43 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 21, 1894. 
view of the rapids on the Madison with snow, masses and 
clouds of hot steam opposed to each other in the middle 
distance, which is one of the most prized landscapes in 
the series that I made. 
Summer In Winter. 
At the lower end of the Upper Geyser Valley we quit 
the direct course and went wandering on foot among 
wildernesses of geysers, hot springs, steam vents and hot 
streams of water. The hot rivulets cut long labyrinths 
of channels throiigh the deep snow, and among these we 
wandered for a long time, seeing so many wonderful 
things they fairly ceased to impress us. H re also we got 
some pictures. I was just busy making a shot at a tiny 
hot pool, the formation of whose edges interested me, 
when Billy a.nd Larsen called me to come and see a por- 
cupine which had just come down to tho river's edge. I 
did not get a picture of the porcupine, but I got a very 
good one of the pool, sans color. If only we could pho- 
tograph. in colors, as presently we shall. 
We found a tiny stream of water, ten feet down be- 
tween banks of snow, and in the water, green in the 
midst of all the whiteness, flourished a bank of tender 
water plants. It is an odd land, this Park country, with 
its summer in winter. There is no other like it on the 
earth, and it should be kept forever as it is. 
A Snow-Shoeing- Accident. 
There is no habitation at the Upper Basin except the 
lunch station of the Park Association, a small building 
which is closed at the end of the season. We intended to 
pass the night here, and had brought along enough pro- 
visions to last us for that time. It was a little after noon 
when we got to this silent and as we supposed deserted 
building. Larsen was in advance, and as he opened the 
door he heard voices within. Knowing that no keeper 
was ever left here, and not knowing of any other party 
being so far up in the Park, he naturally suspected 
poachers, and went on in with a heart full of hope and a 
handful of revolver, expecting to make an important 
arrest. We found the occupants of the little building to 
be Sergt. Van Buskirk and two men. Brown and Kuhr, 
the detail of the Shoshone patrol station, the southern- 
most of the military outposts which patrol the Park, and 
one located beyond some of the wildest and roughest 
country, that near the Teton range. These men were on 
their way to the Post, but they looked in bad shape to 
finish the journey. They had just gotten in to the' build- 
ing, and it appeared doubtful whether they would ever 
all get out. They were all more or less snow-blind, and 
Brown had an ankle so badly sprained that he was really 
a pitiful object. His foot and leg were horribly swollen, 
and he was suffering acute pain. The others were in 
hotter shape, but none too good, for they had all had a 
sad time of it. They were out there three days from 
Shoshone station, and had spent two nights without 
blankets, huddling over afire. Brown had sprained bis 
ankle in a bad fall in running a hill, and the little party 
had really been in serious trouble. The others kept with 
Brown till the provisions ran out, and then at the last 
camp, eight or ten miles back, it became necessary for 
one or both to go ahead and leave Brown, on the trail till 
food could be brought back to him. Brown did not like 
the idea of being left, and so summoned up courage 
enough to make the last stage of the journey in. As there 
was no possibility of his receiving care at the place where 
he now was, he had to face the thought of a still further 
journey on the following day, to the Firehole station, 
nine miles more of absolute misery. 
Public Ignorance of the Park Supervision. 
Such are some of the incidents of the winter patrol of 
the Park. It is easy to sit a home and say how it 
ought to be done. The actual fact is that it is wonder- 
fully well done, with a commanding officer whose equal 
for the task could perhaps not be found, and by men 
whose courage and fortitude could not be duplicated if 
asked of any other class. No one knows of this. No one 
knows anything about the Army. No one knows how 
the Park is watched either in summer or in winter, at 
what cost of privation, of hardship, of simple courage,' at 
what expenditure of care, of vigilance, of energy and 
thoughtfulness. It is easy to sit at home and criticise 
this, but I hope that if any such self-appointed critic may 
happen to read something of this, he will in simple justice 
to himself take counsel of his ignorance hereafter and 
criticise no more that of which he knows so little. I have 
seen nowhere except in Forest and Stream any fair 
statement of the facts, and I do not for a moment pretend 
to be able to set forth the facts in such way as will show 
the difficulties of the service asked. Perhaps the story of 
Burgess, of Brown, of poor Matthews, may give some idea 
of what one winter may bring of misfortunes to the men 
in the humbler ranks of the service — misfortunes felt 
keenly enough by those higher in authority. For Brown, 
it will serve to say that he managed to make the journey 
to the Firehole Station the next <^ay, and that ended the 
trip for him. He never got any further all the winter, 
«nd was forced to wait until the snow was gone before 
he could travel the remaining forty miles to the Post. At 
the Fountain Van Buskirk got the mail for his detail. 
They had not had any letters since October and it now 
was March. 
Could Wax their Skis. 
We now numbered six men at the Upper Basin, but we 
managed to get along very comfortably, finding an ex- 
cellent place to cook coffee and wax skis on the big range 
in the abandoned kitchen. The fire we built in the front 
rooms started a number of leaks in the roof, which was 
badly strained by the great mass of snow resting on it. 
It is not within the actual province of these articles' to 
attempt description of the scenic wonders of the Park 
for space alone would forbid it, but none the less Billy 
and I enjoyed thoroughly our unique privilege of seeing 
the greatest geyser basin of the world in the depth of 
winter. Thousands have stopped where we did and nave 
seen Old Faithful, the Lion and Lioness, the Giant and 
Giantess, the Castle, the Bee Hive, the dozens of others of 
notable geysers of this great group. Of all these the 
world already knows or should know, and all who have 
not seen them should do. so. I am a bit ashamed of 
Americans' who go to Europe before they go to the Yel- 
lowstone Park. Singularly enough , in Europe th e Park 
has a more distinguished reputation than it has here, and 
a very large per cent, of the travelers who visit it are 
foreigners. 
Obliging Geysers. 
When the geysers knew the Forest and Stream party 
was in the valley they all put on their Sunday clothes and 
did their best to entertain us. Old Faithful, the Giantess, 
the Lioness, the Castle, and a lot of lesser lights, played 
long and well for our inspection and we gave them gener- 
ous applause. The camera came into use once more, and 
we spent the afternoon very busily. 
The "Forest and Stream" Luck Held. 
On the following morning we were all astir early, as 
we knew the shoeing would be better early in the day. 
Van Buskirk's party led ours by some hours. . Billy went 
next, as he was anxious to get photographs of some Clark's 
crows, for which he had put out bait on a shed at the 
Fountain Hotel. I kept Larsen and stayed behind, hoping 
for a clear morning by which to get better opportunity to 
make pictures of the Geyser Valley. The Forest and 
Stream luck held , and I was more than rewarded for the 
wait. I saw the Geyser Valley at sunrise of the clear 
winter morning. Ah! but that was a glorious sight, a 
strange and glorious sight! Never in my life can I hope 
to see the like again, for I will hardly take, the winter trip 
again. What good fortune, then, that I am able to show 
my friends a portion at least of this rare spectacle. The 
Forest and Stream luck held, and the best photographs I 
made in the Park I made right here. Remembering the 
expert advice quoted earlier, I went down to the lower 
end of the valley, so that when 1 looked back over the 
view I was facing the sun, which was just rising above 
the wooded mountain rim. The air was radiantly clear, 
and the snow was sparkling and dazzling in contrast to 
the somber blaok of the surrounding pines. All over the 
valley rose columns and sheets and veils of white steam, 
sharp and distinct in the brilliant light which shone 
through them from the east. 1 made my pictures with 
the camera turned squarely toward the sun, and I caught 
geyser after geyser, as sharp and keen as though they had 
been frozen, to say nothing of many beautiful cloud 
effects. I even got one picture which shows geysers in 
action and also shows the full disk of the sun, clean cut 
and round, on the unfogged plate. This singular photo- 
graph seems to me one of the most valuable of the lot, 
and I look on it as quite a triumph for the Eastman film, 
a roll of which I was using out of Billy's Smithsonian 
Institution supplies, having discarded the less successful 
film made by another firm. This free, unsolicited praise 
I can easily give as I look over the results of that fortunate 
morning's work. 
After I had concluded my picture-making, Larsen and 
I pulled out for the Fountain. We overtook Van Bus- 
kirk's party still two or three miles out. Larsen went in 
with them, while I left the trail and went out alone to 
secure photographs of the Peat Fountain and Black War- 
rior Geyser, which two solitaries are at some distance 
from the main. 
It Looked Like Night Traveling:. 
We were having a delightful time at the geyser basins, 
and I could have enjoyed a month of study there, but we 
had to shorten our stay and prepare for the completion of 
our journey. We lightened our packs here still further, 
discarding every article not positively necessary. Our 
needful laundry work we did at one of the hot springs 
just at the foot of the hill. It was a beautiful wash tub, 
about 15ft. across, but the water was too hot to bear one's 
hands in. While we washed one handkerchief in this 
boiling fluid, its predecessor in the process would be 
frozen stiff on the snow near by. 
On account of the bad shoeing we had been having, we 
determined to travel at night, making our start for the 
journey not later than 1 o'clock in the morning. It is 
rather odd, snowshoeing at night in the mountains, and 
about this I will try to tell something in the following 
article. E. Hough. 
909 Security Building, Chicago. 
SIZE OF THE BEAR. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have read in numerous periodicals of bear hunts 
where the size of the bear, especially of the grizzly, was 
greatly exaggerated; also the ferociousness of bruin. 
Whenever the hunters run on the bear it is just eager for 
a fight, and they have to shoot him in the head and heart 
a dozen times or so before he dies. 
Any animal will fight when cornered. Just so with 
the bear. But give him an opportunity to get away and 
he takes it. That is one great trouble in hunting bear — 
they are too anxious to get away; but if wounded, or 
sometimes if you run-on one when it is sleeping, you are 
liable to get yourself into a scufhe, 
I [have hunted and trapped for years in the Rocky 
Mountains and Coast Ranges, the home of the grizzly, 
just for the money that I made by it, and in all my ex- 
perience I have never killed nor even seen a bear that I 
thought would weigh half as much as some I have read 
about, and I have never known any one who ever saw a 
bear weighed that tipped the scales at l,5001bs. 
Nine out of every ten bears that are reported as weigh- 
ing all the way from l,0001bs. up to 2,3001bs., were killed 
many miles from a pair of scales. 
A naturalist may take a bone and tell what kind of an 
animal it was and tell about how large it was and what 
it weighs nearer than many people suppose; now not 
every hunter is a naturalist; but when they kill a bear 
they will say it weighs just so much, and it generally gets 
full weight if ever so small a bear. 
The largest bear I ever killed, or rather helped to kill, was 
when my partner and I were hunting and trapping on 
the Yak River, in northwestern Montana, in the winter 
of 1889. We had had very good luck with beaver, mar- 
ten and lynx and other land fur. Along toward spring 
we took a pack of grub and blankets on our backs, and 
went up a creek that empties in the Yak. We intended 
to hunt in that locality for bear; and as we always take 
the easiest way to hunt, we kill an elk, deer, or any kind' 
of game we run across for bait, then wait for the bear to 
come. We had lots of bait up that creek, and killed some 
more on another creek. Then our grub was about out, 
and we had to go back and pack up enough to last us 
through the hunting, When we got through, packing 
our grub, we began to see where there had been a beat' 
taking the bait. A warm Chinook Wind at that time did 
the work, for we were killing one now alld then) we had 
traps and guns set for beat, also two good dogs apiece, bo 
we were kept hustling taking care of the hides. I had 
not been up to the furthest bait for several days; when I 
had time to go, D. said that he would keep my company, 
as he wanted to raise a cache of traps he had made in the 
fall when trapping for beaver. We had got almost up to 
the bait when I saw a bear track; it was a whale. I told 
D. that most likely the old boy was handy around the 
bait, for the tracks were fresh. When we came in sight 
of the bait, the bear had either heard or smelt us, for we 
Baw that he had been eating on the bait. We put the 
dogs on the track and followed aftef them as fast as we 
could travel, over Wind-falls and through underbrush, 
with snowshoes. We have snowshoeing way into the 
spring in the mountains. We had not gone more than 
half a mile, when I heard one of the dogs howl. Then I 
knew that the bear was our meat. We went down to 
where the dogs were, and there was a bear that was the 
grandpa of all the bear either of us had ever seen. It was 
a bald-face grizzly. He was fighting the dogs. He would 
run after one, when one of the others Would bite him on 
hia heels. Is was laughable to see him. He did not 
know what kind of a jack-pot he was im Finally he 
thought it was getting too warm for his rear end, so he 
Bat Up on his haunches. That was the opportunity we 
were waiting for. We both "turned loose" with our 
.40-90 Sharps, and the bear tumbled all in a heap. We 
skinned him and found where one of the bullets had 
broken his neck, and the other his shoulder. 
I had never seen such an animal before for sisse. I 
asked D. what it would Weigh. That was the first beat 1 
ever wanted to Weigh. D, said he had no idea, but vVe 
could try and pull him; we could just move him; he was 
lying on snow that w T as pretty solid. We had a stick 
through his gambrels, so we had a good pull at him. Both 
of us were over 6ft. tall and weighed over aOOIbs., so we 
were not very weak. We talked about the weight of the 
bear, and we thought he would probably weigh 8001bs. 
His hide when stretched measured 10ft. 3in. from tip of 
nose to the tail, and was 8ft. 9in. wide. When we went 
down in the spring we showed the hide around, aud old 
hunters said that it was the largest bear hide they had 
ever seen. 
We killed 16 bears that spring) but ndne of then! was 
as latgB, by One-third, as the big one. I do not believe 
that the big" one would weigh at the very most 9001bs. , 
and he was very fat. I think he had not been out very 
long, as it was in April when he was killed. 
Now, my notion is that all these bears that weigh from 
l,5001bs. up have been killed around a camp-fire. I would 
like to hear from any one who ever saw a bear weighed 
that tipped the scales at l.SOOlbsi 
A person who had nevei- seeii a bear runniiig wild wdtild 
say oh seeing his first that it was the biggest thing ever 
wrapped up in hide. The first bear I ever saw looked as 
big as a mountain, but after I had killed him he shrunk 
down to a small black one. I could pack him all around, 
he was so small. A. 
The Chance of a Lifetime. 
Ktneo, Me., July 7.— Editor Forest and Stream: I 
have just returned from the headwaters of the Penobscot, 
where I fished for foUr seasons. I do not intend to tell 
any fish stories; but simply to Call attentions to what 1 
have concluded from personal observation is a monu- 
mental blunder on the part of illustrators and especially 
of taxidermists in the position given to the head of the 
moose. Last year and this year I saw seven moose stand- 
ing quietly in the open and I took especial pains in each 
instance to note the position of the head. Instead of 
thrusting it forward as is invariably shown, neither of 
these moose held its head in any such position. Five of 
the seven were bulls, one of these a patriarch. All of their 
heads Were erect, not so erect as a deer's, but far from the 
horizontal position usually shown. After the rudose gets 
in motion he does thrust his head forward in the manner 
and attitude shown; but he does not do so when standing. 
The same may be said of the caribou. It is manifestly 
absurd to mount the head of any animal in any other 
position than that of rest, and taxidermists would do well 
to take due notice of the fact and govern themselves ac- 
cordingly. 
Last year while fishing at the outlet of a Considerable 
stream where it emptied into a lake, my guide discovered 
a large moose browsing at the head of the lake a mile 
away. Rapidly reeling in my line, We started for the 
spot for a nearer view of his majesty. The wind was in 
our favor, the sun behind us, and the moose did not see 
us untd we were about 100ft. from him. He squared 
around toward us standing out a few feet in the shallow 
water, with not even a bush beside or even in front of 
him. The impetus previously given carried the canoe 
slowly toward him until we were not more than 20ft. dis- 
tant. I was in the bow of the canoe and if I had not 
known that there was really no danger of an attack on 
his part the situation would have been unpleasant, as we 
had nothing but a paddle and a 5oz, bamboo rod for pro- 
tection. His eyes (for it was a fine bull moose with horns 
about half grown), fairly glittered; and he raised the hair 
on his back precisely as a dog does when about to charge 
a foe. My camera was in camp about 8 miles away 
owing to the. fact that four of those miles were over a 
rather hard carry and we had no unnecessary impedi- 
menta that day. Well, finally the moose concluded he 
had seen enough of us if we hadn't of him, and so he 
slowly lifted one hind leg and the other legs in succession, 
backing a few feet, then slowly turned toward the shore 
on one side, walked a few steps, trotted at an increasing 
rate and soon his ponderous body was crashing through 
a prostrate Ireetop like a locomotive. During all this 
time before he began to move he held bis head in a grace- 
ful attitude. He was plump and his new coat shone as if 
he had been carefully groomed. Vindex. 
An Albino Martin. 
Noticing a statement in one of our papers that a while 
mprtin was nesting in the yard belonging to Louis Molter, 
baker, on Third avenue, Huntington, W. Va., I went 
around to ascertain the fact. I did not see the bird, but 
the lady in charge of the store said that the bird was a 
real martin and perfectly white. I could have seen it if I 
had had patience or time to wait for its appearance, I 
know myself of a half albino robin that stayed around 
my brother's house in Highland, N. Y. N. D. EiiTiNG, 
