Not many persons have ever attempted to traverse the Park in the winter season, but it has been done by a few hardy and adventurous people, who nearly perished in the attempt. Such individuals have reported that the raging snow-storms and blizzards which they encountered were on a scale quite equal to the other demonstrations and natural curiosities of the place. The trees in their neighborhood were beautifully gemmed with the frozen vapor of the geysers, and the heated springs seemed doubly active by the contrast between their temperature and that of the freezing atmosphere. It was only by camping at night upon the very brink of these boiling waters that life could be sustained, with the atmosphere at forty degrees below zero.
One who comes hither with preconceived ideas of the peculiar sights to be met with is sure to be disappointed, not in their want of strangeness, for the Park is overstocked with curiosities having no counterpart elsewhere, but the features are so thoroughly unique that his anticipations are transcended both in the quality and the quantity of the food for wonder which is spread out before him on every side.
CHAPTER V.
Westward Journey resumed.—Queen City of the Mountains.—Crossing the Rockies.—Butte City, the Great Mining Centre.—Montana.—The Red Men.—About the Aborigines.—The Cowboys of the West.—A Successful Hunter.—Emigrant Teams on the Prairies.—Immense Forests.—Puget Sound.—The Famous Stampede Tunnel.—Immigration.
After a delightful, though brief, sojourn of ten days in the Yellowstone Park, realizing that twice that length of time might be profitably spent therein, we returned to Livingston, where the Northern Pacific Railroad was once more reached, and the westward journey promptly resumed. The Belt Range of mountains is soon crossed, at an elevation of over five thousand five hundred feet. A remarkable tunnel is also passed through, three thousand six hundred feet in length, from which the train emerges into a grand cañon, and soon arrives at the city of Bozeman. This place has a thrifty and intelligent population of over five thousand, and is notable for its rural and picturesque surroundings, in the fertile Gallatin Valley, which is encircled by majestic ranges of mountains, shrouded in “white, cold, virgin snow.” Having passed the point where the Madison and Jefferson rivers unite to form the headwaters of that great river, the Missouri, whence it starts upon its long and winding course of over four thousand miles towards the Mexican Gulf, we arrive presently at Helena, the interesting capital of Montana. This is called the “Queen City of the Mountains,” and is famous as a great and successful mining centre, the present population of which is about twenty thousand. It is said to be the richest city of its size in the United States, an assertion which we have good reasons for believing to be correct. The vast mineral region surrounding Helena is unsurpassed anywhere for the number and richness of its gold and silver-bearing lodes, having within an area of twenty-five miles over three thousand such natural deposits, the ownership of which is duly recorded, and many of which are being profitably worked. The city is lighted by a system of electric lamps, and has an excellent water-supply from inexhaustible mountain streams.
We were told an authentic story illustrating the richness of the soil in and about Helena, as a gold-bearing earth, which we repeat in brief.
It seems that a resident was digging a cellar on which to place a foundation for a new dwelling house, when a passing stranger asked permission to remove the pile of earth that was being thrown out of the excavation, agreeing to return one half of whatever value he could get from the same, after washing and submitting it to the usual treatment by which gold is extracted. Permission was granted, and the earth was soon removed. The citizen thought no more about the matter. After a couple of weeks, however, the stranger returned and handed the proprietor of the ground thirteen hundred dollars as his half of the proceeds realized from the dirt casually thrown out upon the roadway in digging his cellar.
Between Helena and Garrison the main range of the Rocky Mountains is crossed, and at an elevation of five thousand five hundred and forty feet the cars enter what is called the Mullan Tunnel. This dismal and remarkable excavation is nearly four thousand feet long. From it the western-bound traveler finally emerges on the Pacific slope, passing through the beautiful valley of the Little Blackfoot.
The region through which we were traveling stretches from Lake Superior to Puget Sound, on the Pacific coast, and spreads out for many miles on either side of the Northern Pacific Railroad, known as the “Northern Pacific Country.” No portion of the United Sates offers more favorable opportunities for settlement, and in no other section is there as much desirable government land still open to preëmption, presenting such a variety of surface, richness of soil, and wealth of natural productions. Intelligent emigrants are rapidly appropriating the land of this very attractive region, but there is still enough and to spare. Europe may continue to send us her surplus population for fifty years to come at the same rate she has done for the past half century, and there will still be room enough in the great West and Northwest to accommodate them.