three stepped out. Roosevelt raised his
rifle. The shot, at that distance, was almost impossible, but there
was zest in the trying. Suddenly another buck stepped out and walked
slowly toward the first. Roosevelt waited until the heads were in line
and fired. Over went both bucks. Roosevelt paced off the distance. It
was just four hundred and thirty-one long paces.

It was while they were ascending the Clear Fork of the Powder that
they discovered a band of Indians camped a short distance from the
place where they themselves had halted for the night.

"I'm going over to see those Indians," remarked Merrifield after
dinner that evening.

"What do you want to go over there for?" asked Roosevelt.

"Out in this country," responded the hunter dryly, "you always want to
know who your neighbors are."

They rode over together. The Indians were Cheyennes. Experience had
taught Merrifield that nothing was so conducive to peaceful relations
with a red neighbor as to prove to him that you could beat him at his
own game. He consequently suggested a shooting-match. The Indians
agreed. To Roosevelt's astonishment they proved to be very bad shots,
and not only Merrifield, but Roosevelt himself, completely outclassed
them in the competition. The Indians were noticeably impressed.
Merrifield and Roosevelt rode back to their camp conscious that so far
as those particular Indians were concerned no anxiety need disturb
their slumbers.

"Indians," remarked Merrifield later, "are the best judges of human
nature in the world. When an Indian finds out that you are a good
shot, he will leave you absolutely alone to go and come as you like.
Indians are just like white men. They are not going to start something
when they know you can out-shoot them."

For three weeks they traveled through desolation before they came at
last to the goal of their journey. At the foot of the first steep
rise, on the banks of Crazy Woman Creek, a few miles south of the army
post at Buffalo, they left the wagon, and following an old Indian
trail started into the mountains, driving their pack-ponies before
them.

It was pleasant, after three burning weeks of treeless prairie, to
climb into the shadowy greenness of the mountains. All about them was
the music of running water, where clear brooks made their way through
deep gorges and under interlacing boughs. Groves of great pines rose
from grassy meadows and fringed the glades that lay here and there
like quie