Protection of the Yellowstone Park 



with an equipment that was hardly worth 

 packing in to the post, and, if taken from 

 them, occasioned but small loss. 



The accumulation of this sort of property 

 had become great, and, as I had no proper 

 storage room for it, I began my work by mak- 

 ing a bonfire of it. A first requisite to suc- 

 cessful work was to become acquainted with 

 the names, the haunts and the habits of those 

 whom it was necessary to watch or to capture. 

 Ed. Wilson was thoroughly familiar with all 

 this, and many is the lesson I patiently took 

 from him. He described to me the leaders 

 among the poachers from the several regions 

 — Cooke, Henry's Lake, Jackson's Lake and 

 Gardiner. To begin with the Cooke City 

 parties, he named to me three as particularly 

 active and dangerous : these were Van Dyck, 

 Pendleton and Howell. Van Dyck, he told 

 me, was at that time trapping beaver near 

 Soda Butte, but he had not been able to 

 definitely locate him. He made two trips 

 there through cold and storm, but to no pur- 

 pose. Finally, on his third expedition, he 

 caught him, as already stated, sleeping in his 

 bed. His property was destroyed, and he was 

 held in the guard house awaiting the instruc- 



395 



