YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS By HERBERT QUICK AUTHOR OF "ALLADIN & CO.," "VIRGINIA OF THE AIR LANES," ETC. GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHER NEW YORK COPYRIGHT 1911 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS CHAPTER I It was August the third--and the rest of it. Being over Montana, and the Rockies, the skies were just as described by Truthful James. In the little park between the N. P. Station and the entrance to Yellowstone Park a stalwart young fellow and a fluffy, lacy, Paquined girl floated from place to place with their feet seven or eight inches from the earth--or so it seemed. They disappeared behind some shrubbery and sat down on a bench, where the young man hugged the girl ferociously, and she, with that patient endurance which is the wonder and glory of womanhood, suffered it uncomplainingly. In fact she reciprocated it. Note that we said a moment ago that they disappeared. From whose gaze? Not from ours, for we saw them sit and--and what followed. Their disappearance was from the view of a slender man of medium height who was off toward the station, inspecting the salvias, the phloxes, the cannas, the colei, the materials with which the walks were paved, and the earth in the flower-beds. He looked the near things over with a magnifying-glass, and scrutinized the far landscape with field-glasses. When he removed his traveling cap, one saw that he was bald, though not so bald as he seemed--his weak and neutral hair blended so in color with the neutral shades of his face and garb. As he looked at things near and far, from the formal garden of the little park to the towering peak of Electric Mountain, which flew a pennon of cloud off to the west, or Sepulcher Mountain, half lost in an unaccustomed haze to the south, but displaying above the blue its enormous similitude of a grave, with the stone at head and foot, he made notes in his huge pocket-book, and in making notes he approached closer and closer to the big boy and little girl on the bench. In fact, he stopped on the other side of the bush, and as the lovers kissed for the tenth time, at least, he stepped round toward them, peering into the top of the bushes, pencil poised to jot down the cause of the chirping sound which had greeted his ears. "I think I heard young birds in this bush," said he. "You did," responded the young man, blushing. "This park is full of them," said the girl, rather less embarrassed. "Did you note the species?" queried he of the glasses. "I seem quite unable to catch sight of them." "They are turtle-doves," said the girl. "Gulls!" said the man.