CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT 53 



the President and I were dismounted, and noting the 

 pleasing picture which our pack train of fifteen or 

 twenty mules made filing along the side of a steep 

 grassy slope, a picture which he has preserved in 

 his late volume, " Out-Door Pastimes of an American 

 Hunter," our attention was attracted by plaintive, 

 musical, bird-like chirps that rose from the grass 

 about us. I was almost certain it was made by a bird; 

 the President was of like opinion ; and I kicked about 

 in the tufts of grass, hoping to flush the bird. Now 

 here, now there, arose this sharp, but bird-like note. 

 Finally we found that it was made by a species of 

 gopher, whose holes we soon discovered. What its 

 specific name is I do not know, but it should be called 

 the singing gopher. 



Our destination this day was a camp on Cotton- 

 wood Creek, near " Hell Roaring Creek." As we made 

 our way in the afternoon along a broad, open, grassy 

 valley, I saw a horseman come galloping over the hill 

 to our right, starting up a band of elk as he came; riding 

 across the plain, he wheeled his horse, and, with the 

 military salute, joined our party. He proved to be a 

 government scout, called the "Duke of Hell Roar- 

 ing," an educated officer from the Austrian army 

 who, for some unknown reason, had exiled himself 

 here in this out-of-the-way part of the world. He was 

 a man in his prime, of fine, military look and bearing. 

 After conversing a few moments with the President 

 and Major Pitcher, he rode rapidly away. 



Our second camp, which we reached in mid-after- 

 noon, was in the edge of the woods on the banks of a 

 fine, large trout stream, where ice and snow still lin- 

 gered in patches. I tried for trout in the head of a 



