THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 57 



forgotten, while all that is precious remains. 

 Fears vanish as soon as one is fairly free in the 

 wilderness. 



Most of the clangers that haunt the unseasoned 

 citizen are imaginary ; the real ones are perhaps 

 too few rather than too many for his good. 

 The hears that always seem to spring up 

 thick as trees, in fighting, devouring attitudes 

 before the frightened tourist whenever a camp- 

 ing trip is proposed, are gentle now, finding they 

 are no longer likely to be shot ; and rattlesnakes, 

 the other big irrational dread of over-civilized 

 people, are scarce here, for most of the park lies 

 above the snake-line. Poor creatures, loved only 

 by their Maker, they are timid and bashful, as 

 mountaineers know; and though perhaps not 

 possessed of much of that charity that suffers 

 long and is kind, seldom, either by mistake or 

 by mishap, do harm to any one. Certainly they 

 cause not the hundredth part of the pain and 

 death that follow the footsteps of the admired 

 Rocky Mountain trapper. Nevertheless, again 

 and again, in season and out of season, the ques- 

 tion comes up, " What are rattlesnakes good 

 for ? " As if nothing that does not obviously 

 make for the benefit of man had any right to 

 exist ; as if our ways were God's ways. Long 

 ago, an Indian to whom a French traveler put 

 this old question replied that their tails were 

 good for toothache, and their heads for fever. 



