he warning signal and slowed down, but did not stop.
The cowboys dashed alongside the engine, firing shots in the air. The
engineer, believing that he was being held up by bandits and that the
next shot might be aimed at himself, brought the train to a
standstill. There was a wild scramble among the passengers; even the
train crew expected the worst. Valuables were hurriedly secreted. "I
don't believe," remarked George Myers afterward, "some of the
passengers ever did find all the things that was hid away."

Leaving their horses in charge of one of the cowboys, Roosevelt,
followed by Sylvane Ferris, Merrifield, Myers, and Johnny Goodall,
boarded the train. The conductor was resigned by this time to a
hold-up; but when he discovered the actual nature of their mission, he
flew into a rage and threatened to put them all off.

"You be good," cried Roosevelt, "or you'll be the one to get off!" His
vigorous advice was supplemented by impressive injunctions from other
members of the party. When they finally did get off, it was at Medora.

A salvo of profanity from the train crew followed them. "You'll hear
from this!" thundered the conductor. They did not hear from it. It
would not have greatly disturbed Roosevelt if they had. He opened a
subscription to cover the expenses of the funeral. Everybody "chipped
in," and the unfortunate received the burial that a God-fearing
cowpuncher deserved.

Roosevelt went with Merrifield west to the Coeur d'Alenes, in northern
Idaho, almost immediately after Frazier's funeral. He was to meet a
hunter named John Willis, who was to take him and Merrifield out after
white goat. He had never met Willis, but his correspondence with him
had suggested possibilities of interest beside the chase. Roosevelt
had written Willis in July that he had heard of his success in pursuit
of the game of the high peaks. "If I come out," he concluded, "do you
think it will be possible for me to get a goat?"

The answer he received was written on the back of his own letter and
was quite to the point. "If you can't shoot any better than you can
write, I don't think it will be."

Roosevelt's reply came by wire. "Consider yourself engaged."

It would have been strange if, after this epistolary exchange, the two
men should not have been rather curious about each other's
personalities. Roosevelt, descending from the train at a way-station
in the mountains, found a huge, broad-shouldered man his own age,
waiting fo