Besides Langford and Norris these earlier years saw two or three political appointees at the head of Park affairs, men whom no less an authority than Captain Chittenden intimates were either incompetent or corrupt. It was largely the lamentable results of the administration or these latter that was responsible for turning the Yellowstone over to the Army, just as was done in the construction of the Panama Canal. The Army, subject to the limitations of military administration for this kind of work, came through as usual with great credit to itself. A military Superintendent--Capt. George W. Goode--was in charge on the occasion of my first visit, and at that time it seemed probable that the army régime might be continued indefinitely. It was plain, however, that an officer who might be sent from the Philippines to the Yellowstone one year, and from the Yellowstone to Alaska the next, was not in a position, no matter what his ability and enthusiasm, to do full justice to the task in hand. What appeared to be needed was a civil administration, with the right sort of men, backed up with sympathy and vigour at Washington. _That_ is the _desideratum_ which seems to have been arrived at, both as to men and the support at the National Capital. If I were going to pay adequate tribute to what the National Park Service is doing and trying to do I should want the rest of this volume in which to express myself. So I shall only say in passing that, judging from the members of that service I have met, including the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of the Yellowstone, it seems to me to be developing a type that does not suffer in comparison with that fine idealist, the British Civil Servant, whom I have always admired so unreservedly where I have found him at work in India, the Federated Malay States, and other outposts of empire--an official of ability and experience giving his lifetime for the good of others for very modest pay. If I knew how to pay a higher compliment I should do so. In concluding this chapter I shall touch briefly on the future plans and policy of the National Park Service for the Yellowstone. It was a comparatively modest affluent of Yellowstone Lake that I followed down from the two-ways-draining marsh on the Continental Divide. I did not come upon the Yellowstone proper until I reached the outlet of the Lake. It is a splendid stream even there--broad, deep, swift and crystal-clear. At a point very near where the bridge of the Cody road crosses the river is the site of the projected Yellowstone Lake Dam, a dangerous encroachment of power and irrigation interests which the energetic efforts of the National Park Service appear now to have disposed of for good.