeboard. After the big batteaux and Peterboros I had used on the Columbia the previous year this bright little tin craft looked like a child's toy. Nor was there any comfort in the agent's run of patter as he stood by during my inspection. All the boat people in town had been in to see it. No end of opinions about it, but all agreed on one thing—that it wouldn't do to allow it be launched in the river. No one but a lunatic would think of such a thing, of course. Still just that kind of lunatics had been turning up every now and then; so many, indeed, that there was talk of erecting some kind of a trap down Big Timber way to catch the bodies. But I didn't look like that kind of a nut. In fact, the agent was more inclined to believe that I was one of them rich fellows from St. Paul that had a hunting lodge up in the Rockies.

I had the crate in a truck by this time. The agent's face was a study when I gave the curt order: "Blacksmith shop on river—foot of Main Street." His was all old stuff, of course. I had heard some variation of it on every stream I had boated between the Yangtse and the Parana. Noah must have gone through a barrage of the same sort the day he laid the keel of the Ark. It didn't bother me a bit; but at the same time there was nothing cheering in it. As a matter of fact, I had still to make up my own mind as to just how much of the river those fourteen-inch sides were going to exclude in a really rough-tumbling rapid. However, it wasn't the sporting thing to do to abandon ship while ship was still in two pieces, one inside of the other, in a crate. I would wait at least until it was set up before arriving at any final verdicts. Perhaps I would even give it a trial in the water. There was a quiet eddy under the blacksmith shop, and I could play safe by bending on a line and having some one keep hold of it in a pinch.

THE BLACKSMITH SHOP WHERE MY BOAT WAS SET UP

WE LAUNCHED THE BOAT BELOW THE LIVINGSTON BRIDGE

A DIFFICULT RIFFLE BELOW SPRINGDALE

Joe Evans, the curio dealer, rushed out, bareheaded, as I drove past his shop in the truck, to head me off from going to the river. A stranger could have no idea how treacherous the Yellowstone was, he urged. Two drownded in it already that week. If I must go ahead in that little tin pan of a boat, much better to ship it to Miles City or Glendive and put in below the worst rapids. From Livingston to Big Timber would be sheer suicide, especially for a tenderfoot in a duck-boat. Nobody knew that better than he did, for he had trapped all along the way. He was quite disinterested in warning me thus. Indeed, it was all in his favour to have me start. The county paid him twenty-five dollars a day for hunting for dead bodies in the river, with twenty-five more as bonus for every one he found. So I would see it was all to his interest to increase the spring crop of floaters; but he was a humane man, and—Thus Joe, at some length and with considerable vehemence.