M. Mark Miller, Author

Category: Humor

  • A Tale: An Unfair Fight Between a Bear and a Pussy Cat — Ernest Thompson Seton, 1896

     

    In 1896, naturalist and writer Ernest Thompson Seton went to Yellowstone Park to inventory animals there for a magazine assignment. He spent a day watching bears at the Fountain Hotel dump near the Lower Geyser Basin. Such bear watching was common then.

    Seton saw a momma black bear called “Grumpy” pick a fight with a huge grizzly called “Wahb” to protect her sickly cub. After the battle, Seton interviewed hotel employees to find out as much as he could about the bears. Based on his research, Seton wrote his famous story, “Johnny Bear,” and a book, Biography of a Grizzly. 

    The most memorable incident in “Johnny Bear,” is the battle between Grumpy and Wahb, but in it Seton described other adventures like Grumpy’s encounter with an even more formidable foe. 

    ∞§∞

    Grumpy herself was fond of plum jam. The odor was now, of course, very strong and proportionately alluring; so Grumpy followed it somewhat cautiously up to the kitchen door. There was nothing surprising about this. The rule of “live and let live” is Bear & Kitten Setonso strictly enforced in the park that the bears often come to the kitchen door for pickings, and on getting something, they go quietly back to the woods. Doubtless Johnny and Grumpy would each have gotten their tart but that a new factor appeared in the case.

    That week the Hotel people had brought a new cat from the East. She was not much more than a kitten, but still had a litter of her own, and at the moment that Grumpy reached the door, the cat and her family were sunning themselves on the top step. Pussy opened her eyes to see this huge, shaggy monster towering above her.

    The cat had never before seen a bear—she had not been there long enough; she did not know even what a bear was. She knew what a dog was, and here was a bigger, more awful bobtailed black dog than ever she had dreamed of coming right at her. Her first thought was to fly for her life. But her next was for the kittens. She must take care of them. She must at least cover their retreat. So, like a brave little mother, she braced herself on that doorstep, and spreading her back, her claws, her tail, and everything she had to spread, she screamed out at the bear an unmistakable order to, “STOP!”

    The language must have been “cat,” but the meaning was clear to the bear; for those who saw it maintain stoutly that Grumpy not only stopped, but she also conformed to the custom of the country and in token of surrender held up her hands.

    However, the position she thus took made her so high that the cat seemed tiny in the distance below. Old Grumpy had faced a Grizzly once, and was she now to be held up by a miserable little spike-tailed skunk no bigger than a mouthful? She was ashamed of herself, especially when a wail from Johnny smote on her ear and reminded her of her plain duty, as well as supplied his usual moral support.

    So she dropped down on her front feet to proceed.

    Again the cat shrieked, “STOP!”

    But Grumpy ignored the command. A scared mew from a kitten nerved the cat, and she launched her ultimatum, which ultimatum was herself. Eighteen sharp claws, a mouthful of keen teeth, had Pussy, and she worked them all with a desperate will when she landed on Grumpy’s bare, bald, sensitive nose, just the spot of all where the bear could not stand it, and then worked backward to a point outside the sweep of Grumpy’s claws. After one or two vain attempts to shake the spotted fury off, old Grumpy did just as most creatures would have done under the circumstances; she turned tail and bolted out of the enemy’s country into her own woods.

    But Puss’s fighting blood was up. She was not content with repelling the enemy; she wanted to inflict a crushing defeat, to achieve an absolute and final rout. And however fast old Grumpy might go, it did not count, for the cat was still on top, working her teeth and claws like a little demon. Grumpy, always erratic, now became panic stricken. The trail of the pair was flecked with tufts of long black hair, and there was even blood shed. Honor surely was satisfied, but Pussy was not. Round and round they had gone in the mad race. Grumpy was frantic, absolutely humiliated, and ready to make any terms; but Pussy seemed deaf to her cough-like yelps, and no one knows how far the cat might have ridden that day had not Johnny unwittingly put a new idea into his mother’s head by bawling in his best style from the top of his last tree, which tree Grumpy made for and scrambled up.

    This was so clearly the enemy’s country and in view of his reinforcements that the cat wisely decided to follow no farther. She jumped from the climbing bear to the ground, and then mounted sentry guard below, marching around with tail in the air, daring that bear to come down. Then the kittens came out and sat around, and enjoyed it all hugely. And the mountaineers assured me that the bears would have been kept up the tree till they were starved, had not the cook of the Hotel come out and called off his cat—although his statement was not among those vouched for by the officers of the Park.

    ∞§∞

    • — Excerpt condensed from “Johnny Bear” by Ernest Thompson Seton, Scriberner’s Magazine 28(6):658-671 (December 1900).  Illustration by Seton from the magazine.

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    — You can read a condensed version Ernest Thompson Seton’s “Johnny Bear” in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.

  • A Tale: An Englishman Describes the Fourth of July at Mammoth Springs — Rudyard Kipling, 1889

    cottage hotel mammoth 1885 YDSF
    Cottage Hotel built at Mammoth Hot Springs in 1885.

    The British Empire was at its pinnacle when the famous author Rudyard Kipling visited Yellowstone Park in 1889. The 24-year-old Kipling often let his smug superiority show when he wrote about the people and places he saw while touring America that year. Here’s his description of a Fourth of July celebration at Mammoth Hot Springs.

    ∞§∞

    When we struck the Mammoth Hot Spring Hotel, a signboard informed us that the altitude was six thousand two hundred feet. The Park is just a howling wilderness of three thousand square miles, full of all imaginable freaks of a fiery nature. An hotel company, assisted by the Secretary of State for the Interior, appears to control it; there are hotels at all the points of interest, guide-books, stalls for the sale of minerals, and so forth, after the model of Swiss summer places.

    The tourists—may their master die an evil death at the hand of a mad locomotive!—poured into that place with a joyful whoop, and, scarce washing the dust from themselves, began to celebrate the Fourth of July. They called it “patriotic exercises,” elected a clergyman of their own faith as president, and, sitting on the landing of the first floor, began to make speeches and read the Declaration of Independence. The clergyman rose up and told them they were the greatest, freest, sublimest, most chivalrous, and richest people on the face of the earth, and they all said Amen. Another clergyman asserted in the words of the Declaration that all men were created equal, and equally entitled to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

    I should like to know whether the wild and woolly West recognizes this first right as freely as the grantors intended. The clergyman then bade the world note that the tourists included representatives of seven of the New England States; whereat I felt deeply sorry for the New England States in their latter days. He opined that this running to and fro upon the earth, under the auspices of the excellent Raiment, would draw America more closely together, especially when the Westerners remembered the perils that they of the East had surmounted by rail and river. At duly appointed intervals the congregation sang ‘My country, ’tis of thee,’ to the tune of’ God Save the Queen’ (here they did not stand up) and the’ Star-Spangled Banner’ (here they did), winding up the exercise with some doggerel of their own composition to the tune of ‘John Brown’s Body,’ movingly setting forth the perils before alluded to. They then adjourned to the verandahs and watched firecrackers of the feeblest, exploding one by one, for several hours.

    What amazed me was the calm with which these folks gathered together and commenced to belaud their noble selves, their country, and their ‘institootions’ and everything else that was theirs. The language was, to these bewildered ears, wild advertisement, gas, bunkum, blow, anything you please beyond the bounds of common sense. An archangel, selling town-lots on the Glassy Sea, would have blushed to the tips of his wings to describe his property in similar terms. Then they gathered round the pastor and told him his little sermon was ‘perfectly glorious,’ really grand, sublime, and so forth, and he bridled ecclesiastically. At the end a perfectly unknown man attacked me and asked me what I thought of American patriotism. I said there was nothing like it in the Old Country. By the way, always tell an American this. It soothes him.

    Then said he: ‘Are you going to get out your letters—your letters of naturalization?’

    ‘Why?’ I asked.

    ‘I presoom you do business in this country, and make money out of it—and it seems to me that it would be your dooty.’

    ‘Sir,’ said I sweetly, ‘there is a forgotten little island across the seas called England. It is not much bigger than the Yellowstone Park. In that island a man of your country could work, marry, make his fortune or twenty fortunes, and die. Throughout his career not one soul would ask him whether he were a British subject or a child of the Devil. Do you understand?’

    I think he did, because he said something about ‘Britishers’ which wasn’t complimentary.

    ∞§∞

    — Pages 70-72 in Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1914.

    — Photo from the Yellowstone Digital Slide File.

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  • A Tale: Finding a Goldilocks Pool at Mammoth Hot Springs — John W. Barlow, 1871

    Reports from the Washburn Expedition of 1870 stimulated so much interest in the Upper Yellowstone that the U.S. Government decided to send two expedition to explore the area systematically the next year. One was under the direction of Dr. Ferdinand V. Haden of the U.S. Geological Survey, and another was under Colonel John W. Barlow of the Army Corp of Engineers. The two expeditions worked in tandem to measure and map the wonders of the area. One of those wonders was “Soda Mountain,” what is now known as Mammoth Hot Springs.

    Bath Pools from Whylie by CalfeeIn an era when water for bathing often was heated in a teakettle, the copious amount of hot water flowing down the mountainside at Mammoth Hot Springs intrigued the explorers. Here’s how Colonel Barlow described it.

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    A system of hot springs of great beauty, flowing from the top and sides of a large hill of calcareous deposit, and called Soda Mountain, is found five miles up the left bank of Gardners River. Here, at the foot of this curious white mountain, we encamped, and remained until the 24th [of July], examining the wonderful spring formation of this region, and the country around it.

    The central point of interest is the Soda Mountain, occupying an area of a hundred acres, and rising like the successive steps of a cascade, to the height of over 200 feet above the plateau at its base. The upper surface is a plain, composed of many hot springs, constantly sending up volumes of vapor slightly impregnated with sulphurous fumes.

    The sides of the hill down which the waters of these hot springs flow have become terraced into steps of various heights and widths, some twelve inches in dimension, while others are as many feet. In each terrace there is generally a pool of water, standing in a scalloped basin of gypsum, deposited at the edges by the water as it becomes cooler. These basins are often tinged with pink, gray, and yellow colors, giving to the whole a very beautiful effect.

    The rock in all directions has evidently been deposited in the same manner as the Soda Mountain is now being built up. When the formation ceases from a change in the course of the water, the rock becomes friable and disintegrates. After a time vegetation springs up and covers the surface. Many of the basins have the size and shape of bathtubs, and were used by members of the party for bathing purposes. The temperature varies in the different pools from fifty degrees all the way up to one hundred and eighty, so there is no difficulty in finding a bath of suitable temperature.

    [A few days later, Barlow left Mammoth Hot Springs to explore the area. When he returned in again enjoyed the hot water again.]

    Toward evening I enjoyed a bath among the natural basins of Soda Mountain. The temperature was delightful, and could be regulated at pleasure by simply stepping from one basin to another. They were even quite luxurious, being lined with spongy gypsum, soft and pleasant to the touch. I walked over a part of the hill by the faint light of the new moon, which gave to its deep-blue pools of steaming water a wild and ghostly appearance. The photographer has taken numerous views of these springs and the country in their vicinity, which will serve to convey a much more definite idea of their beautiful formation than can be given by any written description. A special survey was made of this locality, and careful observations of its latitude and longitude.

    ∞§∞

    —Excerpts from Colonel John W. Barlow, Report of a Reconnaissance of the Basin of the Upper Yellowstone in 1871, U.A. 42d Cong. 2d sess. Senate Ex Doc. 66, 1871, pp. 2-43.

    — Illustration from William Wallace Wylie, Yellowstone Park, or The Great American Wonderland. Kansas City, Missouri: Ramsey Millett & Hudson, 1882. Based on a Henry B. Calfee photograph.

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  • A Tale: Adventurers Run Out of Grub at Old Faithful — Seth Bullock, 1872

    It was natural that Seth Bullock would want to visit Yellowstone. After all, he was the delegate to Montana Territorial Senate who in December 1871 wrote the “memorial” asking the federal government to establish the park. The next summer, he became one of the first tourists to visit there.

    Bullock2
    Seth Bullock

    Bullock was a colorful man whose real life biography inspired the tough sheriff character in the HBO series “Deadwood.” A newspaper once described him as “a man with a cold, grey eye, a nerve that never wavered, and a gun that never missed. “It has been said of him” the article continued, “he was a silent, cold man, and at times he seemed to have lost his power of speech. One writer referred to him as a ‘Man killer,’ and when this was called to his attention, Bullock broke his silence to remark: ‘They say I’ve killed forty-seven men. Son, I’ll tell you what. I’ve never killed but two, and I did not kill them soon enough.’”

    Teddy Roosevelt once called Bullock “the finest kind of frontiersman” and appointed him U.S. Marshall for South Dakota. Bullock began his career as a businessman and lawman in Helena, Montana. Later he moved to South Dakota where he died on his ranch in 1919.

    He was barely 22 when he was elected to the territorial legislature in 1871. Bullock said he never intended the journal of his Yellowstone for publication, but it’s a well written description of what was probably a typical trip at the time.

    Bullock left Helena for the park on horseback August 23, 1872, with three friends named A. J. Teller, Dick White, and Jack Langrishe.

    They led a packhorse that they named “Judge Clancy” after the man Bullock bought him from. The men counted on finding fish and game for food on their trip — a plan that didn’t always work.

    On the second night out, lightening spooked their horses, but they were able to catch a rope on Judge Clancy and stop the stampede. Lost horses were a common occurrence for Yellowstone travelers all through the period when they the primary means of transportation. Since the travelers carried little food for their horses, the animals needed to graze over and sometimes they wandered off. Often travel was delayed to search for horses which were sometimes found miles away.

    Here are some excerpts from Bullock’s journal.

    ∞§∞

    MONDAY, AUGUST 26th –  [The Gallatin Valley]

    Broke camp at 4 A. M. Teller grumbled a great deal at having to get up so early. For me, the day had a special interest. We were to travel through the Gallatin Valley.

    I anticipated a fine stretch of country, but was totally unprepared for the surprise that awaited me. Well has the Gallatin Valley been named the Garden-Spot of Montana. We were charmed and delighted. Stretching before us with mountains on each side was a magnificent plateau of fine rolling prairies, interwoven with two fine streams of silver whose beautiful shimmering sheen could be seen for very beautiful fields of ripe golden grain, greet the eye on every side. Substantial houses and good buildings are the rule and not the exception.

    Traveling through this beautiful valley — one of God’s dimples — as we did on this fine August day, it was impossible not to become a firm believer in the future and prosperity of this section of Montana.

    At 11 a.m. we arrived in Bozeman and camped on Bozeman Creek. A fine stream that skirts the town. After enjoying our Bedouin repast, we took a look at the town, which strikes one as a thrifty place. Evidence of future prosperity exists in the well-known agricultural resources of the valley and the pluck, business energy and shrewdness of the citizens. The town is nicely laid out with wide streets, looks very much like Deer Lodge. The people are all good boys.

    [five days later]

    SATURDAY, AUGUST 31st – [Mammoth Hot Springs]

    Here we are, at the famous springs, encamped in a little ravine, about 100 yards from the springs. Pen cannot describe, nor tongue tell, the wonders of this place. Large, white mountain and plains of icy whiteness cut into fantastic shapes meet the eye.

    Found quite a colony of invalids here. All speak of the medicinal qualities of the baths in terms of praise. Passed the afternoon in resting and listening to amusing stories told by the old mountaineer of the bug-hunters, as they facetiously termed the Hayden party. Intend leaving tomorrow for the geyser country.

    [eight days later]

    SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8th –  [Lower Geyser Basin]

    Left prairie at 6 A. M. After floundering around through mud for over three hours, we succeeded in finding solid foundation on hillside and struck out down creek for Lower Geyser Basin. Two pilgrims got stalled in the mud and had to be roped out. Passed numerous hot springs and infant geysers.

    As you approach the lower basin you can imagine that you are overlooking a wharf where a number of steamers are blowing off steam. Camped for noon in Lower Geyser Basin and examined curiosities. Reached Upper Fire Hole Basin about 4 o’clock. Went into camp and started out to examine the geysers. Did not have time to examine but one or two before night.

    While we were eating supper, Old Faithful started its evening entertainment. The display was grand, beyond our highest expectation, the water being thrown about 100 feet high, five feet in diameter at the base to a fine silver thread at the top. Judging from the noises we hear, there must be a great number of geysers in this vicinity.

    We are getting short on grub. Nothing left but flour and coffee. White prepared for supper a new dish, called Geyser sauce.

    [The next day]

    MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9th – [Upper Geyser Basin]

    Arose at 3 A. M.  Before breakfast, [we] visited a number of geysers. One called “Grand” breaks through a small mound, evidently formed by the geyser. Around the sides of the mound are the most beautiful colorings imaginable.

    Left for home at 12 M. Course down Fire Hole River.  … Weather fine, but cold. No game in sight. No fish. Bread and water all we had today.

    [six days later]

    SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th – [At Bottler’s Ranch north of the Park]

    Left Packer’s Camp at 5 A. M. Lunched at Bottler’s and examined his ranch. Fifty acres of wheat, very good. About the only ranch on the whole Yellowstone River

    Walked into Bottler’s eggs, cream, butter, and “sich” in a way that looked bad for his winter’s grub supply. First civilized grub that we had for twenty days.

    [the next day]

    MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th –

    At noon, we started on for Bozeman through Rocky Canyon. Arrived at Bozeman at 4 P. M. A. J. Davis of Helena visited our camp, dined with us on trout and Yellowstone stories. Spent evening in Bozeman.

    ∞§∞

    — Seth Bullock’s journal of his trip to Yellowstone Park is in the collection of the Montana Historical Society.

    — Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

  • A Tale: The New Camp Spirit Gets Arrested— Eleanor Corthell 1903

    Eleanor Corthell’s husband “could only fizz and fume” when she announced in 1903 that she was taking their seven children to Yellowstone National Park by team and wagon. But he could think of no good reason to stop her.

    By then the park had been transformed from a forbidding wilderness into a genteel resort where an unaccompanied woman could travel without fear of being attacked by Indians or bears. The Army Corps of Engineers had completed a network of roads in the park that were among the best in the United States, certainly good enough to be navigated by Mrs. Corthell’s sixteen-year-old son. There were stores where the Corthells could buy supplies and post offices where they could keep in contact with family and friends.

    Although the park had several grand hotels, the Corthells camped out for their entire two-month adventure. This meant that Mrs. Corthell had to manage not only the logistics of the trip but also cooking and laundry—all out of doors. That might sound like an enormous challenge, but as Eleanor would have pointed out, she would have been in charge of all those duties had she stayed at home.

    Despite the relative tranquility of Yellowstone Park at the time, the Corthells had plenty of adventures. Their travels across the ranch country of central Wyoming reminded them of Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian, which many consider to be the first Western. In the park they kept their eyes out for black bear cubs like Johnny Bear and  grizzlies like Wahb, who were the subjects of famous stories by the hugely popular naturalist and writer Ernest Thompson Seton.

    Eleanor’s husband, Nellis, joined his family in the park and promptly ran afoul of regulations that were enforced by the Army, which ran the park then. But Nellis (Eleanor called him “The New Camp Spirit”) was a prominent Wyoming attorney, and he managed to talk himself down to a two-dollar fine.

    Eleanor’s story of her family trek was published in June 1905 in the magazine, Independent.  Here’s an excerpt.

    ∞§∞

    We camped across the road from Old Faithful and saw it play five times; but we shouldn’t have stopped there, we were taking chances. The park rules are very strict in regard to trespass on the formations, and thereby hangs a tale: But then, you would not expect such a large family to pass among a whole valley full of yawning gulfs and smiling springs and shooting geysers, absorbed until they forgot time and place and circumstance and not have something happen, would you? Since none of them fell into a hot spring, what could matter?

    Well, “The New Camp Spirit” got arrested! And that mattered a good deal.

    The horses found feed scarce in the very heavy timber so came into the open where the road lay. Just across, on forbidden territory, was a bunch of grass that poor Star wanted. Now he didn’t intend to swallow Old Faithful, or tramp on its flinty surroundings. We were busy spreading a good, hot dinner on the tablecloth, so failed to notice Star quite quick enough. Presently we saw, and sent a boy to drive him back, but a soldier on horseback got ahead of him, and swearing like a trooper at boy and horse, he came thundering up saying, “Consider yourself under arrest, sir, and come with me!”

    In his very, very sweetest manner and most persuasive tone, Mr. Corthell asked, “May I finish my dinner first?” “Well, yes sir,” the soldier said, somewhat mollified. And he sullenly stood in the background.

    But dinner had lost its savor. This is an experience we had nowhere reckoned on. What if it meant jail—forgotten pocketbooks, broken wagons, floods, nothing ever created such consternation as this. But we didn’t fall into a panic. The chief victim was so placid, so serene, even sweetly content, that the example set composed the rest of us. Before the walk to headquarters was over, sweetness won the day, so the fine was only two dollars when it might have been a hundred. From this point on the “New Camp Spirit” took no more chances and always put out his fires.

    ∞§∞

    — Excerpts from “A Family Trip to the Yellowstone” by Mrs. N. E. Corthell, The Independent, 58:2952, 1460-67 (June 29, 1905).

    — Photo, Pioneer Museum of Bozeman.

    — Read more about Eleanor Corthell’s adventures:

     

  • A Tale: One Good, Square Drink — General W.E. Strong, 1875

    Before the Northern Pacific completed its transcontinental link in 1883, the best way from the east coast to Yellowstone Park was to take the Union Pacific to Corinne, Utah, and then travel north 400 miles by stagecoach. The stagecoach ride itself could be a great adventure. Here’s General W.E. Strong’s description of his ride in 1875.

    ∞§∞

    At 6 o’clock we were ready to start. The coach had pulled up at the village of Franklin, near Corinne, Utah, and stopped near a whiskey shop for the regular driver to take the reins. This dignitary, who soon appeared, was a slim-built man of five-and-thirty—and so very drunk that I could hardly believe we were to be conducted over our first run by a person in his condition. He had most remarkable control over his legs and hands, however, he managed to reach the coach and climb to his seat without aid from anyone.

    “Are you ready,” says the driver. “All ready” was the response. Then gathering the reins carefully in his left hand and swinging his whip with the right, the lash cutting sharply across the flanks of the leaders, “Lee Goddard,” (that was his name) exclaimed “Git out of here, you pirates.”  The next instant we were off, lead, swing, and wheel horses on the keen jump. Again and again the whip was applied and thus we departed from Franklin at the rate of sixteen miles an hour.

    The intense pleasure to me of this first morning’s ride in the great, swaying Concord wagon is indescribable. We were fairly afloat on the great plains of Idaho.

    At Bear River we jumped out and ‘stretched our legs’  while a fresh relay of six handsome bays were hitched to the coach, and in five minutes were bowling along again, at a killing pace. Goddard’s run is to Port Neuf Canyon, sixty miles, and he changes five times—an average of 12 miles for each relay.

    From Bear River to Port Neuf Canyon the road was fearfully dusty, so we were enveloped in great clouds hour after hour, and it seemed sometimes as though we would surely suffocate. For miles and miles the lead horses were entirely hidden and very frequently all of the horses were lost of view.

    The stage driver looked longingly at the demijohn of whiskey—about a gallon—that was under our feet, and finally mustered the courage to say that if he had one good, square drink he was sure he could get through to Port Neuf in time; but as the small flask we carried—strictly for medical purposes—would not probably have come up to his estimate of a good, square drink, I declined the proposition.

    Later, and while we were making some sharp curves, where the narrow road was cut out from the mountain’s side, with frightful precipices below us, I turned, and, to my astonishment, saw the driver nodding, with the reins hanging loosely in his hands. The situation was by no means pleasant. The horses were going rapidly, with a drunken driver fast asleep, and only a foot between the outer wheels and the brink of the precipice two hundred feet high—where, if a horse slipped and went down, or a wheel came off, there was no hope for us.

    In view of this, I grasped the reins, and at the same time shook the fellow gently until he awoke, when he very cooly asked, “Wha-ze matter?” and I told him he was sleeping, he laughed saying, “Don’t be skeert, ole fellar; them hosses, they knows the road, sure’s yer borned. Never upset a stage in my life.” At the same time he applied the whip to the swing horses sending us along faster than ever.

    ∞§∞

    — From General W. E. Strong, A Trip to the Yellowstone National Park in July, August, and September, 1875. (Pages 15-18).

    — Northern Pacific Railroad postcard.

    — You might also enjoy General Strong’s account of catching his first fish in Yellowstone Park, or Sidford Hamp’s story of a stagecoach robbery.

     

  • A Tale: Big Boots to Fill — Carrie Strahorn, 1880

    In October 1880, Carrie Strahorn and her husband, Robert (she called him “Pard”) were the only passengers on the first run of George Marshall’s stage between Virginia City, Montana, and the Lower Geyser Basin. The Strahorns spent their first night in a cabin in the Madison River valley that belonged to Gilman Sawtell, Yellowstone Park’s first commercial guide and builder of the first road to the Lower Geyser Basin.

    Carrie Strahorn

    On their second day of travel, the Strahorns crossed the Continental Divide over Raynolds Pass and went to Henrys Lake where Sawtell had built a two-story building he planed to use as a hotel for Yellowstone tourists. Sawtell wasn’t there because, as Carrie put it, “during the late Indian troubles, he had abandoned this house and cached the doors and windows for fear the house would be burned.” The Strahorns made themselves at home anyway and Marshall fixed them a dinner of canned beans. Carrie told this story about what happened next.

    ∞§∞

    Pard and I gathered our blankets to go back to the stage to fix a place to sleep, but Mr. Marshall insisted there was a nice lot of hay upstairs where we could be more comfortable, and handing us a candle, directed us to the stairway. It was a rickety passage, with the wind howling through every aperture and holding high carnival with every loose board in the house.

    Once upstairs, the room to which we were sent seemed about forty feet square. The glimmering candle would light only a corner of the great black space, and a gust of wind would blow out the glim at intervals until the place seemed full of spooks and goblins. Pard and I gazed at each other when we could, and when we couldn’t, well, maybe I cried—I don’t quite remember.

    He had persuaded me to buy a very heavy pair of shoes in Virginia City, because he had been told the ground was so hot in some sections of the park that thin soles were not at all safe to wear, and would soon be burned through. Then he had proceeded to hold them up to ridicule all day, and I had finally wagered five dollars with him that in spite of their looks I could get both of my feet into one of his shoes. So there in the dim candle light, with any number of sashless and paneless windows, with the pallet of hay down in a dark corner, partly covered with canvas, with the wind shrieking requiems for the dead and threats for the living,  and with the rafters full of bats, I called to him to bring me his shoe, and let me win my wager.

    I put on his number seven and declared my foot was lost and lonesome in it, and he cried out, “Well, then, now put in the other one! Put in the other one!” I began at once taking it off to put it on the other foot, when he cried out, “Oh, no, not that way, but both at once.” But I revolted and said, “No, that was not in the bargain; I had not agreed to put both in at the same time.” In deep chagrin, he threw a five-dollar gold piece at me, which was lost for half an hour in the hay before I could find it, while he gave a grunt or two that will be better not translated. And so we went on with our merrymaking, trying to forget our surroundings, and dispel thoughts of our discomfort, but it was a glad hour that saw us started again on our way with a new sun.

    ∞§∞

    —   Excerpt from “Early Days In Yellowstone,” pages 254-286 in Carrie Adell Strahorn, Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1911.

    —   Photo detail from Strahorn’s book.

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    — You can read Carrie Strahorn’s account of her 1880 trip to Yellowstone Park in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.  

  • Ten Funny Stories From Yellowstone Park

    When I checked my blog statistics last week, I noticed that funny stories don’t seem to get their share of hits. To call attention to them,I decided to create a new category, “Humor.” While assigning stories to Humor, I picked some of my favorites to list here.

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    Walter DeLacy, “An Optimistic Prospector — 1863”

    You just can’t be generous enough for some people.

    N.P. Langford, “Naming Tower Fall — 1870”

    An explorer’s practical joke backfires.

    Harry J. Norton, “A Million Billion Gallons of Hot Water — 1872”

    Prince Telegraph gets in trouble when he takes a shortcut washing dishers.

    The Earl of Dunraven, “How To Pack A Mule — 1874.”

    When mules get stubborn, ‘You may curse and swear your level best—but it does not a bit of good.’

    George W. Wingate, “Stampeded by an Umbrella — 1885”

    A dashing cowboy creates mayhem with his fancy riding.

    Rudyard Kipling, “Fishing With Yankee Jim — 1889.”

    The famous English author tries to tell bigger lies than Yankee Jim.

    Lewis Ransom Freeman, “Crashing Through Yankee Jim Canyon — 1903”

    A young man’s wooden raft smashes to pieces when tries to impress a girl.

    Henry G. Merry, “Yellowstone’s First Car — 1904”

    When Henry G. Merry tries to crash the gate into the Park, rangers lasso his car and drag it to the Superintendent’s office at Mammoth.

    L. Louise Elliot, “Maud Gets Her Revenge — 1913”

    A camping company employee gets even with a supercilious guest.

    R. Maury, “Nights of Romance — 1919”

    Pop Slocum takes a dive at Norris Geyser Basin so Winsted Tripp can meet the woman of his dreams.

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    — For more funny stories click on “Humor” under the “Categories” button on the left side of this page.

  • A Tale: Teaching Greenhorns About Snipe Driving — Langford, 1872

    When I was a little boy my father told me the way to catch a bird was to put salt on its tail. If you do that, he assured me, you can reach right out and pick it up. I looked to my mother for confirmation, and she said something like, “I suppose that’s true.”

    They armed me with a salt shaker and I spent the afternoon trying to get close enough to a bird to salt its tail. Not until my brothers came home from school and started laughing at me did I get the joke.

    The tradition of playing tricks on the naive runs deep in the history of the northern Rockies. The famous Yellowstone explorer, N.P. Langford, told this story in his account of  traveling with the second Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone Park in 1872.

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    Among our own hunters was a trapper named Shep Medary—a lively, roystering mountaineer, who liked nothing better than to get a joke upon any unfortunate “pilgrim” or ” tender foot ” who was verdant enough to confide in his stories of mountain life.

    “What a night!” said Shep, as the moon rose broad and clear—”what a glorious night for drivin’ snipe!”

    Here was something new. Two of our young men were eager to learn all about the mystery.

    “Driving snipe! what’s that, Shep? Tell us about it.”

    “Did ye never hear?” replied Shep, with a face expressive of wonder at their ignorance. “Why, it’s as old as the mountains, I guess; we always choose such weather as this for drivin’ snipe. The snipe are fat now, and they drive better, and they’re better eatin’ too. I tell you, a breakfast of snipe, broiled on the buffalo chips, is not bad to take, is it, Dick?”

    Beaver Dick, who had just arrived in camp, thus appealed to, growled an assent to the proposition contained in Shep’s question; and the boys, more anxious than ever, pressed Shep for an explanation.

    “Maybe,” said one of them, “maybe we can drive the snipe tonight and get a mess for breakfast: what have we got to do, Shep?”

    “Oh well,” responded Shep, “if you’re so plaguey ignorant, I’m afeard you won’t do. Howsomever, you can try. You boys get a couple of them gunny-sacks and candles, and we’ll go out and start ’em up.”

    Elated with the idea of having a mess of snipe for breakfast, the two young men, under Shep’s direction, each equipped with a gunnysack and candle, followed him out upon the plain, half a mile from camp, accompanied by some half-dozen members of our party. The spot was chosen because of its proximity to a marsh which was supposed to be filled with snipe. In reality it was the swarming place for mosquitoes.

    “Now,” said Shep, stationing the boys about ten feet apart, “open your sacks, be sure and keep the mouths of ’em wide open, and after we leave you, light your candles and hold ’em well into the sack, so that the snipe can see, and the rest of us will drive ’em up. It may take a little spell to get ’em started, but if you wait patiently they’ll come.”

    With this assurance the snipe-drivers left them and returned immediately to camp.

    “I’ve got a couple of green ‘uns out there,” said Shep with a sly wink. “They’ll wait some time for the snipe to come up, I reckon.”

    The boys followed directions—the sacks were held wide open, the candles kept in place. There they stood, the easy prey of the remorseless mosquitoes. An hour passed away, and yet from the ridge above the camp the light of the candles could be seen across the plain. Shep now stole quietly out of camp, and, making a long circuit, came up behind the victims and, raising a war-whoop, fired his pistol in the air.

    The boys dropped their sacks and started on a two-forty pace for camp, coming in amid the laughter and shouts of their companions.

    ∞§∞

    — Excerpt from N. P. Langford, “The Ascent of Mount Hayden,” Scribner’s Monthly (June 1873) 6(3)129-157.

    — Illustration from the article.

    — You can read a condensed version of Langford’s The Discovery of Yellowstone Park in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.

    — To see more stories by this author, click on “Langford” under the “Categories” button to the left.

  • A Tale: The Last Outpost of Civilization — 1874

    Late in the summer of 1870, men rushed into the area that was to become Yellowstone Park looking to find Truman Everts and claim the reward that was offered for his rescue.

    McCartney's "Hotel"

    Everts, who had become separated from the famous Washburn Expedition, had been alone in the wilderness for thirty-seven days when Jack Baronett found him. Everts refused to pay the reward on the grounds that he would have made it to safety on his own. Baronett said  he found Everts nearly starved to death and raving mad.

    The searchers also discovered Mammoth Hot Springs and immediately saw an opportunity to convert the area into a bath resort. The next summer, two entrepreneurs named James McCarntey and Harry Horr took out homestead claims near the springs and build the first hotel in Yellowstone Park—a 25-by 35-foot log cabin with a sod-covered slab roof. “Guests” at the cabin had to provide their own blankets and sleep on the floor.

    Although the hotel had hot and cold running water (a 40-degree stream on one side and a 150-degree stream on the other), the Earl of Dunraven  wasn’t impressed with the accommodations when he visited in 1874. Here’s his description.

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    The accommodation at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel was in an inverse ratio to the gorgeous description contained in the advertisements of the Helena and Virginia newspapers. No doubt the neighborhood of these springs will some day become a fashionable place. At present, being the last outpost of civilization—that is, the last place where whisky is sold—it is merely resorted to by a few invalids from Helena and Virginia City, and is principally known to fame as a rendezvous of hunters, trappers, and idlers, who take the opportunity to loiter about on the chance of getting a party to conduct to the geysers, hunting a little, and selling meat to a few visitors who frequent the place in summer; sending the good specimens of heads and skeletons of rare beasts to the natural history men in New York and the East; and occupying their spare time by making little basket-work ornaments and nicknacks, which, after placing them for some days in the water so that they become coated with white silicates, they sell to the travelers and invalids as memorials of their trip. They are a curious race, these mountain men, hunters, trappers, and guides—very good fellows as a rule, honest and open-handed, obliging and civil to strangers if treated with civility by them. They make what I should think must be rather a poor living out of travelers and pleasure parties, doing a little hunting, a little mining, and more prospecting during the summer. In the winter they hibernate like bears, for there is absolutely nothing for them to do. They seek out a sheltered canyon or warm valley with a southern aspect, and, building a little shanty, purchase some pork and flour, and lay up till spring opens the rivers and allows of gulch mining operations being recommenced. If you ask a man in the autumn where he is going and what he is going to do, ten to one he will tell you that it is getting pretty late in the season now, and that it won’t be long before we have some heavy snow, and he is going “down the river or up the canyon.”

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    — The Earl of Dunraven, Hunting in the Yellowstone, Outing Publishing Company, New York, 1917.

    — Photo detail from the Yellowstone Digital Slide File.

    — To see more stories by this author, click on “Dunraven” under the “Categories” button to the left.

    — You might also enjoy Truman Everts’ chilling tale of being “Treed by a Lion.”