J urn 9, 1894.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



487 



tains and the snows. In fact, even so early, one could 

 see that in this enchanted land summer and winter go 

 hand in hand the year round. The ice and snow are in 

 spots parted by warm streams or broken up by large 

 areas of warm ground. Nowhere in the great snow 

 country can game winter as it can here, and for this 

 reason the wonderful region should be forever preserved. 

 Thus presently we came to the "Boiling River," pouring 

 its hot flood out of the rocks into the Gardiner River, 

 and near here we saw still more of the waterfowl and 

 birds which winter in this part of the Park. If our 

 cameras had been ready we could have photographed 

 wild mallards. 



The driver had that morning seen three mountain sheep 

 (bighorns) on the rocks near the Eagle's Nest, the big ledge 

 overhanging the road which will be remembered by all 

 Park tourists, and we hoped that we should be fortunate 

 enough to get sight of them, but it seems that they had 

 taken fright at a dog which accompanied one of the teams. 

 They are very often seen near the road, and are very fear- 

 less and tame. This is within three miles of the Park 

 linp, I believe. So much for summer-in-winter, and for 

 protection of the game. The game knows the country 

 and it takes it but a very short time to learn of the pro- 

 tection. There is no known place on earth now, outside 

 of the Park, where one may approach within 30yds. of 

 wild bighorns without their taking fright on seeing one. 



The Vestibule of Wonderland. 



A bruising pull through the deep snow of the last hill, 

 and we came out on the parade ground of the Post, the 

 little flat valley nature has arranged as the vestibule for 

 her house of wonders. The big Mammoth Hot Springs 

 hotel, untenanted except by Manager Deane and his wife, 

 stood opposite, and at the right were the "new quarters" 

 of the Post. Beyond , Liberty Cap and the Minerva Ter- 

 race, the latter steaming in the cold air that circled every 

 wondrous cauldron. Around,the mountains shouldered in 

 closely, all white and shivery looking. Still beyond, 

 valley and caiion and crag crowded together, unwilling to 

 give entrance even to an eye, and apparently grudging 

 even the scantiest knowledge of the treasures they had in 

 keeping from the hand that made it all. Mount Everts's 

 gray unshapely front, the hills back of the Terrace, the 

 canon of the Gardiner winding beyond the Post meadows, 

 the peaks that flank the upper flats and edge the Golden 

 Gate, all these many have seen brown and gray and black 

 and green in the summer, but who has seen them white 

 and solemn in the depth of the mountain winter time? 

 Only a few. This and the sights beyond — the winter 

 landscape of this wild tremendous region — the panorama 

 of the Wonderland when wrapped in its robes of snow — to 

 see that, to intrude upon the brooding mountains when 

 they rest and plan their mysteries — where is a greater 

 privilege accorded any traveler? It is the journey of a 

 lifetime. What wonder that one thrilled even at the 

 anticipation! 



And now Capt. Anderson, commanding officer of the 

 Post and superintendent of the Park, met us as we topped 

 the hill where the "old quarters" lie, hauled us forth from 

 the ambulance and took possession of the Forest and 

 Stream man forthwith as being a suspicious character. 

 As I had supposed the programme was to sleep out in the 

 snow every night after crossing the Park line, I was able 

 to stand this for a few days. The Captain's cook is noto- 

 riously the best in the Army. As for the Captain himself, 

 you would better get acquainted with him yourself. 



At Capt. Anderson's pleasant quarters I remained from 

 Saturday, March 10, till Wednesday, March 14, preparing 

 for the trip into the mountains, and learning about the 

 Park, its game, its system of patrol, the pleasant and the 

 harassing nature of some of t* e duties conected with its 

 supervision. I could learn something of this, something of 

 the difficulties of the work, something of the inadequacies 

 of the equipment to the task, but never until I was actu- 

 ally into the wilderness and had seen the terrors of that 

 winter reign, could I realize the magnitude of the task 

 asked at the hands of this handful of devoted and hard- 

 working troopers. Under the old regime this was a task 

 almost too hard and too thankless to ask of any men; yet 

 from officer to private I can say I never heard a murmur 

 of complaint, and among privates as well as officers there 

 seemed to exist a singular enthusiasm for the arduous and 

 sometimes almost unmilitary labors asked of them in their 

 duty of protecting the Park. Now, thank Providence, 

 there ^is a better law, and the "snowshoe cavalry," as 

 some of the ski-running troopers call themselves, will not 

 have only their labor for their pains. 



The Yellowstone is a two-company post, and is proba- 

 bly one of the busiest of the mountain posts in the winter. 

 Id has an unusually large, number of good snowshoers in 

 irs force, due to the scouting trips of earlier years and the 

 ski practice which officers encourage as so useful in this 

 mountain work. Even the children wear skis at Ft. Yel- 

 lowstone, and it is no rare sight to see four or five little 

 pairs of skis on the front stoop of a house. Most of the 

 utficers know a bit about ski running, and at the time I 

 iirrivedat the Post two of them, Capt. Scott and Lieut. 

 Forsy the, were absent with the Haynes photographic ex- 

 pedition, of which I shall write later. 



Photographing Antelope. 

 Capt. Anderson has a most pleasant family of young 

 olfictrs with him — besides those above named, Pert 

 Surgeon Gandy, and Lieutenants Daniels, Nance and 

 Lindsky. The terms army officer and sportsman are 

 synonymous, and in the case of Dr. Gandy we found that 

 a, love for amateur photography was also included. The 

 result of this was that Dr. Gandy, Billy Hofer and I went 

 out on a photographic still-hunt for antelope on the 

 Gardiner Flats the first clear day we got. We found the 

 antelope abundantly enough and obligingly tame, but 

 the wind was so high we had trouble to get good pictures. 

 Dr. Gandy often set up his tripod deliberately within good 

 range of the beautiful creatures, and took shot after shot 

 while I lay on the ground and tried to hold steady the 

 vibrating legs of the machine, but we got only one 

 picture of any value. Billy had a long range special out- 

 fit, and had some beautiful shots at antelope standing, 

 marching, trotting and running, but the Smithsonian 

 Institution, to whom he sent the negatives for develop- 

 ment, has calmly absorbed them and made no sign so far 

 as I know. 



We saw, probably, the entire band of the Park herd of 

 antelope, about 400. Often they crossed in little bunches 

 not 75yds. in front of us, and we had a unique and valu- 

 able opportunity of studying them. There was one old 



leader, "a buck, which! was ^a distinct^trotterfandfrarely 

 broke his long-reaching trotting stride, although the 

 entire band behind him were on the run. I will back this 

 trotting antelope against any other trotting antelope on 

 earth, and it's a "moral" for the Gardiner Flats beast. "25 

 This was the beginning of the spectacle^of the great 

 game in the Park, a fraction of what we were to see. 

 Every day we heard of the sheep down by Eagle Nest, 

 and every day that I was at the Post, without excep- 

 tion, we saw a band of elk on the high bare ridge back 

 of Minerva Terrace. These Capt. Anderson calls his 

 "pets," and daily he watches them from his window as 

 he sits and reads. Often they come lower down, and 

 once he saw forty elk just back of Lieut. Lindsley's quar- 

 ters. Sometime, too, a herd of blacktail deer will come 

 down the hill almost into the Post limits. The Post is 

 located at a comparatively low altitude, and the snow 

 does not lie so deep there as in the upper Park. Once 

 we had a Chinook, and under the breath of that mys- 

 terious wind the snow settled and fled in the most sur- 

 prising manner. This was in early March. We had 

 purposely postponed our trip till March, as by that time 

 the snow has become less fluffy and more solid, there- 

 fore better for snowshoeing. Let no one suppose that 

 March means spring in the Park. The snow envelops 

 everything there till June. While we lay at the Post 

 it snowed almost every day. A drift 12ft. high lay 

 along the walk in front of the officers' quarters. Around 

 the great springs of the Minerva Terrace the white gar- 

 ment of winter was apparently 6 to 10ft. high, and in 

 drifts we could only guess how deep. 



Warnings. 



Of course it is hard for the summer tourist to. realize 

 the difference between the Park in summer and the Park 

 in winter. In the summer one rides through the Park in 

 comparative ease. In the winter one cannot even walk. 

 No friendly pack horse can lighten one's load, and if he 

 is tired he cannot swing into the saddle or loll upon a 

 wagon seat. Every inch of the way must be traveled on 

 the snowshoes, and when a man's own muscles cease to 

 work he ceases to advance. There is no way of lighten- 

 ing or eva i ing the labor, and emphatically it is every 

 man for himself. These things were pointed out to me 

 by friends. Before I left Chicago one friend almost be- 

 sought me never to go into the Park in the winter, as he 

 had once been caught by a snowstorm there and hardly 

 got out alive. As I approached the Park these warnings 

 became more frequent and more ominous. At Living- 

 ston guides and old-timers shook their heads, and civil 

 engineers advised me not to go in. At Gardiner, as I 

 learned later, bets were freely offered that our party 

 would get no further in than the Swan Lake flats, be- 

 yond the Golden Gate. Even at the Post there were not 

 wanting those who said quietly, "I do not envy you the 

 trip." Her,e, then, one was placed against the first edge 

 of the enterprise, and began to realize something of the 

 quality of the work ahead. 



The Outfit. 



Billy and I had brought in both the, Canadian web shoes 

 and the Norwegian skis, also a toboggan. We thought at 

 first of using the web shoes and pulling the toboggan, but 

 Billy later decided very wisely that it was better to stick 

 to the skis, almost universally used in the Rockies, and to 

 leave the toboggan behind, carrying everything on our 

 backs in packs. The wisdom of this arrangement was 

 most obvious later on. The Haynes photographing party 

 started with a toboggan, but-abandoned it at the Canon. 

 They learned that it took the whole party to get the flat- 

 bottomed thing along. It is next to impossible to pull 

 any weight behind the ski, and if one wears webs, and so 

 gets traction power, he can not take the long runs down 

 hill by which so much of the time is made in ski running 

 All the mountain men seem to unite in condemning the 

 web or Indian shoe for this mountain work. They say the 

 ski is far easier and faster. 



For clothing, Billy's advice was followed implicitly. 

 We wore heavy wool underwear, wool trousers, canvas 

 overalls and canvas leggings. The underwear was sup- 

 plemented by a lighter wool undershirt, over which a 

 slue flannel shirt was worn. A canvas vest came on top 

 of that, but no coat or overcoat was worn. Of course the 

 latter would have been an impossibility, and the coat was 

 replaced by a light canvas "jumper." 



"You've got to have canvas to break off the wind," said 

 Billy, "and to shed the snow, and you've got to have 

 plenty of wool underneath to keep you warm, You'll 

 find that you won't want much on while you're traveling, 

 but when you stop you get cold mighty quick." 



This I found to be true. Indeed, I discarded my fine 

 heavy wool overshirt, made like a fireman's shirt, on 

 which I had rather prided myself. I found it too warm 

 to wear while shoeing, even in the coldest weather. 

 When I came out from the trip, indeed, I was wearing 

 only one suit of underwear and a light cotton drilling 

 shirt, under my canvas waistcoat and jumper. While on 

 the trail, even these upper garments would be worn open, 

 though often the thermometer was below zero. In shoe- 

 ing over the mountains one uses every muscle of his body 

 at such intense pitch that he gets all in a glow of heat. 

 To avoid the chilling out when we stopped, I carried in 

 my pocket my elegant fireman's shirt and a heavy sweater, 

 which I slipped on at once when we paused even for a 

 little while. 



By Billy's wise advice, we wore wide felt hats of the 

 Western type. These were better than caps, as they kept 

 the snow from getting down the neck. In extremely 

 cold weather we tied up the ears with a large silk hand- 

 kerchief. 



Of course we wore belts, for a belt is warm as a coat. 

 We carried no weapons except a straight-bladed butcher 

 knife apiece, for we were not hunting and needed to trim 

 down every ounce possible in order to succeed in our mis- 

 sion. On our hands we wore soft castor gloves, unless the 

 weather was very sharp, when we slipped on over the 

 gloves heavy calf mittens, fleece lined. In travel, the 

 gloves, mittens and handkerchief, with maybe a strip of 

 burlaps for strings, would be often tucked into the helt 

 when not in use elsewhere, and Billy always wore his tin 

 cup at his belt. When Billy got into full regalia, big 

 camera and all, he made a wild sight, and I often teased 

 him to stop and let me photograph him, though he 

 always objected, and I fairly had to do that by stealth. 



The Importance of Feet. 

 The feet are the main thing to be cared for in snow- 



shoeing, for they are ground deep in the snow all day 

 long, and in a climate where the thermometer sometimes 

 drops to 45° below zero it is not hard to freeze the feet. 

 The snowshoer keeps his feet carefully clean, washing 

 them in cold water sometimes. He may wear wool socks, 

 common broad shoes, and overshoes, surmounting the 

 whole with canvas leggins — Billy always preferred the 

 buckled leggins, as easier to handle when full of ice and 

 snow — or he may use the heavy ' 'German sock" (a felted 

 wool sock nearly half an inch thick), which is drawn on 

 over the light sock, and then surmounted by an Arctic 

 overshoes. If the German sock is warm, no leggins are 

 required, the trousers being tucked into the sock, which 

 is drawn tight about the calf of the leg by a string. The 

 sock sheds snow very well, and is soft and easy to the 

 foot. Nearly all the shoers about the Post prefer the sock 

 overshoes. Billy insists that the leggin keeps the foot 

 in better order. It is almost impossible to keep the feet 

 dry anywhere, for the snow water will grind through 

 the best Artie overshoe in a few days. Lieut. Forsythe 

 found that if he wore a light pair of calf shoes inside his 

 German sock he was more comfortable and had better 

 control of his shoes. For myself, I disobeyed Billy's 

 orders, threw away the shoes which had begun to give 

 me a sore heel, and from that time on used the following 

 outfit for my feet, which I found warm and comfortable: 

 First I wore natural wool socks, light, then a pair of 

 Indian moccasins, then a pair of heavy gray army socks, 

 then the Arctic overshoes and leggins, the latter of the 

 army cut, and very good as I found. A sportive dog 

 carried off my buckled leggings at the Post, and lost them 

 in the snow. 



Two pairs of colored glasses were taken along by each 

 man, the bows being carefully wound with silk to pre- 

 vent freezing the face where the steel touched. Without 

 these glasses the glare of the snow would soon render 

 one snow-blind. 



A last item in our equipment was a wide canvas patch 

 cemented on the front of our overshoes, where the toe 

 strap of the ski passed over, used to prevent the chafing 

 of the strap on the shoe, which is quite severe. A pair 

 of Arctic shoes lasts only a few days in active shoeing. 

 We each took along an extra pair. We used heavy, 

 double-buckled, high overshoes, not so heavy as the 

 cavalry shoe, but heavier than the ordinary street over- 

 shoe. 



This was our outfit as to dress, the result of experience 

 and not of theory. I mention it in detail because, though 

 we found it amply comfortable and excellently adapted 

 to the needs of the trip, it seems ridiculously light for 

 work almost Arctic in its nature at times. It should be 

 borne in mind that ours was a walking and not a riding 

 trip. Furs and heavy wools we could not use, because 

 we could not carry them. Schwatka's outfit fell to pieces 

 because it was too heavy. Every ounce was figured on 

 by our party. Yet light as we started we came back 

 lighter yet at the end of the 200 miles, and at the close of 

 our most eventful and most delightful trip. 



What we carried and how we carried it, and how we 

 engaged in combat with the fiery untamed ski in the 

 early stages of the trip, will do to speak about the next 

 time. E. Hough. 



909 Skcttkity Building, Chicago. 



^tn\nl j§istarg. 



BUFFALO MIGRATIONS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



A writer in Forest and Stream some time ago expressed 

 the conviction that the buffalo were not comprised en- 

 tirely or nearly so of one "main herd," but consisted of 

 ' 'several large bands, only one of which could be regarded 

 as the main herd." In support of this theory he goes on 

 to state the probable boundaries of their several ranges, 

 and adds, ' "It is not now supposed that the bison emigrated 

 annually from Manitoba to Mexico, but perhaps the Texas 

 bands ranged as far as the Canadian River, etc., etc." 



It is possible that this may be the generally accepted 

 view at the present day, but this was certainly not the 

 belief entertained by those best qualified by experience to 

 speak with authority upon the subject thirty years ago, 

 before the skin-hunter had entered upon his nefarious 

 career, or a rail had been laid west of the Missouri River. 

 I was in the buffalo country as early as '62, and during the 

 four following years I traversed their ranges from south- 

 ern Texas to the Gallatin River in Montana; and at that 

 date I know that the buffalo could only be found in cer- 

 tain localities at certain seasons. One summer during 

 that period I crossed Texas, its entire breadth from the 

 Gulf to the Staked Plain, and more than half its length 

 from north to south, and never saw nor heard of a buffalo. 

 All the cattlemen and rangers who were constantly hunt- 

 ing cattle and ranging for Indian horse thieves over every 

 portion of the State, declared that they had all gone north. 

 Getting into the Indian Territory in the early fall, we 

 found a few old bulls — never more than three or four in 

 a bunch — unmistakably stragglers like those in the wake 

 of an army. I do not believe there was at that time a 

 single buffalo in the State of Texas that was able to get 

 out of it, and only a few outcasts here and there in the 

 Territory, as we crossed it at a point well supplied with 

 grass and water, and at a distance from all the Indian 

 settlements. 



A brief mention of these facts was made by me in an 

 article you published, headed "A Stampede in a Storm." 



Texas was, geographically speaking, an ideal buffalo 

 country, but the buffalo is decidedly an epicure, and its 

 grasses were to his taste far inferior to those of the north. 

 The great herd crossed the Platte twice annually, going 

 north in the spring and south late in the fall, but it never 

 tarried there; and of the thousands of immigrants which 

 passed along on both sides of the river at that early date 

 bound for Denver, Salt Lake and California, not one- 

 half of them met with a single buffalo. The Republican 

 Fork and the Smoky Hill River were, however, favorite 

 winter ranges and preferred by them to any portion of 

 Texas, for the quality of the grass on those rivers was 

 better than it was either further south as along the Platte. 

 It will perhaps be remembered that while the Indians 

 rtadily made treaties permitting travel by wagons and 

 later by rail up the Platte, they fought both propositions 

 b tterly on the Smoky Hill. 



But the home par excellence of the buffalo, the land 

 where he was at rest and away from which he was never 



