The three weeks’ visit to the ranch-house had passed on fleet wings, and it was a very sad little party that turned its face toward Medora again, in preparation for the specially planned trip to Yellowstone Park. Theodore Roosevelt, as one may well imagine, was making a very real concession to family affection by arranging this trip for us and accompanying us upon it. What he loved was roughing it; near-roughing it was not his “métier,” nor, frankly, was it his “métier” to arrange a _comfortable_ trip of any kind. He loved wild places and wild companions, hard tramps and thrilling adventure, and to be a part of the type of trip which women who were not accustomed to actual hunting could take, was really an act of unselfishness on his part. We paid huge sums for no comforts, and although supposed to go--as we were riding--where the ordinary travellers in stage-coach could not go in Yellowstone Park, yet there _were_ times when we seemed to be constantly camping in the vicinity of tomato cans! I write again to my aunt two weeks after we start our Yellowstone experiences: “We have had a most delightful two weeks’ camping and have enjoyed every moment. The weather has been cloudless, and though the nights were cold, we were only really uncomfortable one night. We were all in the best of health and the best of spirits, and ate without a murmur the strange meals of ham, tomatoes, greasy cakes and coffee prepared by our irresistible Chinese cook. Breakfast and dinner were always the same, and lunch was generally bread and cheese carried in our pockets and eaten by the wayside. We have really had great comfort, however, and have enjoyed the pretense of roughing it and the delicious, free, open-air life hugely,--and such scenery! Nothing in my estimation can equal in unique beauty the Yellowstone canyon, the wonderful shapes of the rocks, some like peaks and turrets, others broken in strange fantastic jags, and then the marvellous colors of them all. Pale greens and yellows, vivid reds and orange, salmon pinks and every shade of brown are strewn with a lavish hand over the whole Canyon,--and the beautiful Falls are so foamy and white, and leap with such exultation from their rocky ledge 360 feet down.