At present the roads are, for the most part, terribly rough and unformed; but the government is active, and the work already done, both on the roads and bridges, is admirable. Sixteen miles of splendid roads had already been completed on the route we travelled over. The hotel accommodation cannot be commended. The food one gets is simply execrable; but doubtless all this will soon be changed. I am told that a wealthy company has now obtained leases for hotels, and the public may hope next year to be better fed and better lodged than they have been in the past. The hotel charges at present are four dollars a day. The stage-coaches are not bad, and the teams are for the most part excellent. The drivers are very intelligent, civil fellows, and when once stirred up they tell most amusing stories. The proprietors employ about two hundred and fifty horses in the Park, and as we left on the last day of the season, I was curious to know what became of the horses during the winter. I was told that they are all turned loose on the prairie, to paw up their living from under the snow on the foothills where it lies thin, and in the spring they are brought in fatter and stronger than when they went out. [Illustration] Now that nearly all the buffaloes in the country have been killed, very strict game laws have been put in force for their preservation. I am told that within the Park there is now very little game of any kind. A man was recently fined 100 dollars and costs and imprisoned for six months for killing two elk and eight beaver within the Park, whilst a premium of ten dollars is given for the destruction of a bear. Let me add that there is some capital trout fishing in the Yellowstone River, just outside the Park, and we had made arrangements to spend a day there and to sleep at "Yankee Jim's," who keeps a small inn by the riverside. Jim is a well-known character throughout the country, but our experience of him did not encourage us to take up our abode in his little shanty. When sober we are told he is a highly respectable character; but when drunk (and he happened to be in that condition when we made his acquaintance) he is a madman, and a spiritualist able to see through mountains, to boot. On the whole, we did not care to cultivate Jim's acquaintance, so we had to give up our day's fishing in the Yellowstone. We may do better by-and-by in the West Gallatin River. Just before sundown, and as we were passing through "The Golden Gate," I saw a pedestrian coming up the road at a rapid pace. I was sitting on the box-seat, and I said to the driver— "Where can yonder fellow be going in this direction at this time of day; there is not a house of any kind within twenty miles?" "It is curious," said he.