408 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Through The Yellowstone In The Saddle 
A Story of a Delightful Excursion In Good Company Amid The Magnificence of Natural Scenic Wonders 
By Palmer H. Langdon 
J I 
j 
OVERS of Nature who do not 
believe in rushing through one 
of Nature’s 'Wonderlands will 
find a jaunt in the saddle the 
ideal means of traveling through 
Yellowstone National Park. 
With a horseback trip there is 
no rush and the tourist really 
gets a taste of life on the plains. Only a taste, 
to be sure, but with the ordinary means of trans¬ 
portation the traveler scarcely has a sight of the 
romantic side of the prairies. 
However, before a city man undertakes a long 
journey astride a western cow pony, it is best 
for him to undergo a short spell of hardening, 
which he can readily do by visiting some of the 
ranches in the vicinity of the Park. It was the 
writer’s good fortune to spend this preliminary 
training period at the Aldrich Hard Pan Ranch, 
situated on the South fork of the Shoshone 
River, 35 miles southwest of Cody, Wyoming. 
On this real ranch there are rancheros, cow¬ 
boys and cow ponies aplenty, and amid such sur¬ 
roundings and in such company a “dude” from 
the East is quickly saturated with the atmos¬ 
phere of cactus and sage brush, and in short 
order becomes a horseman of the West. That 
is, he quickly casts off all “Eastern form” and 
rides in the free and easy Western style suitable 
for a horseback journey. He- leaves with regret, 
however, the hospitable ranch and the beautiful 
Shoshone Valley with its celebrated mountain of 
the White Horse and its endless and fascinating 
bridle trails that lead in every direction up to 
and on to the mountain sides. 
The starting point of the Park saddle trips is 
generally Cody, the town which is to hand down 
to posterity the given name of “Buffalo Bill,” 
the celebrated scout. At Cody there are a num¬ 
ber of outfitters who are ready to take an east¬ 
ern man’s money in exchange for giving him a 
western man’s outing. 
The equipment for our party was supplied by 
Nova E. Brown, a well-known plainsman and 
guide, who had also been in charge of touring 
parties in Africa and India. The outfit end 
consisted of two great lumbering wagons, one 
of which contained all of the sleeping dunnage 
and the other the eating luggage. To conduct 
the party of seven Easterners headed by Julian 
S. Bryan, who despite the business depression 
had corralled five young men, there were three 
able-bodied plainsmen, in the persons of Walter 
Hope, the guide; Ted Boughton, the horse wran¬ 
gler, and John Seibert, the cook. To drag and 
carry this small field party required four draft 
and ten saddle horses. The owner of the entire 
outfit, Mr. Brown, was also a ranchman and had 
taken considerable pains to provide suitable 
mounts for the weight and temperament of each 
rider of the party—a thoughtful consideration. 
On the evening of Fourth of July, 1914, every¬ 
thing was in readiness for the start, the part} 
having spent the day in watching the National 
holiday celebration at Cody, where cowboys and 
cowgirls gave an exhibition of horse racing and 
rough riding, which is a part of the life of a 
real Western town. As the day was lost for 
traveling the wagons and horses were sent out 
thirty miles on the Cody road leading to the 
park, to a camp site called Hanging Rock, where 
the Easterners sped at dusk via automobiles to 
spend their first night in camp. 
The party woke up next morning to find them¬ 
selves on the bank of the raging Shoshone 
(North Fork) with natural castles and minarets 
embellishing the hillsides, for Nature has certain¬ 
ly carved out memorable landscapes in these 
Wyoming valleys. After a dip in the edge of 
the stream, then bacon and coffee, the signal of 
“Boots and Saddles” sounded in earnest, for 
Nova Brown and his chief aide, Walter Hope, 
were there to turn over the right horse to the 
right man. When this necessary ordeal was 
over with, the small troop of seven, in charge of 
Guide Hope, set out for the Yellowstone with, 
their camp belongings carted ahead in the two 
wagons driven by the horse wrangler and cook. 
To see “Hopie” the guide ride and to hear him 
talk was like a breath of bracing air from the 
breezy West and he soon proved to be a man 
of consideration by breaking in gradually his 
party to horseback traveling, taking easy stages of 
twelve or thirteen miles the first few days until 
his tenderfoot followers were ready for more. 
In three days of gentle jogging on the Cody road 
amid the grand scenery of this rugged canyon 
country, the party had ridden over the 8,ooo-foot 
Sylvan Pass and down into Uncle Sam’s Won¬ 
derland—the Yellowstone National Park. 
The practice every night as we reached the 
selected camp site was to turn the horses loose 
to find their own living. They pastured all night 
by themselves until disturbed by the horse 
wrangler in the morning. A pleasant sound of 
the early daylight was to hear the jingling of the 
neck bells of the leaders as the herd was driven 
into the camp corral—simply a ring of rope 
around some nearby trees. And then a most in¬ 
teresting sight was to see the guide and his aides 
catch a pony and bridle and saddle him. 
But the plainsmen were spared this particular 
labor this morning (July 8th) for they reported 
that either elk or mosquitoes had stampeded the 
herd and before we could proceed the horses 
would have to be caught, which meant an all-day 
hunt up among the wooded hills where the run¬ 
aways were supposed to have gone. The best 
riders went after them while the others had a 
chance to rest and reflect on the vagaries of 
camp life. At nightfall in came the horsemen 
with all of the herd except one, and as we had 
Ready for the Morning’s Start. 
