The machine, that night, was, of course, left outside the tent, and a heavy thunder shower not only wet that, but came near soaking us through. There was no ditch dug to turn the water, and it ran down under us as we lay on the ground. But that was part of the fun of camping out.
The next morning we started for the Upper Geysers, but before I had ridden a mile the left handle-bar broke. The day before, while taking dinner with another party of campers, two young fellows tried to ride the machine while I was very busy eating some delicious ham boiled in one of the hot springs, and I noticed the handle-bar began to get loose during the afternoon, and now it came out of the socket. But by slow riding I reached the Upper Geysers, ten miles distant, and during the afternoon saw Old Faithful send a spray of water up one hundred feet into the air once in sixty-five minutes, as regular as clock-work; but there are indications that the time is gradually becoming longer, the force is subsiding. There is more satisfaction to be had from this Geyser than any other, for there is no waiting. Crowds of people are seen going to this place just before the appointed time, and Old Faithful never disappoints them. It plays for about five minutes, and then subsides as quickly as it commenced spouting. This Geyser is in the form of a small volcano or cone, perhaps ten feet high, composed of white, flakey rock.
We climbed up on the white mound of the Giantess and waited hours for her eruption, for there was every indication of it, one sign being a thumping sound beneath our feet, but she failed to make a display till two hours after I had departed next day. This Geyser is a pool of water fifteen feet in diameter, so clear that one can see down into it thirty or forty feet, and so hot it boiled occasionally while we were lying around on the warm rocks waiting. When it did go off, I was told, it looked like a boiling pyramid, sending jets of water into the air 150 feet. When it subsides, which is not for a day or two, it leaves the crater empty to some depth; when it gradually fills up again, and in a week or two, just as it happens, off it goes again. That night the boys sat around the camp-fire, sung, and told stories, but with my thin clothes on I was glad to crawl just inside the tent, cover myself with blankets, and lie there watching the rest, and thinking of the wonderful experience I was having.