If there are worse roads anywhere on earth than in Idaho, I hope we may never see them! It had grown hot, and every mile of the way was hotter. Sand, dust, ruts three feet deep, and chuck-holes at every turn! In contrast to the roads in the park, that state is a nightmare! By the time we had reached Ashton (123 miles), we wished we had never seen Idaho. The Kirkbride Hotel was wretched, with only one bathroom for the establishment, no café, and dirty beyond expression. The town has but one street, a typical cowboy town, as primitive as possible. The hotel manager asked if we carried our own bedding! “Do we look as if we did?” No reply. We probably did--and worse. It seems that the camping parties from the park often brought _things_ beside bedding with them! At ten that night we found some food, in a wretched Chinese restaurant. The next day was hot and dusty, and there were more bad roads; but we knew that we should find a good hotel at Pocatello, with private bath and decent food. We went through Idaho Falls and the Blackfoot Reservation. An incident occurred here that would have made Toodles green with envy. We were taking advantage of our first stretch of good road in two days, and going at a lively speed. Away ahead, in the middle of the road, stood a solitary figure. We sounded our horn. The figure did not budge. Then we blew a blast that would have raised Rameses II and came to a stop a few feet from a man. He proved to be a “real honest-to-gosh,” as they say out here, Indian chief. His frame was massive and his face square-jawed, of a copper-bronze hue. A crimson kerchief, earrings, and beads, with ordinary trousers and shirt, completed his costume. He stood there like a dethroned emperor. With a dignified majesty, he waved his arm and said, “Take me home.” I turned to look at him as he sat, with folded arms, alone in the tonneau, with an air that plainly said, “I owned all this once; it is all _mine_.” He told us that he was chief of the Shoshone tribe, and owned 250 acres; that he rented two of his ranches and lived on the one “where the trees were, a mile up the road.” The land was under high cultivation, with fine buildings. When we let him out he just waved us on, saying, “Me good American.” I wondered if at heart he really were, or if he knew that he _had_ to be. We often saw Indian women on the roadside selling garden truck--always with a stolid expression, and seldom a smile. If you spoke to them, their invariable rejoinder was “You bet” (pronounced “U-bit”). This seems to be the prevailing expression in the West. The Yellowstone Hotel in Pocatello is very good, and crowded, like all of the Western hotels.