SOMETHING ABOUT OUR NATIONAL PARK.
"BEAR are getting pretty tame in the National Park," said R. C. Long, a contractor from the Yellowstone, yesterday. "Never a shot is fired at them, and the rules are so strict about the conduct of strangers and natives on the reserve that one almost feels as if one should raise his hat in the presence of bruin. The respectful consideration he receives, however, is demoralizing him. Every night he comes down to the hotels and eats the slops that have been thrown out during the day. Two or three will waddle down at a time and quarrel and growl over the refuse from the table. Away from the hotels the bears kill the small game, and are as destructive to deer, antelope, and elk as hunters would be. The mountain lion lives right royally there too, and stalks unmolested by man or beast. "The buffalo are increasing in numbers, and there is a herd of at least three hundred and fifty. Outside of the National Park there are very few animals of this breed. On a ranch in Nebraska there are some, and in Manitoba there are others, but the buffalo would be practically extinct were it not for the care and freedom granted in the park. There are very many deer there, and they are so tame that a man may approach them without causing them the slightest fear. "Travel has been up to the average. This year there have been 7,000 people in the park. Strangely enough, nearly all were foreigners. Americans went to the Paris Exposition. It is expected that there will be a great number of visitors next year, and the syndicate that has the lease of the privileges on the reservation11is building two more hotels. Over one hundred miles of road have been constructed this year, and the government has expended about one hundred thousand dollars in improvements. "The face of the park is always changing. The geysers rest from their play every year or so, and the direction of the rivers change. A geyser is an easy thing to disturb, and, like the tramp, it hates soap. Some of the visitors who visit the park carry bars of soap with them, which, when thrown into the craters, cause the geysers to vomit forth their waters. This is prohibited, not because it is considered cruel or unkind, but because it disturbs the regularity of the geyser. Sometimes women get scalded when standing around the mouth of a crater. They see the eruption in the hole, but they never know enough to get out of the way, and the boiling water flies up, enveloping them in a cloud of steam. "The escape of gas proves disastrous to small game, but few bear or deer get caught in Death Gulch. I have seen rabbits, attracted by the salt in the valley, go forward to the veins from which the gas is emitted and fall dead. An effort may be made to inclose the gulch, but that is not likely for some time yet."