Our party consists of Captain and Mrs. Spencer, their little niece, Miss
Hayes, and myself--oh, yes, Lottie, the colored cook, and six or
eight soldiers. We have part of the transportation that Major General
Schofield used for this same trip two weeks ago, and which we found
waiting for us at Mammoth Hot Springs. We also have two saddle horses.
By having tents and our own transportation we can remain as long as we
wish at any one place, and can go to many out-of-the-way spots that the
regular tourist does not even hear of. But I do not intend to weary
you with long descriptions of the park, the wonderful geysers, or the
exquisitely tinted water in many of the springs, but to tell you of
our trip, that has been most enjoyable from the very minute we left
Livingstone.

We camped one night by the Fire-Hole River, where there is a spring I
would like to carry home with me! The water is very hot--boils up a foot
or so all the year round, and is so buoyant that in a porcelain tub of
ordinary depth we found it difficult to do otherwise than float, and its
softening effect upon the skin is delightful. A pipe has been laid
from the spring to the little hotel, where it is used for all sorts of
household purposes. Just fancy having a stream of water that a furnace
somewhere below has brought to boiling heat, running through your
house at any and all times. They told us that during the winter when
everything is frozen, all kinds of wild animals come to drink at the
overflow of the spring. There are hundreds of hot springs in the park, I
presume, but that one at Marshall's is remarkable for the purity of its
water.

Captain Spencer sent to the hotel for fresh meat and was amazed when the
soldier brought back, instead of meat, a list from which he was asked to
select. At that little log hotel of ten or twelve rooms there were seven
kinds of meat--black-tail deer, white-tail deer, bear, grouse, prairie
chicken, squirrels, and domestic fowl--the latter still in possession
of their heads. Hunting in the park is prohibited, and the proprietor
of that fine game market was most careful to explain to the soldier that
everything had been brought from the other side of the mountain. That
was probably true, but nevertheless, just as we were leaving the
woods by "Hell's Half Acre," and were coming out on a beautiful meadow
surrounded by a thick forest, we saw for one instant a deer standing on
the bank of a little stream at our right, and then