PROTECT THE GAME IN YELLOWSTONE PARK. 



L. R. FREEMAN. 



Congress appropriated last year $118,000 

 to be expended in Yellowstone Park. Of 

 this sum $113,000 was used in building 

 new and improving old roads, leaving a 

 paltry $5,000 for the protection of the 

 game ; and so for another year the badly 

 needed outlying patrol stations will not be 

 built. The project to purchase new stock 

 to infuse fresh blood into the badly inbred 

 and rapidly dwindling herd of bison must 

 be given up, together with other plans, 



PROSPECTING. 



which, if successfully carried out, would 

 have led to the fuller protection and the 

 betterment of the condition of the animals 

 in this, the world's greatest game preserve. 

 Even the much needed 4 miles of fence 

 across the Gardiner canyon, on the North- 

 ern boundary, will not be built. This leaves 

 the antelope, the only game in the Park 

 that is not known to be increasing, except 

 the buffalo and possibly the mountain sheep, 

 open to the indiscriminate slaughter that 

 awaits it the moment it steps over the line, 

 and only too often, before. These beauti- 

 ful animals, particularly in winter, dis- 

 play a decided tendency to stray down to 

 the lower levels of the valley of the Yel- 

 lowstone, and as they wander in the night 

 it requires the greatest vigilance on the 

 part of scout and soldier to drive them 

 back in time to save them from the watch- 

 ful inhabitants of the valley. During the 

 last winter they often appeared mornings, 

 browsing along the streets of the little town 

 of Gardiner, just beyond frhe limits of the 

 Park, tame as sheep. But for the prompt 

 and energetic action of Captain Goode, the 

 commanding officer at Fort Yellowstone, in 

 organizing there a citizens' protective club, 



pledged to assist in the preservation of the 

 game, it is almost certain the antelope 

 would have been exterminated. 



A number of elk were also killed last 

 winter at Jardin, a small mining camp on 

 Bear Gulch, just outside the line. The 

 town is a hotbed of poachers, and it is not 

 uncommon to hear a man boast of the 

 game he has killed under the very noses 

 of the scouts. Only a few days ago a 

 Livingston pawnbroker showed me a beau- 

 tifully colored and perfectly matched pair 

 of elk's tusks. ''From an 8-pointer," he 

 said. "Having the horns cleaned and var- 

 nished over the way now. Bear Gulch 

 miner shot him in the Park. Sold me the 

 whole lot for $13.50. Tusks alone will 

 bring $25, and the horns, unmounted as 

 they are, as much more." 



"But is there not a big risk in killing 

 over the line?" I asked. "The penalties are 

 severe." 



"No chance of getting caught," he re- 

 plied. "Only 2 scouts in the whole Park, 

 and they don't get over that way more'n 

 once a year. An' there's no peachin' 

 among the boys," he added, with a smile of 

 pride at the high honor standard of his 

 customers. 



The fellow pointed to the weakest link 



A SNIFF OF GOOD GRUB. 



when he mentioned the insufficiency of the 

 scouts. This shows another lamentable 

 result of the pitifully small appropriation. 

 The number of scouts for another year 

 must be limited to 2, where there should be 

 at least 10. Two men to patrol a mountain 



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