Herd, Powder River Valley 202 Sheep by the water, Big Powder River 202 The County bridge over the Yellowstone 206 Pompey's Pillar 212 The Yellowstone from the top of Pompey's Pillar 212 Custer's Pillar, Bad Lands 216 The grating which protects the initials carved by Captain Clark on the side of Pompey's Pillar 216 Stockyards, Miles City 224 "Freightin'" 224 One of the famous school bands of Glendive 240 Buffalo stampede 242 The dam across the Yellowstone at Intake 246 Portaging my boat round the Intake Dam 246 Completing the portage 246 The "Old-N" crossing the Powder River 254 The Yellowstone just above Livingston 270 The Yellowstone just after receiving the Big Horn 270 The broad stream of the Yellowstone below Glendive 280 The last bridge above the Missouri 280 Where the Yellowstone takes possession of the Missouri 280 PART I TWENTY YEARS BEFORE DOWN THE YELLOWSTONE CHAPTER I THE YELLOWSTONE IN WINTER The present-day Indian inhabitants of the Yellowstone and Big Horn valleys, whose ancestors hunted bear, buffalo and elk in the Devil's Land now known as Yellowstone Park, preserve a legend to the effect that when the world was made, because this region was the most desirable section of Creation, Mog the God of Fire, and Lob the God of rains and snows, contended for the control of it. After some preliminary skirmishing, the disputants carried the matter to the court of the Great Spirit for settlement. Here the ruling was that Mog should occupy the land for six moons, when Lob should follow with possession for a similar interval, thus dividing the year equally between them. But Mog, being a bad god as well as a tricky one, spent his first six moons in connecting the valleys with hell by a thousand passages, and thus bringing up fire and sulphur and boiling water wherever it suited his fiendish fancy. Then he threw dust on all of the beautiful colored mountains, dried up the grass and shook the leaves from the trees, so that when it came to his rival's turn to take charge, Lob found affairs in a very sad way indeed.