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Like Earth itself, I remarked.
“就像地球本身一樣。”我說。
Precisely, he agreed.
“一點不錯。”他表示贊同。
The risks at Yellowstone apply to park employees as much as to visitors. Doss got a horrific sense of that in his first week on the job five years earlier. Late one night, three young summer employees engaged in an illicit activity known as "hot-potting"—swimming or basking in warm pools. Though the park, for obvious reasons, doesn't publicize it, not all the pools in Yellowstone are dangerously hot. Some are extremely agreeable to lie in, and it was the habit of some of the summer employees to have a dip late at night even though it was against the rules to do so. Foolishly the threesome had failed to take a flashlight, which was extremely dangerous because much of the soil around the warm pools is crusty and thin and one can easily fall through into a scalding vent below. In any case, as they made their way back to their dorm, they came across a stream that they had had to leap over earlier. They backed up a few paces, linked arms and, on the count of three, took a running jump. In fact, it wasn't the stream at all. It was a boiling pool. In the dark they had lost their bearings. None of the three survived.
黃石公園對游客來說有危險，對公園雇員來說也同樣有危險。多斯5年前到這里來上班的第一個星期就有那種可怕的感覺。有一天深夜，3個年輕的夏季雇員干了一件非法活動，叫做“泡沙鍋”——即在熱水池里游泳或取暖。雖然園方由于顯而易見的理由沒有把情況公開，但黃石公園的水池不是個個都是滾燙的。有一些你躺在里面簡直愜意極了，部分夏季雇員有在深夜下去泡一泡的習慣，盡管這么做是違反規定的。那3個人也真傻，沒有帶個手電筒；這是極其危險的，因為熱水池周圍的泥土結成了薄薄的一層硬殼，人很容易掉進下面灼燙的噴氣孔。無論如何，他們在返回宿舍的途中，要跨越一條早先不得不跳過去的小溪。他們后退幾步，胳膊挽著胳膊，數了一二三，接著就跑過去縱身一跳。事實上，那根本不是一條小溪，而是一個沸騰的水池。他們在黑暗里看不清方向。三個人沒有一個活著回來。
I thought about this the next morning as I made a brief call, on my way out of the park, at a place called Emerald Pool, in the Upper Geyser Basin. Doss hadn't had time to take me there the day before, but I thought I ought at least to have a look at it, for Emerald Pool is a historic site.
次日上午，在離開公園的途中，我一面想著那件事，一面對一個名叫翡翠池的地方作了短暫考察。翡翠池位于上間歇泉池。多斯前一天沒有時間帶我去那里，但我覺得至少應當去看一眼，因為翡翠池是個很有歷史意義的地方。
