[Illustration:  Securing A specimen at Hell-broth springs.]

From the springs to the mouth of the creek we followed along the bank, the bed or bottom being too rough and precipitous for us to travel in it, the total fall in the creek for the three miles being about fifteen hundred feet.  Standing upon the high point at the junction of the creek with the Yellowstone, one first gets some idea of the depth of the canon through which the river runs.  From this height the sound of the waters of the Yellowstone, tumbling over tremendous rocks and boulders, could not be heard.  Everything around us—­mountains, valleys, canon and trees, heights and depths—­all are in such keeping and proportion that all our estimates of distances are far below the real truth.  To-day we passed the mouth of Hell-Roaring river on the opposite side of the Yellowstone.

It was again Jake Smith’s turn for guard duty last night, but this morning Jake’s countenance wore a peculiar expression, which indicated that he possessed some knowledge not shared by the rest of the party.  He spoke never a word, and was as serene as a Methodist minister behind four aces.  My interpretation of this self-satisfied serenity is that his guard duty did not deprive him of much sleep.  When it comes to considering the question of danger in this Indian country, Jake thinks that he knows more than the veteran Jim Stuart, whom we expected to join us on this trip, and who has given us some salutary words of caution.  In a matter in which the safety of our whole party is involved, it is unfortunate that there are no “articles of war” to aid in the enforcement of discipline, in faithful guard duty.

Tuesday, August 30.—­We broke camp about 9 o’clock a.m., traveling in a southerly direction over the hills adjoining our camp, and then descended the ridge in a southwesterly direction, heading off several ravines, till we came into a small valley; thence we crossed over a succession of ridges of fallen timber to a creek, where we halted about ten miles from our morning camp and about a mile from the upper fall of the Yellowstone.  Mr. Hedges gave the name “Cascade creek” to this stream.

When we left our camp this morning at Hell-Broth springs, I remarked to Mr. Hedges and General Washburn that the wonders of which we were in pursuit had not disappointed us in their first exhibitions, and that I was encouraged in the faith that greater curiosities lay before us.  We believed that the great cataracts of the Yellowstone were within two days’, or at most three days’, travel.  So when we reached Cascade creek, on which we are now encamped, after a short day of journeying, it was with much astonishment as well as delight that we found ourselves in the immediate presence of the falls.  Their roar, smothered by the vast depth of the canon into which they plunge, was not heard until they were before us.  With remarkable deliberation