They happen along at the end of each day's drive—great roomy structures alive with light and full of comfort and good cheer. And such inns they are—generous lobbies to lounge in before old-fashioned fire-places, with their blazing, snapping logs—beds to sleep in, clean and restful—prettily furnished rooms—and cookery and service almost too good to be true. To find all these things in a far-away wilderness is to wonder what magic was worked to bring them all about.

The great inn at Mammoth has in its foreground, three hundred feet high, the wonderful, many-colored, and beautifully-formed Hot Springs Terraces which belong in the list of the water-made wonders of the Park.

One of the inns—Old Faithful—cannot be matched anywhere in the world. It is a lofty, wide-spreading structure of logs, with a touch of Swiss about its gables and windows. Within, the logs are everywhere—partitions, balustrades, stair-steps, and newel posts—even the drinking fountain is a log. It must have been a mighty task to search the forests for all the queer forms of growth that enter into the construction of the curious, rustic interior. And the lobby, with its four great cheerful fireplaces—its huge corn popper—its clock and twenty-foot pendulum, and all the log-made galleries above it—that charms and comforts beyond the power of words to tell.

The inns are located nearby the greatest marvels of the Park and their sites have been selected to show them off with admirable skill.

From the Fountain the geysers of the lower basin can be seen at their play.

Old Faithful Inn looks out upon a great steaming, spouting field, and has its namesake—the glory of all the geysers—almost at its doors. So near, indeed, is it, that all the night through, at intervals of seventy minutes, can be heard the old monster in eruption.

On a slope that sweeps gently down to the waters sits the Lake Inn. The forest creeps down to it on three sides, and the outlook from its goodly porches is over the broad expanse of Yellowstone Lake—one of the highest of navigated seas, and as passive, clear and prettily tree-trimmed a sheet of water as there is in the world. You may reach this inn from Thumb by steamer or by coach; but if you would have two hours of ecstacy, take the steamer. Thumb is a lunch station, and the lunch there is a creation.

The Canyon Inn is almost on the brink of the gorge where falls the Yellowstone. It is a duplication in excellence of the other inns, and when you bid it good-bye it is to begin your last day's tour of the Park. Then comes Norris, with its geysers and its awful "Black Growler," and a lunch that will send the tourist on his homeward way with a grateful heart. After that—Yellowstone—and the whistle of the engine and the waiting Pullman—your tour is ended and the Park a pleasant memory.