Outdoor pastimes of an American hunterRoosevelt, Theodore
General
Outdoor pastimes of an American hunter
Roosevelt, Theodore
Hunting -- United States; Hunting -- West (U.S.)
In January, 1901, I started on a five weeks’ cougar hunt from Meeker in
Northwest Colorado. My companions were Mr. Philip B. Stewart and Dr.
Gerald Webb, of Colorado Springs; Stewart was the captain of the
victorious Yale nine of ’86. We reached Meeker on January 11th, after a
forty mile drive from the railroad, through the bitter winter weather;
it was eighteen degrees below zero when we started. At Meeker we met
John B. Goff, the hunter, and left town the next morning on horseback
for his ranch, our hunting beginning that same afternoon, when after a
brisk run our dogs treed a bobcat. After a fortnight Stewart and Webb
returned, Goff and I staying out three weeks longer. We did not have to
camp out, thanks to the warm-hearted hospitality of the proprietor and
manager of the Keystone Ranch, and of the Mathes Brothers and Judge
Foreman, both of whose ranches I also visited. The five weeks were spent
hunting north of the White River, most of the time in the neighborhood
of Coyote Basin and Colorow Mountain. In midwinter, hunting on horseback
in the Rockies is apt to be cold work, but we were too warmly clad to
mind the weather. We wore heavy flannels, jackets lined with sheepskin,
caps which drew down entirely over our ears, and on our feet heavy
ordinary socks, german socks, and overshoes. Galloping through the brush
and among the spikes of the dead cedars, meant that now and then one got
snagged; I found tough overalls better than trousers; and most of the
time I did not need the jacket, wearing my old buckskin shirt, which is
to my mind a particularly useful and comfortable garment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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