Surely then, Indians were summertime visitors in Yellowstone. They literally swarmed around the lakes. The most unimpeachable testimony on this point comes from trapper accounts of actual encounters. This phase of the case is discussed in the following chapter. Their known presence in the wooded area was the greatest deterrent to the white man's interest. Few men voluntarily risk their lives for a view of nature's wonders. It is a historical fact that the Washburn-Langford-Doane party saw Crow Indians along the north environs of the Park and actually followed a fresh line of tracks into the Yellowstone area. Thus the scenic exploitation of Wonderland was not feasible until the Indians were rounded up and confined to the reservations. This program was accomplished in the states surrounding Yellowstone between 1860 and 1877.
This process of racial adjustment was not accomplished without minor repercussions upon Yellowstone. The exciting Nez Percé flight of 1877 is considered separately in Chapter XI. However, the very next year the Bannocks conducted an impressive horse-stealing foray against the property of laborers and tourists. These episodes resulted in unfavorable publicity from the standpoint of tourist interest in visiting Wonderland. In consequence two important steps were taken by the officials. In 1880 Superintendent Norris made a tour of all the Rocky Mountain Indian reservations. His mission was to secure solemn promises from the tribes to abide by the terms of their Washington treaties and in particular to stay away from the Park.[97]
These agreements were widely advertised, and in order to further neutralize any fear of Indian trouble a policy of minimizing past incidents was evolved. The recent invasions were represented as unprecedented, actually anomalous. Indians had never lived in Yellowstone, were infrequent visitors because they were afraid of the thermal activity! It was not a conspiracy against truth, just an adaptation of business psychology to a promising national resort.
Chapter VI SECONDARY VISITATIONS BEFORE 1869
The streams of the Rocky Mountains were thoroughly exploited by the trappers in the twenties and thirties. Notwithstanding the paucity of evidence concerning Yellowstone visitations, it is unreasonable to believe her great rivers were neglected. These phantomlike trapper men went everywhere, saw everything, tarried only long enough to strip furry coverings from the beaver, and vanished. On rare occasion a bit of artifact shows up: an initialed rock or tree, a broken trap or flintlock, a group of steel-cleaved trees, a trapper cabin, a rifle pit or cache.[98] These evidences bear mute testimony that hunters passed through Yellowstone. In 1880, Colonel P. W. Norris discovered an initialed tree one half mile above the Upper Falls. The significant legend, _J.O.R. August 19, 1819_, had every indication of authenticity.