making us hedge
and ditch for our pay. A little road-making on service is not a bad
thing, but continuous navvying is enough to knock the heart out of any
army."

I agreed, and we sat up till two in the morning swapping the lies of
East and West. As that glorious chief Man-afraid-of-Pink-Rats once said
to the Agent on the Reservation: "'Melican officer good man. Heap good
man. Drink me. Drink he. Drink me. Drink he. Drink _he_. Me blind.
_Heap_ good man!"

No. XXXI

ENDS WITH THE CANYON OF THE YELLOWSTONE. THE MAIDEN FROM NEW
HAMPSHIRE--LARRY--"WRAP-UP-HIS-TAIL"--TOM--THE OLD LADY FROM
CHICAGO--AND A FEW NATURAL PHENOMENA--INCLUDING ONE BRITON.

"What man would read and read the selfsame faces
And like the marbles which the windmill grinds,
Rub smooth forever with the same smooth minds,
This year retracing last year's every year's dull traces,
When there are woods and unmanstifled places?"
--_Lowell._

Once upon a time there was a carter who brought his team and a friend
into the Yellowstone Park without due thought. Presently they came upon
a few of the natural beauties of the place, and that carter turned his
team into his friend's team howling: "Get back o' this, Jim. All Hell's
alight under our noses." And they call the place Hell's Half-acre to
this day. We, too, the old lady from Chicago, her husband, Tom, and the
good little mares came to Hell's Half-acre, which is about sixty acres,
and when Tom said: "Would you like to drive over it?" we said:
"Certainly no, and if you do, we shall report you to the authorities."
There was a plain, blistered and peeled and abominable, and it was given
over to the sportings and spoutings of devils who threw mud and steam
and dirt at each other with whoops and halloos and bellowing curses.
The place smelt of the refuse of the Pit, and that odour mixed with the
clean, wholesome aroma of the pines in our nostrils throughout the day.
Be it known that the Park is laid out, like Ollendorf, in exercises of
progressive difficulty. Hell's Half-acre was a prelude to ten or twelve
miles of geyser formation. We passed hot streams boiling in the forest;
saw whiffs of steam beyond these, and yet other whiffs breaking through
the misty green hills in the far distance; we trampled on sulphur, and
sniffed things much worse than any sulphur which is known to the upper
world; and so came upon a park-like place where Tom suggested we should
get out and play