Page:Curtis Club in Yellowstone Park.djvu/7

 "Look at this picture here, boys. It is a photograph. You can see the bears almost every day near the big hotels."

"Why don't they hurt people?" said Sam Robinson, who was always asking "why".

"They do not hurt people because the people do not hurt them. No one hunts in the Park. The bear really isn't such a bad fellow unless he is starving and there is no danger of his ever getting very hungry when he can take his wife and cubs down back of the hotel and get barrels of good scraps from the hotel table and kitchen."

"That's great!" said Sam. "I'm going to buy a new camera with my birthday money."

"That's good. It takes more skill you know to photograph wild animals than to shoot them. The Park is just full of undisturbed wild animals and you can fish to your heart's content. No one stops you from that."

"What kind of a place is it to fish?" "What kind of fish do they have?" asked two boys at once.

"Trout," said Dr. Curtis, "lots of them. There are miles of clear mountain lakes, hundreds of mountain brooks and little creeks, several small rivers, and, as few fisherman go there, it's a first-class place to catch fish. I see myself now beside a nice clear pool, under some evergreens, at the foot of a tumbling waterfall; with a good string of fish at my side and more biting, and, boys, I tell you, they make a mighty fine lunch, cooked over the red hot coals of an open fire at noon time far up some mountain gorge. That would be fun enough even if our trout stream did not happen to be in one of the most beautiful and interesting places in the whole world. But now I must go."

And the seven boys who were planning to take another summer trip with Dr. Curtis went home well satisfied.

For the next two months the boys were busy reading about fishing, photographing wild animals, life in the woods, natural history and the wonderful geysers of the Yellowstone Park and they talked about it so much that there were twelve boys instead of seven when it came to buy supplies for the expedition. Each