THE ROOSEVELT HUNT. 
13 
leaped with him (as a cat would carry a helpless mouse) into the jungle. The 
would-be avengers of this horror, and many like it, arranged to have one of 
their number on constant guard, with rifle in hand, ready to shoot the blood¬ 
thirsty prowlers at a moment’s notice. The closed car was strongly built 
and, as the sentry on duty placed himself so as to always command the doors 
and windows, the risk was not considered great. But at the midnight watch 
young Ryal, overcome by the tropical heat, fell asleep, and the huge man- 
eater, who had kept even closer vigil than his human victim, crept through 
the half-open door, seized the sleeper in his great jaws and sprung through 
the glass of one of the windows into the jungle. Not long after, the picked 
and whitened bones of Ryal were found in the vicinity. This death of a 
white engineer, under such circumstances, resulted in the organization of a 
great hunting party under J. H. Patterson, of the engineering corps, and 
among the lions killed was one identified as the slayer of Ryal; for in his hide, 
only recently healed, were found several pieces of window glass. 
SPECIAL OBJECTS OF THE EXPEDITION. 
The main preliminaries of the great Roosevelt expedition have been 
described; in other words, the background and setting of the hunt have 
been placed in the picture. Special inquiries will then arise, naturally 
and legitimately. The first may be, what are the special objects of 
this expedition? The uninformed may imagine that it is only a jun¬ 
keting trip for the special recreation and amusement of the hearty ex¬ 
president. Roosevelt obtained a necessary outing and had his inning 
with the big African game, but the serious and special object of the 
expedition, as announced by Secretary Charles Walcott, of the Smith¬ 
sonian Institution, in December, 1908 , is to gather specimens of natural 
history—beasts, birds, and plants—for the government museum em¬ 
braced by the institution named. The regular representatives of the 
Smithsonian Institution were Major Edgar A. Mearns, a retired officer 
of the medical corps of the United States Army, and Messrs. Edmund 
Heller and Alden Loring. Mr. Roosevelt was the general head of the 
expedition and R. J. Cunninghame was in active charge, being upon 
the grounds before the arrival of the main party, selecting porters, hunt¬ 
ing animals and a complete outfit. Mr. Cunninghame was both an ex¬ 
pert African hunter and had previously made collections in natural his¬ 
tory for the British Museum. Mr. Heller, a graduate of Stanford Uni¬ 
versity, was an expert taxidermist, and had traveled over both the 
