A GOLDEN EAGLE'S NEST 



It was in 1900 that a correspondent sent me a photo- 

 graph of a (Jolden Eagle's nest which, if the birds had con- 

 sulted the requirements of museum exhibition, could not 

 have been more suitably situated. Foreground and back- 

 ground were so widely separated by an unseen middle 

 distance that the work of the reproducer of the former, and 

 the painter of the latter was clearly defined. Furthermore, 

 the scene as a whole, was not only picturesque in itself, but 

 was characteristic of a type of Wyoming "Badland". 



The photograph was filed awaiting an opportunity to 

 make a study of the scene it represented, but this did not 

 come until 1906. < >n May 25, of that year, I reached Medi- 

 cine Bow, the nearest railway station to Bates' Hole, fifty 

 miles to the north; the site of the Eagle's nest. Readers of 

 "The Virginian" will recall Owen Wister's description of 

 this town on the Laramie Plains, which, in size and general 

 appearance, has apparently changed but little since the 

 "Judge's" prospective guest alighted there. But the 

 passing of the open range and the advent of sheep have 

 exerted as marked an influence on the life of the place as is 

 implied in the difference between cow-punching and sheep- 

 herding, and Medicine Bow would no longer appeal to the 

 most imaginary romancer. 



The ranchman who knew the location of the Eagle 's nest, 

 and whose services as guide I hoped to secure, was reports 1 

 to be seventy miles away; but when my proposition to ri le 

 out and find him was met by a suggestion to telephone, I 

 was impressed with the space annihilating properties of this 

 invention as never before, and pardoned the wire-bearing 

 poles for disfiguring the sage-brush. 



Within half an hour I learned that my man was absent 



