even moose in the
fastnesses, to say nothing of the innumerable smaller beasts. There has
been no hunting of harmless animals in the Yellowstone since 1894, and
this is one result.

It is true that comparatively few visitors see many animals, but that is
the fault of their haste or their temperament or their inexperience of
nature. One must seek in sympathy to find. Tearing over the wilderness
roads in noisy motors smelling of gasolene is not the best way to find
them, although the elk and deer became indifferent to automobiles as
soon as they discovered them harmless. One may see them not infrequently
from automobiles and often from horse-drawn wagons; and one may see them
often and intimately who walks or rides horseback on the trails.

The admission of the automobile to Yellowstone roads changed seeing
conditions materially. In five days of quiet driving in 1914 with
Colonel L.M. Brett, then superintendent of the park, in a direction
opposite to the stages, I saw more animals from my wagon-seat than I had
expected to see wild in all my life. We saw bear half a dozen times, elk
in numbers, black-tailed and white-tailed deer so frequently that count
was lost the second morning, four bands of antelope, buffalo, foxes,
coyotes, and even a bull moose. Once we stopped so as not to hurry a
large bear and two cubs which were leisurely crossing the road. Deer
watched us pass within a hundred yards. Elk grazed at close quarters,
and our one bull moose obligingly ambled ahead of us along the road.
There was never fear, never excitement (except my own), not even haste.
Even the accustomed horses no more than cocked an ear or two while
waiting for three wild bears to get out of the middle of the road.

Of course scenic completeness is enough in itself to justify the
existence of these animals in the marvellous wilderness of the
Yellowstone. Their presence in normal abundance and their calm
at-homeness perfects nature's spectacle. In this respect, also,
Yellowstone's unique place among the national parks is secure.

The lessons of the Yellowstone are plain. It is now too late to restore
elsewhere the great natural possession which the thoughtless savagery of
a former generation destroyed in careless ruth, but, thanks to this
early impulse of conservation, a fine example still remains in the
Yellowstone. But it is not too late to obliterate wholly certain
misconceptions by which that savagery was then justified. It is not too