o blunt their susceptibility of veracity,
have performed this apparently impossible feat, or have seen it done
right before their very eyes. A year or so ago, when an appropriation
was asked for in Congress for the further preservation of Yellowstone
Park, a member made this extraordinary possibility an argument in
support of his plea. A roar of laughter succeeded his recital, and when
the orator stopped to explain that he was merely recording an actual
fact and not telling a fish story, there seemed to be danger of
wholesale convulsion within the legislative walls. Several of the amused
Congressmen subsequently made inquiries and ascertained to their
astonishment that, instead of exaggeration, the half had not been told,
and that if a full summary of the attractions of Yellowstone Park were
to be written, the immense shelves of the Congressional Library itself
would scarcely hold the books that would have to be written to contain
it.

This little divergence is to afford an excuse for the incredulity of our
forefathers, who made sarcastic remarks as to the powers of wild Western
whisky, when pioneers returned from the Rocky Mountains and told them
that there existed away up in the clouds an immense natural park, where
beauty and weirdness could be found side by side.

John Colter, or Coulter, is said to have been the first white man who
ever entered the natural portals of this glorious park. It was in the
early days of the century that this remarkable man had his adventure. He
was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which was sent out to
explore the sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. He was
naturally an adventurer, and a man who had no idea of the meaning of the
word "danger." The party had a glimpse of Yellowstone Park, and Coulter
was so enamored with the hunting prospects that he either deserted from
the expedition party or obtained permission to remain behind.

However this may have been, it is certain that Coulter remained, with
but one companion, in the vicinity of the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri
River. According to fairly authentic records, he and his companion were
captured by hostile Blackfeet, who showed their resentment at the
intrusion upon the privacy of their domains by depriving Coulter of his
clothing, and Coulter's companion of his life. The chronic adventurer,
however, spent four years among the more friendly Bannock Indians, who
probably for centuries had lived in or near the pa