The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-17
HATCH'S GUESTS.
Uncle Rufus Talks About His Foreign Visit
ors and Their Trip to Yellowstone
Park.


with single exception, from Buffalo to Nj
agara Falls, 1 had no outlay beyond that
which was voluntary. Of course our proven
der was separate thing. The caterer had a
carte blanche the colored walters were artists,
and the porters in the sleeping-cars were only
sorry when the general breakup left them in
the vocative. The hospitality of several OF
the hotel-keepers en- route was also unmistak-
able. At the Fifthavenue Hotel here, and
at the Clifton House, Niagara Falls, mine
hosts couldn't do too much and exact too
little, and when reached Chicago Mr..
Palmer, and Mr.. Howe, his partner, of the
Palmer House, astonished every one of the
party by putting the best rooms in that mag
niicent fire-proof hotel at their disposal,
without the sign of fee or reward. The hotel
keepers in ST. Paul. Minneapolis, Lake Min
netonka-all along the line, in fact-also
seemed to accept our presence as a compli-
ment and emptied whole cernucopias of the
good things of the land on 1.-The foreign emil
grants"
How about the dudes? They say you had
some on your special who played all sorts of
antics"
Dudes! pshaw! All newspaper fabrca-
TONS" and Uncle Rufus's eyes twinkled
merriy. III there were any on the train-I
must have been at the front for when /
reached the Hot Mammoth Springs Hotel my
man absent-mindedly gave me billed shirt,
and when l walked out of the 'bawth' (you
see I am beginning to speak correct English
now, the entire party marked me down as
the King Kaico of that particular tribe, and
said was the boss magistrate of the dude
contingent"
but the young Englishmen-didn't they
make things lively?"
mo should say the other people made
it lively for them. The truth is, there were
three or four young gentlemen who had
never before been far FROM home, and they
were naturally inexperienced travellers. In
the eyes of many OF the Americans, especial
~ out West, their dress was outre and pc
culiar, but in England no attention would
have been paid to it.
Zone of them, | am told brought thirteen
trunks, and they had every thing from pa
per-cutter to a side-saddle. The old stagers
like Judge Hartman and lie Sage and Clay,
and even John Wyman and his chum, Tom
Mack, of Boston, were content to live in a
trunk apiece After awhile the young gem
tlemen found it convenient to Law aside their
fancy toggery, and we saw no more of it. I
imagine the change in their programme came
about in this way: At Joliet H., you know,
there is big State prison, and while we
were stopping there for a moment somebody
saw the chaps in the baggage car with their
Yachting clothes on, looking in their StriDes
the personiication of escaped convicts You
may fancy my feelings when we arrived at
Davenport, Ia, l opened telegram in the
presence OF number OF my guests signed
by the warden of the prison, and asking me
to aid the authorities in arresting the runa-
ways and return them to prison. You ought
to have seen those young gentlemen, when
they heard of it precipitately retire and get
into plain clothes" And Uncle Rufus in
dulled in a chuckle that had in it all the
notes of chromatic scale
ut is reported throughout tine country
that you put up job on the dudes at the
Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, and had them
robbed by highwaymen-frontier fashion
is that so?'
No sir; that's another mammoth lie, and
the man of the quill who invented it ought
to be parboied in one of the springs. l was
asleep and knew nothing about it until
somebody called me down stairs. When
reached the scene of trouble, the bottom
facts PANIED out like this: 1t seems that
three or four of the young gentlemen, soon
after arrival had taken horses not belonging
to the company, and gone for what they
called 'bawth about TWO miles distant.
This was ice-cream to some Of the gentlemen
connected with the Eastern press, and they
at once hired four or five long-haired from
iersmen 10 go out and give the young En-
glish tourists a scare. And | understand
they did it," said Uncle Rufus ''in real
Western style, secundum artem reyolvibus
come-down-ibus and clean-out-ibus, Only
think of the ridiculous position for man to
be asked to hold up his hands when he is in
swimming and his clothes watch and re-
volver all on the shore. The victims threw
up their hands, surrendered their watches,
money and pistols meekly delivered up
their horses, and then were permitted to
come out of the lake and dress themselves
and then make tracks for the hotel, which
they must have done in rapid order. When
saw them they were out of breath, used up
and indignant l was quite as much aston
ished as themselves, when Ashley Cole, my
private secretary, after listening to their tale
of woe, led the party into the hotel, eX-
planned that everything had been recovered
and was in possession of the Office clerk, and
that the robbers had been hung, drawn and
quartered. After that the young gentlemen
didn't go far away from the party. Really,
they were good fellows and could eat and
drink. and row, and ride anything but "a
bucking pony with anybody"
"Are the cowboys as bad as they are repre-
scented, and is it really dangerous to travel in
that region? %
mo. AS for the boys" said Uncle
Rufus they are the essence of amability-
perfect Lubin's extracts compared with some
of the people you every day elbow against
in this same city of New York, and as for
revolvers, there is more use for six-shooter
IN Wall street than out West. They may be
rough on the outside, but they are really as
warm hearted and hospitable lot of people as
you will find anywhere in America One of
our guides was graduate of Heidelberg and
could talk the language of every man in the
party dead-shot, too, for he shot this silver
dollar off stump, seventy-five yards dis
tant, with rifle ball. while one of the en-
gneers on a locomotive, where l handled
the leayer, could quote Latin and Greek by
the yard, knew all the classical authors and
made you feel as if you were in library
Cowboys don't make mistake. 1t may be
new country, but it's full of brains"
us it true that the dudes made it warm
for Won in the Way of expenses9''