Page:Curtis Club in Yellowstone Park.djvu/5

 OYS, it is all settled at last, and June 22nd will find us off for the Yellowstone National Park." With many questions the six boys crowded around the chair of Dr. Curtis, their popular gymnasium teacher, with whom they so delighted to tramp on Saturdays.

"Yes, Sam," continued Dr. Curtis, "I know you think you want to go to Europe, but that is because you know so little about the Yellowstone Park."

"Park! Why, we want a sure enough 'trip'. Parks are as tame as cats," said Sam Robinson.

"But you don't understand, Sam," said Dr. Curtis. "It is named Yellowstone National Park but it happens to be over 3,000 times as large as Central Park, New York. It is more than three times as big as the whole State of Rhode Island and actually bigger than the States of Delaware and Rhode Island together." "Is there a fence around it?"

"Nothing but Nature's fence of high mountains."

"Are there cities and towns in this park? "

"No, indeed, no one lives there. The Yellowstone Park is really a great wild mountain reserve where no one is allowed to make his home. We may go there and see the same things the original discoverers of the country saw, and at the same time we can stay in very comfortable hotels."

"But my father says every fellow needs a trip to Europe," said Sam Robinson.

"Your father is quite right but you should go later on, for one needs to know a lot of history before he gets much satisfaction out of Europe. The Yellowstone is different, and every member of this third year class could catch the spirit of the great free West and the out-of-doors, the rumbling stage coach and the wild life that boys like so.