resolution limited my stay
in Helena to a couple of days, which were devoted to arranging for an
exploration of what are now known as the Upper and the Lower Geyser
Basins of the Yellowstone Park. While journeying between Corinne and
Helena I had gained some vague knowledge of these geysers from an old
mountaineer named Atkinson, but his information was very indefinite,
mostly second-hand; and there was such general uncertainty as to the
character of this wonderland that I authorized an escort of soldiers
to go that season from Fort Ellis with a small party, to make such
superficial explorations as to justify my sending an engineer officer
with a well-equipped expedition there next summer to scientifically
examine and report upon the strange country. When the arrangements
for this preliminary expedition were completed I started for Fort
Benton, the head of navigation on the Missouri River, on the way
passing through Fort Shaw, on Sun River. I expected to take at
Benton a steamboat to Fort Stevenson, a military post which had been
established about eighty miles south of Fort Buford, near a
settlement of friendly Mandan and Arickaree Indians, to protect them
from the hostile Sioux. From there I was to make my way overland,
first to Fort Totten near Devil's lake in Dakota, and thence by way
of Fort Abercrombie to Saint Cloud, Minnesota, the terminus of the
railroad.

Luckily I met with no delay in getting a boat at Benton, and though
the water was extremely low, we steamed down the channel of the
Missouri with but slight detention till we got within fifty miles of
Fort Buford. Here we struck on a sandbar with such force of steam
and current as to land us almost out of the water from stem to
midships. This bad luck was tantalizing, for to land on a bar when
your boat is under full headway down-stream in the Missouri River is
no trifling matter, especially if you want to make time, for the
rapid and turbid stream quickly depositing sand under the hull, makes
it commonly a task of several days to get your boat off again. As
from our mishap the loss of much time was inevitable, I sent a
messenger to Fort Buford for a small escort, and for horses to take
my party in to the post. Colonel Morrow, the commandant, came
himself to meet us, bringing a strong party of soldiers and some
friendly Indian scouts, because, he said, there were then in the
region around Buford so many treacherous band of Sioux as to make
things exc