No Indians of any tribe are now permitted in the reservation, otherwise, lazy as these aborigines are, they would soon make reckless havoc among the fine collection of wild animals which is gathered here. The Indians are all in the annual receipt of money and ample food supplies from the government; and the killing of extra game and selling the hides would furnish them with only so many more dollars to be expended for whiskey and tobacco. These tribes have no idea of economy, or care for the future. The reliance they place upon government supplies promotes a spirit of recklessness and extravagance. If their potato crop fails, or partial famine sets in from some extraordinary cause, it finds them utterly unprepared to meet the exigency. Oftentimes it is found that the government rations and supplies have been sold, and the money received therefor lavishly squandered. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III. Norris Geyser Basin.—Fire beneath the Surface.—A Guide’s Ideas.—The Curious Paint Pot Basin.—Lower Geyser Basin.—Boiling Springs of Many Colors.—Mountain Lions at Play.—Midway Geyser Basin.—“Hell’s Half Acre.”—In the Midst of Wonderland.—Old Faithful.—Other Active Geysers.—Erratic Nature of these Remarkable Fountains. A pleasant drive of twenty miles in a southerly direction from the Hot Springs Hotel, through the wildest sort of scenery, over mountain roads and beside gorgeous cañons, will take the visitor to the Norris Geyser Basin, a spot which promptly recalled to the writer somewhat similar scenes witnessed at the aboriginal town of Ohinemutu, in the northern part of New Zealand. Clouds of sulphurous vapor constantly hang alike over both places, produced by a similar cause, though the scene here is far more vivid and demonstrative. This whole basin is dotted by hot water springs and fumaroles, which maintain an incessant hissing, spluttering, and bubbling, night and day, through the twelve months of the year. The water which issues from these sources is of various colors, according to the impregnating principle which prevails, the yellow sulphur vats being especially conspicuous to the sight and offensive to the smell. What a strange, weird place it is! No art could successfully imitate these extravagances of Nature. Some of the rills are cool, others are boiling hot; some are white, some pink or red, and one large basin, fifty feet across, is called the Emerald Pool, because of its intensely green color; yet it appears to be quite pure and transparent when a sample is taken out and examined. Each spring seems to be entirely independent of the rest, though all are situated so near to each other. An almost constant tremor of the earth is realized throughout this immediate region, as though only a thin crust separated the visitor from an active volcano beneath his feet; and, notwithstanding the various scientific theories, who can say that such