Another Summer: The Yellowstone Park and Alaska
CHAPTER II.
ON THE WAY TO THE YELLOWSTONE. LIVINGSTON, MONTANA, June 22, 1892.
We left the city of St. Paul at 4.25 P.M. on the 20th, by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and arrived here at 8 A.M. this morning. A section on the sleeping-car had been previously engaged, and we found it and the dining-room car attached to the train all that could be desired, so that we thoroughly enjoyed the entire trip. Passing through the Bad Lands was a wonderful experience. Great mountains of clay or stone, in all sorts of grotesque shapes and of many colors, constantly attracted our attention until we reached the Yellowstone River, which was higher than it had been for many years. Here things began to look serious, as frequently the dirty and rushing flood came near to the track, and the rise of a foot or so would have caused a wash-out, and have stopped our progress; but for many miles before we reached this station, the engineer moved the train of ten cars very carefully, and we were only two hours behind time. There has been a bridge burned beyond this place, and some bad wash-outs are reported by passengers coming East, who say that they had to travel around six miles on foot, through a country infested with rattlesnakes, leaving their baggage behind; but we expect that all will be clear on Monday, when we shall have been through the park, and will be ready to go on from here West.
There was the usual crowd of "all sorts and conditions" of men on the train--young ranchmen, bright eyed, intelligent, and alert, one of them being an English lord, but I did not know this until he left the car at a way station. All had tales to tell of life in these parts, one of which was that the stage running from one of the stations at which we stopped was "held up" three times last week, and the passengers robbed. This town is a new one, with a lot of small wooden houses and stores, but as the hotels did not look very attractive, we took our breakfast on the dining-car attached to a train about to start for Cinnabar, on a branch road, and an excellent meal we had.