ance, and yet that profile was the same before the
first man ever trod this planet. Grim, awful model of the coming
race, did not its stern lips smile disdainfully at the first human
pygmy fashioned in its likeness?

[Illustration: ALONG THE SHORE.]

This lake has one peculiarity which, in the minds of certain
tourists, eclipses all the rest. I mean its possibilities for
fishing. We know that sad experience has taught mankind to invent the
proverb: "Once a fisherman, always a liar." I wish, then, at the
start, to say I am no fisherman; but what I saw here would
inevitably make me one if I should remain a month or two upon these
shores. Lake Yellowstone is the fisherman's paradise. Said one of
Izaak Walton's followers to me: "I would rather be an angler here
than an angel." Nor is this strange. I saw two men catch from this
lake in one hour more than a hundred splendid trout, weighing from
one to three pounds apiece! They worked with incredible rapidity.
Scarcely did the fly touch the water when the line was drawn, the
light rod dipped with graceful curve, and the revolving reel drew in
the speckled beauty to the shore. Each of these anglers had two hooks
upon his line, and both of them once had two trout hooked at the same
time, and landed them; while we poor eastern visitors at first looked
on in dumb amazement, and then enthusiastically cheered.

[Illustration: GREAT FISHING.]

Can the reader bear something still more trying to his faith?
Emerging from the lake is a little cone containing a boiling pool,
entirely distinct from the surrounding water. I saw a fisherman stand
on this and catch a trout, which, without moving from his place, or
even unhooking the fish, he dropped into the boiling pool, and
cooked! When the first scientific explorers of this region were
urging upon Congress the necessity of making it a National Park,
their statements in regard to fishing were usually received with
courteous incredulity. But when one of their number gravely declared
that trout could there be caught and boiled in the same lake, within
a radius of fifteen feet, the House of Representatives broke forth
into roars of laughter, and thought the man a monumental liar. We
cannot be surprised, therefore, that enthusiastic fishermen almost go
crazy here. I have seen men, after a ride of forty miles, rush off to
fish without a moment's rest as if their lives depended on it. Some
years ago, General Wade Hampton visited the Park and