American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. Various
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of hunting and of traveling was quite different from that now in vogue among big-game hunters. His knowledge of the West was early enough to touch upon the time when each man was as good as his neighbor, and the mere fact that a man was paid wages to perform certain acts for you did not in any degree lower his position in the world, nor elevate yours. In those days, if one started out with a companion, hired or otherwise, to go to a certain place, or to do a certain piece of work, each man was expected to perform his share of the labor.
This fact Mr. Roosevelt recognized as soon as he went West, and, acting upon it, he made for himself a position as a man, and not as a master, which he has never lost; and it is precisely this democratic spirit which to-day makes him perhaps the most popular man in the United States at large.
Starting off, then, on some trip of several hundred miles, with a companion who might be guide, helper, cook, packer, or what not—sometimes efficient, and the best companion that could be desired, at others, perhaps, hopelessly lazy and worthless, and even with a stock of liquor cached somewhere in the packs—Mr. Roosevelt helped to pack the horses, to bring the wood, to carry the water, to cook the food, to wrangle the stock, and generally to do the work of the camp, or of the trail, so long as any of it remained undone. His energy was indefatigable, and usually he infected his companion with his own enthusiasm and industry, though at times he might have with him a man whom nothing could move. It is largely to this energy and this determination that he owes the good fortune that has usually attended his hunting trips.
As the years have gone on, fortunes have changed; and as duties of one kind and another have more and more pressed upon him, Mr. Roosevelt has done less and less hunting; yet his love for outdoor life is as keen as ever, and as Vice-President of the United States, he made his well-remembered trip to Colorado after mountain lions, while more recently he hunted black bears in the Mississippi Valley, and still more lately killed a wild boar in the Austin Corbin park in New Hampshire.
Mr. Roosevelt's accession to the Presidential chair has been a great thing for good sportsmanship in this country. Measures pertaining to game and forest protection, and matters of sport generally, always have had, and always will have, his cordial approval and co-operation. He is heartily in favor of the forest reserves, and of the project for establishing, within these reserves, game refuges, where no hunting whatever shall be permitted. Aside from his love for nature, and his wish to have certain limited areas remain in their natural condition, absolutely untouched by the ax of the lumberman, and unimproved by the work of the forester, is that broader sentiment in behalf of humanity in the United States, which has led him to declare that such refuges should be established for the benefit of the man of moderate means and the poor man, whose opportunities to hunt and to see game are few and far between. In a public speech he has said, in substance, that the rich and the well-to-do could take care of themselves, buying land, fencing it, and establishing parks and preserves of their own, where they might look upon and take pleasure in their own game, but that such a course was not within the power of the poor man, and that therefore the Government might fitly intervene and establish refuges, such as indicated, for the benefit and the pleasure of the whole people.
In April, 1903, the President made a trip to the Yellowstone Park, and there had an opportunity to see wild game in such a forest refuge, living free and without fear of molestation. Long before this Mr. Roosevelt had expressed his approval of the plan, but his own eyes had never before seen precisely the results accomplished by such a refuge. In 1903 he was able to contrast conditions in the Yellowstone Park with those of former years when he had passed through it and had hunted on its borders, and what he saw then more than ever confirmed his previous conclusions.
Although politics have taken up a large share of Mr. Roosevelt's life, they represent only one of his many sides. He has won fame as a historical writer by such books as "The Winning of the West," "Life of Gouverneur Morris," "Life of Thomas Hart Benton," "The Naval War of 1812," "History of New York," "American Ideals and Other Essays," and "Life of Cromwell." Besides these, he has written "The Strenuous Life," and in somewhat lighter vein, his "Wilderness Hunter," "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," and "The Rough Riders" deal with sport, phases of nature and life in the wild country. For many years he was on the editorial committee of the Boone and Crockett Club, and edited its publications, "American Big Game Hunting," "Hunting in Many Lands," and "Trail and Camp Fire."
Mr. Roosevelt was the first president of the Boone and Crockett Club, and continues actively interested in its work. He was succeeded in the presidency of the Club by the late Gen. B.H. Bristow.
[Illustration: Tourists and Bears]
Wilderness Reserves
The practical common sense of the American people has been in no way made more evident during the last few years than by the creation and use of a series of large land reserves—situated for the most part on the great plains and among the mountains of the West—intended to keep the forests from destruction, and therefore to conserve the water supply. These reserves are created purely for economic purposes. The semi-arid regions can only support a reasonable population under conditions of the strictest economy and wisdom in the use of the water supply, and in addition to their other economic uses the forests are indispensably necessary for the preservation of the water supply and for rendering possible its useful distribution throughout the proper seasons. In addition, however, to the economic use of the wilderness by preserving it for such purposes where it is unsuited for agricultural uses, it is wise here and there to keep selected portions of it—of course only those portions unfit for settlement—in a state of nature, not merely for the sake of preserving the forests and the water, but for the sake of preserving all its beauties and wonders unspoiled by greedy and shortsighted vandalism. These beauties and wonders include animate as well as inanimate objects. The wild creatures of the wilderness add to it by their presence a charm which it can acquire in no other way. On every ground it is well for our nation to preserve, not only for the sake of this generation, but above all for the sake of those who come after us, representatives of the stately and beautiful haunters of the wilds which were once found throughout our great forests, over the vast lonely plains, and on the high mountain ranges, but which are now on the point of vanishing save where they are protected in natural breeding grounds and nurseries. The work of preservation must be carried on in such a way as to make it evident that we are working in the interest of the people as a whole, not in the interest of any particular class; and that the people benefited beyond all others are those who dwell nearest to the regions in which the reserves are placed. The movement for the preservation by the nation of sections of the wilderness as national playgrounds is essentially a democratic movement in the interest of all our people.
[Illustration: "OOM JOHN."]
On April 8, 1903, John Burroughs and I reached the Yellowstone Park and were met by Major John Pitcher of the Regular Army, the Superintendent of the Park. The Major and I forthwith took horses; he telling me that he could show me a good deal of game while riding up to his house at the Mammoth Hot Springs. Hardly had we left the little town of Gardiner and gotten within the limits of the Park before we saw prong-buck. There was a band of at least a hundred feeding some distance from the road. We rode leisurely toward them. They were tame compared to their kindred in unprotected places; that is, it was easy to ride within fair rifle range of them; but they were not familiar in the sense that we afterwords found the bighorn and the deer to be familiar. During the two hours following my entry into the Park we rode around the plains and lower slopes of the foothills in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Gardiner and we saw several hundred—probably a thousand all told—of these antelope. Major Pitcher informed me that all the prong-horns in the Park wintered in this neighborhood. Toward the end of April or the first of May they migrate back to their summering homes in the open valleys along the Yellowstone and in the plains south of the Golden Gate. While migrating they go over the mountains and through forests if occasion demands. Although there are plenty of coyotes in the Park there are no big wolves, and save for very infrequent poachers the only enemy of the antelope, as indeed the only enemy of all the game, is the cougar.
Cougars, known in the Park as elsewhere through the West as "mountain lions," are plentiful, having increased in numbers of recent years. Except in the neighborhood of the Gardiner River, that is within a few miles of Mammoth Hot Springs, I found