In explaining why it was that the National Park Service had rallied its forces for so vigorous a defence of the citadel against the Walsh Bill, Mr. Albright quoted the words of John Barton Payne, Secretary of the Interior under Wilson, in pushing the Jones-Esch Bill, which returned the national parks and monuments to the sole authority of Congress. Said Mr. Payne: "When once you establish a principle that you can encroach on a national park for irrigation or water power, you commence a process which will end only in the commercialization of them all.... There is a heap more in this world," he concluded, "than three meals a day." I was sorry not to be able to see more of Horace M. Albright. One can put up with a good deal of his kind of practical idealism. CHAPTER II LIVINGSTON TWENTY YEARS AFTER The train on which I journeyed from the Park to Livingston was a bit late in getting started for some reason, as a consequence of which it was trying to make up the lost time all the way. It was a decidedly rough passage, especially on the curves through the rocky walls of "Yankee Jim's Canyon." Even so, however, I reflected that the careening observation car was making a lot better weather of it than did the old _Kentucky Mule_ twenty years before. Although past the crest of its spring rise by nearly a fortnight, the Yellowstone was considerably higher than the early May stage at which I ran it before. Even glimpsed from the train the Canyon impressed me as having a lot of very rough water--much too rough for a small open boat to run right through. With frequent landing and careful lining, however, it looked quite feasible; indeed, on arrival at Livingston I learned that a couple of men had worked through with a light canoe the previous Sunday. Letting down with a line over the bad places, they took about an hour for the passage of the roughest two miles of the Canyon. My jaunt through in and about the _Mule_ was not clocked. Although the liveliness of the action made it seem longer, I doubt if it was much over ten minutes. Nevertheless I was quite content not to have to chance it again, especially as a trial trip for a new type of boat.