We had driven or ridden hundreds of miles over a country familiar to any one who chooses to read half a dozen books or reports; but, once across the Yellowstone, we should enter a region of which little has been written since Lewis and Clarke wandered across the head-waters of the Missouri in 1805, and had their perils and adventures told anonymously by one who was to become famous for many noble qualities of mind and heart, for great accomplishments and unmerited misfortunes.[A]
Two or three of us sat on the bluff enjoying our after-breakfast pipes and watching the transport of our baggage. The gray beach at our feet stretched with irregular outline up the lake, and offered one prominent cape whence the boat started for its trips across the stream. By 10.30 all the luggage was over, and then began the business of forcing reluctant mules and horses to swim two hundred yards of cold, swift stream. The bell-mare promptly declined to lead, and only swam out to return again to the shore. Then one or two soldiers stripped and forced their horses in, but in turn became scared, and gave it up amidst chaff and laughter. At last a line of men, armed with stones, drove the whole herd of seventy-five animals into the water with demoniac howls and a shower of missiles. Once in, they took it calmly enough, and, the brave little foal leading, soon reached the farther bank. One old war-horse of recalcitrant views turned back, and had to be towed over.
Finally, we ourselves crossed, and the judge and I, leaving the confusion behind us, struck off into some open woods over an indistinct trail. Very soon Major Gregg overtook us, and we went into camp about 4 p. m. on a rising ground two miles from the lake, surrounded by woods and bits of grass-land. Here Captain G. and Mr. E. left us, going on with Mr. Jump for a two days' hunt.
Next day, at 7 a. m., we rode away over little prairies and across low pine-clad hills, and saw to right and left tiny parks with their forest boundaries, until, after two miles, we came to Pelican Creek, a broad grayish stream, having, notwithstanding its swift current, a look of being meant by Nature for stagnation. As we followed this unwholesome-looking water eastward we crossed some quaking, ill-smelling morasses, and at last rode out on a spacious plain, with Mounts Langford, Doane and Stevenson far to the south-east, and Mount Sheridan almost south-west of us. The first three are bold peaks, while about them lie lesser hills numberless and nameless. The day seemed absolutely clear, yet the mountains were mere serrated silhouettes, dim with a silvery haze, through which gleamed the whiter silver of snow in patches or filling the long ravines. Striking across the plain, we came upon a tent and the horses of Captain G. and Mr. E., who were away in the hills.
Thence we followed the Pelican Valley, which had broadened to a wide meadowy plain, and about ten miles from the camp we began a rough ride up the lessening creek from the level. The valley was half a mile wide, noisome with sulphur springs and steam-vents, with now and then a gayly-tinted hill-slope, colored like the cañon of the Yellowstone. Some one seeing deer above us on the hills, Dr. T., Mr. K. and Houston rode off in pursuit. Presently came a dozen shots far above us, and the major, who had followed the hunters, sent his orderly back for pack-mules to carry the two black-tailed deer they had killed. After a wild scramble through bogs we began to ascend a narrow valley with the creek on our left. Jack Baronette "guessed some timber might have fell on that trail." Trail there was none in reality, only steep hillsides of soft scoriæ, streaming sulphur-vents and a cat's cradle of tumbled dead trees. Every few minutes the axes were ringing, and a way was cleared; then another halt, and more axe-work, until we slipped and scrambled and stumbled on to a little better ground, to the comfort of man and beast.
Eighteen miles of this savage riding brought us to our next camp, where, as the shooting was said to be good and the cattle needed rest, it was decided to remain two days. Our tents were pitched on a grassy knoll overlooking the main valley, which was bounded by hills of some three or four hundred feet high, between which the Pelican ran slowly with bad water and wormy trout, though there was no lack of wholesome springs on the hill.
Mr. C. and Mr. T. went off with Jack, and Mr. K. with Jump, to camp out and hunt early. The night was clear, the thermometer down to 24° Fahrenheit, and the ice thick on the pails when we rose. One of our parties came in with six deer: the captain and Mr. C. remained out. The camp was pleasant enough to an idling observer like myself, but it was not so agreeable to find the mountain-side, where Mr. T. and I were looking for game, alive with mosquitos. I lit on a place where the bears had been engaged in some rough-and-tumble games: the ground was strewed with what the lad who was with us asserted to be bears' hair. It looked like the wreck of a thousand chignons, and proved, on inspection, to be a kind of tawny-colored moss!
All night long, at brief intervals, our mules were scared by a dull, distant noise like a musket-shot. A soldier told me it was a mud volcano which he had seen the day we arrived. I then found it marked on Hayden's map, but learned that it had not been seen by him, and was only so located on information received from hunters. On the morning of August 1st I persuaded the major to walk over and look for the volcano. We crossed the valley, and, guided by the frequent explosions, climbed the hills to the east, and, descending on the far side, came into a small valley full of sluggish, ill-smelling rills, among which we found the remarkable crater, which, as it has not been hitherto examined by any save hunters, I shall describe at some length.
A gradual rising ground made up of soft sulphureous and calcareous earth was crowned by a more abrupt rise some thirty-five feet high, composed of tough gray clay. This was pierced by a cone of regular form about thirty feet across at top and five feet at the bottom. On the west, about one-third of the circumference was wanting from a point six feet above the lowest level, thus enabling one to be at a distance or to stand close by, and yet see to the bottom of the pit. The ground all around and the shrubs and trees were dotted thick with flakes of dry mud, which gave, at a distance, a curious stippled look to the mud-spattered surfaces. As I stood watching the volcano I could see through the clouds of steam it steadily emitted that the bottom was full of dark gray clay mud, thicker than a good mush, and that, apparently, there were two or more vents. The outbreak of imprisoned steam at intervals of a half minute or more threw the mud in small fig-like masses from five to forty feet in air with a dull, booming sound, sometimes loud enough to be heard for miles through the awful stillness of these lonely hills. It is clear, from the fact of our finding these mud-patches at least one hundred yards from the crater, that at times much more violent explosions take place. The constant plastering of the slopes of the crater which these explosions cause tends to seal up its vent, but the greater explosions cleanse it at times, and all the while the steam softens the masses on the sides, so that they slip back into the boiling cauldron below. As one faces the slit in the cone there lies to the right a pool of creamy thin mud, white and yellow, feebly boiling. It is some thirty feet wide, and must be not more than twenty feet from the crater: its level I guessed at sixteen feet above that of the bottom of the crater.
After an hour's observation near to the volcano I retired some fifty feet, and, sheltering myself under a stunted pine, waited in the hope of seeing a greater outbreak. After an hour more the boiling lessened and the frequent explosions ceased for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then of a sudden came a booming sound, followed by a hoarse noise, as the crater filled with steam, out of which shot, some seventy-five feet in air, about a cartload of mud. It fell over an area of fifty yards around the crater in large or small masses, which flattened as they struck. As soon as it ended I walked toward the crater. A moment later a second squirt shot out sideways and fell in a line athwart the mud-pool near by, crossing the spot where I had been standing so long, and covering me, as I advanced, with rare patches of hot mud. Some change took place after this in the character and consistency of the mud, and now, at intervals, the curious spectacle was afforded of rings of mud like the smoke-rings cast by a cannon or engine-chimney. As they turned in air they resembled at times the figure 8: once they assumed the form of a huge irregular spiral some ten feet high, although usually the figures were like long spikes, or, more rarely, thin formless leaves, and even like bats or deformed birds.