MEETING COLONEL ROOSEVELT 
139 
ever, as they had received no answer to the letter 
sent several days before to Mr. Akeley and conse¬ 
quently did not know positively that his party had 
reached the plateau. 
The colonel asked about George Ade, com¬ 
mented vigorously and with prophetic insight on 
the Cook-Peary controversy, and read aloud, in ex¬ 
cellent dialect, a Dooley article on the subject, which 
I had saved from an old copy of the Chicago 
Tribune. He commented very frankly, with no 
semblance at hypocrisy, on Mr. Harriman’s death, 
told many of his experiences in the hunting field, 
and for three hours, at lunch and afterward, he 
talked with the freedom of one who was glad to 
see some American friends in the wilderness and 
who had no objection to showing his pleasure at such 
a meeting. 
He talked about the tariff and about many pub¬ 
lic men and public questions with a frankness that 
compels even a newspaper man to regard as being 
confidential. Our safari was the only one he had 
met in the field since he had been in Africa, and it 
was evident that the efforts of the protectorate 
officials to save him from interference and intrusion 
had been successful. 
Arrangements were then made for an elephant 
hunt. Colonel Roosevelt was working on schedule 
time, and had planned to be in Sergoi on the seven¬ 
teenth. He agreed to a hunt that should cover the 
fifteenth, sixteenth, and possibly the seventeenth, 
trusting that they might be successful in this period 
