"My faith!" said I, looking at the dusty blouse, grey hat, soiled leather accoutrements, and whalebone poise of the wearer. "If they are all like you, you are."
"Thanks, whoever you may be. Of course if we were turned into a lawn–tennis court and told to resist, say, your heavy cavalry, we'd be ridden off the face of the earth if we couldn't get away. We have neither the weight nor the drill for a charge. My horse, for instance, by English standards, is half–broken, and like all the others, he bolts when we're in line. But cavalry charge against cavalry charge doesn't happen often, and if it did, well—all our men know that up to a hundred yards they are absolutely safe behind this old thing." He patted his revolver pouch. "Absolutely safe from any shooting of yours. What man do you think would dare to use a pistol at even thirty yards, if his life depended oh it? Not one of your men. They can't shoot. We can. You'll hear about that down the Park—further up."
Then he added, courteously: "Just now it seems that the English supply all the men to the American Army. That's what makes them so good perhaps." And with mutual expressions of good–will we parted—he to an outlying patrol fifteen miles away, I to my buggy and the old lady, who, regarding the horrors of the fire–holes, could only say, "Good Lord!" at thirty–second intervals. Her husband talked about "dreffel waste of steam–power," and we went on in the clear, crisp afternoon, speculating as to the formation of geysers.
"What I say," shrieked the old lady apropos of matters theological, "and what I say more, after having seen all that, is that the Lord has ordained a Hell for such as disbelieve his gracious works."
Nota bene.—Tom had profanely cursed the near mare for stumbling. He looked straight in front of him and said no word, but the left corner of his left eye flickered in my direction.
"And if," continued the old lady, "if we find a thing so dreffel as all that steam and sulphur allowed on the face of the earth, musn't we believe that there is something ten thousand times more terrible below prepared untoe our destruction?"
Some people have a wonderful knack of extracting comfort from things. I am ashamed to say I agreed ostentatiously with the old lady. She developed the personal view of the matter.
"Now I shall be able to say something to Anna Fincher about her way of living. Shan't I, Blake?" This to her husband.
"Yes," said he, speaking slowly after a heavy tiffin. "But the girl's a good girl;" and they fell to arguing as to whether the luckless Anna Fincher really stood in need of lectures edged with Hell fire (she went to dances I believe), while I got out and walked in the dust alongside of Tom.
"I drive blame cur'ous kinder folk through this place," said he. "Blame cur'ous. 'Seems a pity that they should ha' come so far just to liken Norris Basin to Hell. 'Guess Chicago would ha' served 'em, speaking in comparison, jest as good."
We curved the hill and entered a forest of spruce, the path serpentining between the tree–boles, the wheels running silent on immemorial mould. There was nothing alive in the forest save ourselves. Only a river was speaking angrily somewhere to the right. For miles we drove till Tom bade us alight and look at certain falls. Wherefore we stepped out of that forest and nearly fell down a cliff which guarded a tumbled river and returned demanding fresh miracles. If the water had run uphill, we should perhaps have taken more notice of it; but 'twas only a waterfall, and I really forget whether the water was warm or cold. There is a stream here called Firehole River. It is fed by the overflow from the various geysers and basins,—a warm and deadly river wherein no fish breed. I think we crossed it a few dozen times in the course of a day.
Then the sun began to sink, and there was a taste of frost about, and we went swiftly from the forest into the open, dashed across a branch of the Firehole River and found a wood shanty, even rougher than the last, at which, after a forty–mile drive, we were to dine and sleep. Half a mile from this place stood, on the banks of the Firehole River, a "beaver–lodge," and there were rumours of bears and other cheerful monsters in the woods on the hill at the back of the building.
In the cool, crisp quiet of the evening I sought that river, and found a pile of newly gnawed sticks and twigs. The beaver works with the cold–chisel, and a few clean strokes suffice to level a four–inch bole. Across the water on the far bank glimmered, with the ghastly white of peeled dead timber, the beaver–lodge—a mass of dishevelled branches. The inhabitants had dammed the stream lower down and spread it into a nice little lake. The question was would they come out for their walk before it got too dark to see. They came—blessings on their blunt muzzles, they came—as shadows come, drifting down the stream, stirring neither foot nor tail. There were three of them. One went down to investigate the state of the dam; the other two began to look for supper. There is only one thing more startling than the noiselessness of a tiger in the jungle, and that is the noiselessness of a beaver in the water. The straining ear could catch no sound whatever till they began to eat the thick green river–scudge that they call beaver–grass. I, bowed among the logs, held my breath and stared with all my eyes. They were not ten yards from me, and they would have eaten their dinner in peace so long as I had kept absolutely still. They were dear and desirable beasts, and I was just preparing to creep a step nearer when that wicked old lady from Chicago clattered down the bank, an umbrella in her hand, shrieking: "Beavers, beavers! Young man, whurr are those beavers? Good Lord! What was that now?"