ordingly arranged for a five weeks' hunting trip in northwestern
Colorado.

In this trip, which he has himself described in one of his admirable
hunting papers, he had with him two companions, Dr. Gerald Webb of
Colorado Springs, and Mr. Philip K. Stewart, an old friend who in former
years had been captain of the Yale base-ball team.

The party went as far as the railroad would carry them, and then started
for a settlement called Meeker, forty miles distant. The weather was
extremely cold, with the thermometer from ten to twenty degrees below
zero, but the journey to Meeker was made in safety, and here the hunters
met their guide, a well-known hunter of that region named Goff, and
started with him for his ranch, several miles away.

Theodore Roosevelt would have liked to bring down a bear on this trip,
but the grizzlies were all in winter quarters and sleeping soundly, so
the hunt was confined to bob-cats and cougars. The hunting began early,
for on the way to the ranch the hounds treed a bob-cat, commonly known
as a lynx, which was secured without much trouble, and a second bob-cat
was secured the next day.

The territory surrounding Goff's ranch, called the Keystone, was an
ideal one for hunting, with clumps of cottonwoods and pines scattered
here and there, and numerous cliffs and ravines, the hiding-places of
game unnumbered. The ranch home stood at the foot of several well-wooded
hills, a long, low, one-story affair, built of rough logs, but clean and
comfortable within.

The two days' ride in the nipping air had been a severe test of
endurance, and all were glad, when the ranch was reached, to "thaw out"
before the roaring fire, and sit down to the hot and hearty meal that
had been prepared in anticipation of their coming.

The hunters had some excellent hounds, trained especially for bob-cats
and cougars, animals that were never allowed to go after small game
under any circumstances. Theodore Roosevelt was much taken with them
from the start, and soon got to know each by name.

"In cougar hunting the success of the hunter depends absolutely upon his
hounds," says Mr. Roosevelt. And he described each hound with great
minuteness, showing that he allowed little to escape his trained eye
while on this tour.

On the day after the arrival at the ranch the party went out for its
first cougar, which, as my young readers perhaps know, is an animal
inhabiting certain wild parts of our West and Southwest. The beast