It might have been worse

Poor Montana! Burned, scorched to ashes from four summers of drought, and no rain in six months! Everywhere the people told us the same story. The rivers and streams were dry as bones. “Don’t stop here for water” was a familiar sign. We met hundreds of families driving out, in old “prairie-schooners,” with all their household furniture and their cattle. These poor souls had to find water for their cattle and themselves. They had tried to raise crops, and were literally driven out. The children looked pinched and starved. The women and men were the color of leather, tanned by the scorching sun of the plains, the dust, and the dry, hot winds. They had lost everything. Their faces were pathos personified. It wrung your heart to see them. We always slowed down and waved to them, and often stopped and talked. It was rare to get a smile from even the children. When we would give some little kiddie an orange, it was the pathetic mother who tried to smile. Before we had covered the four hundred miles across the state, our faces were burned, our lips so dry and cracked that they bled, and our eyes nearly burned out of our heads. Yet we had but a few days of it, and they had suffered for four summers! At night we would soak our hands and faces in cold cream, but the next night they were quite as bad. The dust was from six to eight inches deep, and the roads were either through sand or chucky. We know now why Lohr named his song “My Little Gray Home in the West.” It could not possibly have been any other color. A dozen times we thought our springs were gone. The road looked like a level stretch of dust; then down you would go to the bottom of a chuck-hole with a thud that made your teeth chatter.

The cattle looked as starved as the people. We came to one valley that had been irrigated, and for a mile or so the crops were green. The ditch was full of water—real wet water. Horses and cows, dogs and people were standing in it. We filled our radiator and bottles and laved our hands and faces. Germs or no germs, we drank our fill. In half an hour or less your throat and mouth would be as dry as ashes, and your thirst was insatiable. We found that fruit, especially oranges and pears, quenched the thirst better than water; so we always kept plenty of fruit in the car. The going was so bad that we did not reach Miles City until late. After leaving Fargo, each morning we had taken the precaution to wire ahead for reservations, always adding “driving,” so, if we were belated, the rooms would still be held for us. We had been told that the Olive Hotel at Miles City was the only poor hotel on the route. Everyone had given it a black eye. We had mentioned it to the manager at the Jordan Annex in Glendive. “I think you will find it very comfortable. Our company has taken it over and refurnished it.” When we were sending our usual morning wire, he very politely said that it would be his pleasure to notify them of our coming.

To digress for a moment—the people of Montana pride themselves on their universal courtesy to strangers. Time and again, we had people say, “You have found our people polite and obliging?”—“Yes; they are kindness itself”—and they were.

When we reached the Olive Hotel we were agreeably surprised. Everything was clean and comfortable, looking like Paradise after the dust and scorching sun of the plains. We were having our lunches put up by the hotel each morning, as there was absolutely nothing decent en route (shades of Medora!). I asked for the manager, Mr. Murphy.

“We shall be glad to put you up a lunch,” he said. “What would you like?”

“Anything but ham sandwiches. We have been so fed up on them that we can’t look a pig in the face for fear we will see a family resemblance.” Then I added, “May the bread be cut thin, and buttered?”

He laughed and assured us that it would be “all right.” Right! Ye gods, we had a feast! Oh, how we have blessed dear Mr. Murphy! May his shadow never grow less! As we were starting in the morning the head waitress came out with the lunch neatly done up, saying, “Mr. Murphy has had some extras put in. We like Easterners and try to please tourists.” We paid the modest price of $2.50 (for three people) and decided to curb our curiosity until noon. This was a real occasion, and just the proper spot must be found for our party. Some days we had driven many miles to find a clump of trees to lunch under. Today we went ten miles and never even saw a tree—the deadly monotony of the endless plains—heat, dust, sand, sagebrush the color of ashes, and only a jolly little prairie-dog scurrying to his hole or a hawk flying overhead. Not a tree—not even a big bush to give shade! We asked some ranchers where they got wood for fuel. “There ain’t no wood. Every fellow digs his coal in his own backyard.” It sounded simple, and I was glad to hear that nature had provided some compensations for the farmer, whose life at the best is not all “beer and skittles.”

On we drove until one o’clock—and still no trees! A wail from Toodles: “What about having lunch in the car?” There was a bend in the road over the top of a hill. “I have a hunch that there will be a tree around the bend,” ventured the bird-man. There was!—just one big, glorious cottonwood tree that would shelter a drove of cattle, and the only tree in sight on those plains as far as the eye could see. Out came the faithful old rug and the hamper—and then we unpacked the lunch! Three juicy melons, a whole broiled chicken for each one, thin bread and butter, a jar of potato salad, fresh tomatoes, three jars of marmalade, eggs, crisp lettuce, pickles, and the best chocolate-cake I ever tasted, besides peaches, pears, and hot coffee. You may think we were a lot of greedy pigs, but that was the banner lunch of the trip. May Mr. Murphy never go hungry! He has made three friends for life.

Miles City is the last and best of the representative “cow-towns” of early days. The annual “round-up,” a celebration of frontier days, is usually held on the 4th of July. Here our watches went back an hour. We were now in the land of silver dollars. It had been some years since we had seen them in New York. Out here, when you had a bill changed, you received nothing but silver dollars. A bit heavy, but all right, if you had enough of them.

That night we reached Billings. We had gone through some fertile ranches where the irrigation system had turned an arid waste of sand into fields of green crops. The country improved, as we neared this “Metropolis of Midland Empire,” as they term it, the center of the sugar-beet industry. Wherever we saw crops, there the sugar-beet flourished. They must raise many thousands of tons of them. The fair grounds and elaborate buildings are of interest. It is a real city rising out of the plains, like a living monument to the pioneers, men and women. The Northern Hotel was the finest we had seen since leaving the Twin Cities. We rested up for a day, had the car cleaned and oiled, and had ourselves laundered, shampooed, and manicured, starting refreshed and full of expectations on our last lap to the Yellowstone. In contrast to the Olive Hotel, our lunch here was the one real “hold-up” in any hotel. Six eggs, six tongue sandwiches, and four cups of coffee were $3.75. We protested, and they deducted seventy-five cents.

We had heard pleasing reports of Hunter’s Hot Springs being the French Lick of the West; anything that spelled water sounded good to us, although we had crossed the upper Yellowstone River only to see a little stream so low that the cattle were standing in the middle. There is nothing but the hotel—not even a garage. All the cars were parked in front and stood there all night. The place was crowded with tourists from all over the country. “Hello there!” greeted us, and to our surprise and great pleasure we found our cousins, Mr. and Mrs. H., of Fargo, with the glad tidings that she would go through the park with us. This place is unique—a low, rambling building, with a quarter of a mile of porches, a very large swimming pool of mineral water, hot from the springs, and private baths of all descriptions. The big plunge had been emptied and scrubbed, and the hot water was pouring in, but would not be sufficiently cool to swim in for another day.

Many charming people were here, taking the course of baths, resting, or just stopping en route, as we were. One celebrity was presented to us, the youthful editor of “Jim Jam Jems,” Mr. Sam H. Clark, of Bismarck, North Dakota, and his attractive wife. There were other ladies in his party, all going to the park. They were attired in the costume of khaki breeches, puttees, and coats, looking very Western and comfortable.

We remarked that we were unfortunate, in never having seen a copy of “Jim Jam Jems.” “You surprise me; it is on sale at six hundred news-stands in New York City.” Feeling like mere worms, we expressed the hope of seeing it in San Francisco. On our arrival, we asked for it at the news-stand in one of the largest hotels. “We get it only about once in two months,” we were told. Later we found the September issue, which we read with interest. In the “Monthly Preamble” he says, “Fact is, this good old U. S. A. seems to have slipped its trolley, politically, industrially, and socially, and generally things be out of joint.” That seemed to be the tone of the whole publication. I do not know the particular significance of the name of his magazine; but if he ever decided to make a change I wonder if he would consider “The Knocker Club in Session.” Mr. Clark is a reformer in embryo, and his talents are unquestioned. Perhaps, in the broad-minded, open West, he will in time find something constructive to write about. Let us watch and see.

After a very jolly visit, all too short, we started for Livingston and Gardiner, the northern entrance to the park. The sky was dense with smoke, due to the forest fires in the north. In Oregon a town had been wiped out the day before. Our eyes smarted from the smoke; the mountains, now the foothills of the Rockies, were entirely obliterated, and, if this kept up, we could see nothing in the park. Cars were turning back, and the prospect was not encouraging. The road grew more steep and narrow, and we could hardly see a quarter of a mile ahead of us. It was like a real London fog—pea soup. The altitude was very high, and we began to feel dizzy. We were on roads that were just shelves cut in the sides of the mountains, with hardly room for two cars to pass and a good long tumble on the lower side. It was not pleasant! On a clear day perhaps, but not in a dense fog.

Passing through Livingston, you turn due south for fifty-five miles. At four o’clock we arrived at Gardiner, where we had a belated lunch at a restaurant, and found a collection of five weeks’ mail at the post-office. Joy!—and then more joy! We all wired home to anxious relatives of our arrival. The huge stone arch forms the gateway to the park. The officials, old army veterans, in uniform, stopped us and we paid $7.50 entrance fee for the car. There is no tax for people. We were questioned about firearms. None are allowed, and we had none.