A salvo of profanity from the train crew followed them. "You'll hear from this!" thundered the conductor. They did not hear from it. It would not have greatly disturbed Roosevelt if they had. He opened a subscription to cover the expenses of the funeral. Everybody "chipped in," and the unfortunate received the burial that a God-fearing cowpuncher deserved. Roosevelt went with Merrifield west to the Coeur d'Alenes, in northern Idaho, almost immediately after Frazier's funeral. He was to meet a hunter named John Willis, who was to take him and Merrifield out after white goat. He had never met Willis, but his correspondence with him had suggested possibilities of interest beside the chase. Roosevelt had written Willis in July that he had heard of his success in pursuit of the game of the high peaks. "If I come out," he concluded, "do you think it will be possible for me to get a goat?" The answer he received was written on the back of his own letter and was quite to the point. "If you can't shoot any better than you can write, I don't think it will be." Roosevelt's reply came by wire. "Consider yourself engaged." It would have been strange if, after this epistolary exchange, the two men should not have been rather curious about each other's personalities. Roosevelt, descending from the train at a way-station in the mountains, found a huge, broad-shouldered man his own age, waiting for him, The man was not over-cordial. He did not, he later admitted, regard Roosevelt's corduroy knee-pants with favor. Roosevelt, knowing how to catch a hunter, showed Willis his guns. "Will you go on a trip with me?" he asked. "I am going to start out day after to-morrow for a three or four weeks' hunt," Willis answered. "If you want to go along as my guest, you are welcome to. But I want to tell you before we go, I won't take any booze." "Why do you say that?" asked Roosevelt, thoroughly interested in this strange creature. "Why, I've an idea you are some brewer's son who's made a lot of money. You look as if you'd been raised on beer." Roosevelt roared with delight. "I want to make a contract with you," he said. "I will give you twenty-five dollars for everything that you show me in the way of game." "I don't want it," said Willis gruffly. "Then I will buy the grub." "All the grub I'll take along won't amount to more than three or four dollars--a hundred pounds of flour, twenty-five pounds of bacon, dried apples, and black tea. That's all you'll get." "By George," cried Roosevelt, "that's fine!" "You can't stand a trip like this," Willis remarked with deadly frankness. "You take me on the trip and I'll show you. I can train myself to walk as far as you can." Willis doubted it and said so.