As if the unfortunate condition of affairs due to the lack of suitable laws for the reservation were not enough, there arose in the early part of Superintendent Conger's administration a new and even more formidable danger, under the euphemistic title of the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company. Previous to this time, there had been no regular leases in the Park. Several informal permits for occupancy had been granted, and a small number of inferior buildings had been erected. In 1880, there were nine of these buildings, nearly all of them being plain log-cabins, with earth roofs, of the common frontier pattern. Only two, the headquarters building at Mammoth Hot Springs and Marshall's Hotel in the Lower Geyser Basin, rose in dignity above the primitive type. No one as yet thought of remaining in the Park during the winter season. But it finally dawned upon certain sagacious individuals that here was a rare opportunity to exploit the government for their private emolument under the generous guise of improving the Park, and catering to the comfort of the tourist. A company was accordingly formed, and a valuable ally secured in the person of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, who granted a lease of 4,400 acres in tracts of about a square mile at each of the great points of interest. It was urged in defense of this sweeping grant, that it was hoped in that way to secure the protection which had yet failed to be found by any other method. It was thought that, if responsible parties could be given exclusive control of these natural curiosities, they would, at least from motives of self-interest, preserve them. But such a monopolistic privilege was clearly opposed to the spirit of the Act of Dedication. Why set apart this region for the free and unrestricted enjoyment of the people, if the Secretary of the Interior could give to private parties absolute control of all its most important localities? Was this a proper interpretation of "small parcels of ground," as specified in the act? The danger involved in this action was indeed a grave one, and it at once aroused a storm of protest throughout the country. It was about this time also that there began to appear those various railroad and segregation projects which from that time to the present have been a formidable menace to the continued existence of the Park. A more extensive consideration of this particular subject is reserved for a later chapter.