AN INTERLUDE 



Saturday the tenth. 



This day the party came into Yellowstone in a heavy hail 

 storm, that lasted nearly all the way in. William and Jay departed 

 first under a half clear sky, riding south, and round by Horse Butte 

 on the chance of scaring up the big head. The storm broke after 

 Art and the artist, under convoy of Counter, were some three 

 miles or so on the way. The forerunners were found awaiting 

 the latter three at the Madison Hotel on arrival at Yellow- 

 stone, in the evening, they having given up the idea of 

 hunting as soon as the storm broke, and pushed full speed 

 for Yellowstone. Fred drove in the wagon with the heavy 

 trunks and camp impedimenta. 



At the Madison was a company of hunters, fishers, ranchmen 

 and packers, about a dozen in number including our own party. 

 A comfortable log building, with access to the bedrooms obtained 

 from a gallery running round three sides of the central hall, it 

 was a most acceptable haven for the evening, aided by a com- 

 fortably warm box stove, cards, and a piano, lightly and ten- 

 tatively fingered by the artist in various fragments of church 

 music, chants, and a reminiscence of classical balladry. A gram- 

 ophone on the center table was tended by Miss Stevens, school 

 teacher, a spectacled, curly haired Montana girl, with ambitions 

 of a university course and newspaper work subsequently; coupled 

 with a yearning for European travel. Under her ministration 

 the evening was enlivened by a continual succession of vocal 

 solos, arias, and duets from the great continental operas. Talk of 

 cattle, hunting, and fishing, mingled with some typical western 

 stories floated about meanwhile. And when bedtime came, 

 William and the artist bunking together: "A-a-ah" yawned the 

 artist, recreant to all the traditions of the Red Gods, as he com- 

 fortably disposed himself for repose upon a spring mattress with 

 a crisp pillow beneath his head, "This is comfort." And then 

 came the kindly sleep that, vide the immortal Sancho, "covers 

 one all over like a cloak." 



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