In the driver's seat sat Aconite Driscoll, erstwhile cow-boy, but now
driver of a Yellowstone surrey, with four cayuses in hand, and a whip in
place of the quirt of former years. When you tour the Yellowstone may he
be your guide, driver, protector, entertainer and friend.
So they were seven, as I remarked. The Bride counted out as for I-spy,
"'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven; All good children go to
heaven!'" The Minor Poet said, "'We are seven.'" The Artist quoted,
"'Seven men from all the world'"--and looked at the Bride. "'Back to
Docks again,'" she continued, knowing her Kipling, "'Rolling down the
Ratcliffe Road, drunk and raising Cain.' Thanks for including me as a
man." The Artist bowed. "Anyhow," said the Poet, "'We are seven.'"
They were all in the surrey and Aconite had the reins in hand, his whip
poised, and his lips pursed for the initiatory chirrup, when there put
his foot on the hub the Hired Man, who looked the part and presently
explained that he worked on farms as a regular thing, and who was to be
number eight. "If this seven business is eatin' yeh so bad," said he,
"kain't I make a quadrille of it? I never pay fare, nowheres; but I kin
cook, 'n drive, 'n rustle firewood, 'n drive tent-pins--an' you seem to
have an empty seat. What say?" Aconite looked back into the faces of his
load. All looked at the Bride as commander-in-chief--the Bride nodded.
"Shore!" said Aconite. "Hop in!"
They rolled through the great arch at the entrance, and bowled along the
road in breath-taking style as they crossed bridge after bridge, the
walls of Gardiner Cañon towering on each side with its left-hand copings
crumbling into pinnacles like ruined battlements, on which sat
fishing-eagles as sentinels, their eyes scanning the flashing stream
below. The wild roses were still in sparse bloom; the cottonwood groves
showed splotches of brilliant yellow; the cedars gloomed in steady and
dependable green. Autumn leaves and spring flowers, and over all a sky
of ultramarine.
"See there!" exclaimed the Bride, pointing at the huge stream of hot
water where Boiling River bursts from its opening in the rocks, and
falls steaming into the Gardiner. "What in the world is it--a geyser?"
"That there little spurt," said Aconite, "is where the sink-pipe dreens
off from Mammoth Hot Springs. Don't begin bein' surprised at things like
them!"
The Professor made notes. Colonel Baggs asserted that hot water is hot
water, no matter where found or in whatever quantities, and couldn't be
considered much of a wonder. The Professor took up the gage of battle,
while the carriage wound up the hill, away from the river; but even he
forbore discourse, when the view opened, as the afternoon sun fell
behind the hills, on the steaming terraces and boiling basins of Mammoth
Hot Springs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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