f a dozen antelope. To any lover of nature
it could not help being a delightful thing to see the wild and timid
creatures of the wilderness rendered so tame; and their tameness in the
immediate neighborhood of Gardiner, on the very edge of the Park, spoke
volumes for the patriotic good sense of the citizens of Montana. Major
Pitcher informed me that both the Montana and Wyoming people were
co-operating with him in zealous fashion to preserve the game and put a
stop to poaching. For their attitude in this regard they deserve the
cordial thanks of all Americans interested in these great popular
playgrounds, where bits of the old wilderness scenery and the old
wilderness life are to be kept unspoiled for the benefit of our
children's children. Eastern people, and especially eastern sportsmen,
need to keep steadily in mind the fact that the westerners who live in
the neighborhood of the forest preserves are the men who in the last
resort will determine whether or not these preserves are to be
permanent. They cannot in the long run be kept as forest and game
reservations unless the settlers roundabout believe in them and heartily
support them; and the rights of these settlers must be carefully
safeguarded, and they must be shown that the movement is really in their
interest. The eastern sportsman who fails to recognize these facts can
do little but harm by advocacy of forest reserves.

[Illustration: A SILHOUETTE OF BLACKTAIL.]

It was in the interior of the Park, at the hotels beside the lake, the
falls, and the various geyser basins, that we would have seen the bears
had the season been late enough; but unfortunately the bears were still
for the most part hibernating. We saw two or three tracks, and found one
place where a bear had been feeding on a dead elk, but the animals
themselves had not yet begun to come about the hotels. Nor were the
hotels open. No visitors had previously entered the Park in the winter
or early spring--the scouts and other employees being the only ones who
occasionally traverse it. I was sorry not to see the bears, for the
effect of protection upon bear life in the Yellowstone has been one of
the phenomena of natural history. Not only have they grown to realize
that they are safe, but, being natural scavengers and foul feeders, they
have come to recognize the garbage heaps of the hotels as their special
sources of food supply. Throughout the summer months they come to all
the hotels in numbers, u