38 CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT 



"I will not fire a gun in the Park; then I shall have 

 no explanations to make." Yet once I did hear him 

 say in the wilderness, " I feel as if I ought to keep the 

 camp in meat. I always have.'* I regretted that he 

 could not do so on this occasion. 



I have never been disturbed by the President's 

 hunting trips. It is to such men as he that the big 

 game legitimately belongs, — men who regard it from 

 the point of view of the naturalist as well as from that 

 of the sportsman, who are interested in its preserva- 

 tion, and who share with the world the delight they 

 experience in the chase. Such a hunter as Roosevelt 

 is as far removed from the game-butcher as day is 

 from night; and as for his killing of the "varmints," 



— bears, cougars, and bobcats, — the fewer of these 

 there are, the better for the useful and beautiful game. 



The cougars, or mountain lions, in the Park cer- 

 tainly needed killing. The superintendent reported 

 that he had seen where thev had slain nineteen elk, 

 and we saw where they had killed a deer, and dragged 

 its body across the trail. Of course, the President 

 would not now on his hunting trips shoot an elk or a 

 deer except to "keep the camp in meat," and for this 

 purpose it is as legitimate as to slay a sheep or a steer 

 for the table at home. 



We left Washington on April 1, and strung several 

 of the larger Western cities on our thread of travel, 



— Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, St. Paul, jNIinne- 

 apolis, — as well as many lesser towns, in each of 

 which the President made an address, sometimes 

 brief, on a few occasions of an hour or more. 



He gave himself very freely and heartily to the peo- 

 ple wherever he went. He could easily match theii 



