Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
bring it to a standstill. All he has to do is to shoot as accurately as
he would at a soda-water bottle; and to do this requires nerve, at least
as much as it does physical address. Having reached this point, the
hunter must not imagine that he is warranted in taking desperate
chances. There are degrees in proficiency; and what is a warrantable and
legitimate risk for a man to take when he has reached a certain grade of
efficiency may be a foolish risk for him to take before he has reached
that grade. A man who has reached the degree of proficiency indicated
above is quite warranted in walking in at a lion at bay, in an open
plain, to, say, within a hundred yards. If the lion has not charged, the
man ought at that distance to knock him over and prevent his charging;
and if the lion is already charging, the man ought at that distance to
be able to stop him. But the amount of prowess which warrants a man
in relying on his ability to perform this feat does not by any means
justify him in thinking that, for instance, he can crawl after a wounded
lion into thick cover. I have known men of indifferent prowess to
perform this latter feat successfully, but at least as often they have
been unsuccessful, and in these cases the result has been unpleasant.
The man who habitually follows wounded lions into thick cover must be
a hunter of the highest skill, or he can count with certainty on an
ultimate mauling.
The first two or three bucks I ever saw gave me buck fever badly, but
after I had gained experience with ordinary game I never had buck fever
at all with dangerous game. In my case the overcoming of buck fever
was the result of conscious effort and a deliberate determination
to overcome it. More happily constituted men never have to make this
determined effort at all--which may perhaps show that the average
man can profit more from my experiences than he can from those of the
exceptional man.
I have shot only five kinds of animals which can fairly be called
dangerous game--that is, the lion, elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo
in Africa, and the big grizzly bear a quarter of a century ago in the
Rockies. Taking into account not only my own personal experience, but
the experiences of many veteran hunters, I regard all the four African
animals, but especially the lion, elephant, and buffalo, as much more
dangerous than the grizzly. As it happened, however, the only narrow
escape I personally ever had was from a grizzly, and in Africa the
animal killed closest to me as it was charging was a rhinoceros--all of
which goes to show that a man must not generalize too broadly from
his own personal experiences. On the whole, I think the lion the most
dangerous of all these five animals; that is, I think that, if fairly
hunted, there is a larger percentage of hunters killed or mauled for a
given number of lions killed than for a given number of any one of the
other animals. Yet I personally had no difficulties with lions. I twice
killed lions which were at bay and just starting to charge, and I killed
a heavy-maned male while it was in full charge. But in each instance I
had plenty of leeway, the animal being so far off that even if my bullet
had not been fatal I should have had time for a couple more shots. The
African buffalo is undoubtedly a dangerous beast, but it happened that
the few that I shot did not charge. A bull elephant, a vicious "rogue,"
which had been killing people in the native villages, did charge before
being shot at. My son Kermit and I stopped it at forty yards. Another
bull elephant, also unwounded, which charged, nearly got me, as I
had just fired both cartridges from my heavy double-barreled rifle in
killing the bull I was after--the first wild elephant I had ever seen.
The second bull came through the thick brush to my left like a steam
plow through a light snowdrift, everything snapping before his rush, and
was so near that he could have hit me with his trunk. I slipped past
him behind a tree. People have asked me how I felt on this occasion.
My answer has always been that I suppose I felt as most men of like
experience feel on such occasions. At such a moment a hunter is so
very busy that he has no time to get frightened. He wants to get in his
cartridges and try another shot.
Rhinoceros are truculent, blustering beasts, much the most stupid of
all the dangerous game I know. Generally their attitude is one of mere
stupidity and bluff. But on occasions they do charge wickedly, both when
wounded and when entirely unprovoked. The first I ever shot I mortally
wounded at a few rods' distance, and it charged with the utmost
determination, whereat I and my companion both fired, and more by good
luck than anything else brought it to the ground just thirteen paces
from where we stood. Another rhinoceros may or may not have been meaning
to charge me; I have never been certain which. It heard us and came at
us through rather thick brush, snorting and tossing its head. I am by
no means sure that it had fixedly hostile intentions, and indeed with
my present experience I think it likely that if I had not fired it would
have flinched at the last moment and either retreated or gone by me.
But I am not a rhinoceros mind reader, and its actions were such as to
warrant my regarding it as a suspicious character. I stopped it with a
couple of bullets, and then followed it up and killed it. The skins
of all these animals which I thus killed are in the National Museum at
Washington.
But, as I said above, the only narrow escape I met with was not from
one of these dangerous African animals, but from a grizzly bear. It was
about twenty-four years ago. I had wounded the bear just at sunset, in a
wood of lodge-pole pines, and, following him, I wounded him again, as he
stood on the other side of a thicket. He then charged through the brush,
coming with such speed and with such an irregular gait that, try as I
would, I was not able to get the sight of my rifle on the brain-pan,
though I hit him very hard with both the remaining barrels of my
magazine Winchester. It was in the days of black powder, and the smoke
hung. After my last shot, the first thing I saw was the bear's left paw
as he struck at me, so close that I made a quick movement to one side.
He was, however, practically already dead, and after another jump, and
while in the very act of trying to turn to come at me, he collapsed like
a shot rabbit.
By the way, I had a most exasperating time trying to bring in his skin.
I was alone, traveling on foot with one very docile little mountain mare
for a pack pony. The little mare cared nothing for bears or anything
else, so there was no difficulty in packing her. But the man without
experience can hardly realize the work it was to get that bearskin off
the carcass and then to pack it, wet, slippery, and heavy, so that it
would ride evenly on the pony. I was at the time fairly well versed in
packing with a "diamond hitch," the standby of Rocky Mountain packers in
my day; but the diamond hitch is a two-man job; and even working with
a "squaw hitch," I got into endless trouble with that wet and slippery
bearskin. With infinite labor I would get the skin on the pony and run
the ropes over it until to all seeming it was fastened properly. Then
off we would start, and after going about a hundred yards I would notice
the hide beginning to bulge through between two ropes. I would shift one
of them, and then the hide would bulge somewhere else. I would shift the
rope again; and still the hide would flow slowly out as if it was lava.
The first thing I knew it would come down on one side, and the little
mare, with her feet planted resolutely, would wait for me to perform my
part by getting that bearskin back in its proper place on the McClellan
saddle which I was using as a makeshift pack saddle. The feat of killing
the bear the previous day sank into nothing compared with the feat of
making the bearskin ride properly as a pack on the following three days.
The reason why I was alone in the mountains on this occasion was
because, for the only time in all my experience, I had a difficulty with
my guide. He was a crippled old mountain man, with a profound contempt
for "tenderfeet," a contempt that in my case was accentuated by the
fact that I wore spectacles--which at that day and in that region were
usually held to indicate a defective moral character in the wearer. He
had never previously acted as guide, or, as he expressed it, "trundled
a tenderfoot," and though a good hunter, who showed me much game, our
experience together was not happy. He was very rheumatic and liked to
lie abed late, so that I usually had to get breakfast, and, in fact, do
most of the work around camp. Finally one day he declined to go out with
me, saying that he had a pain. When, that afternoon, I got back to
camp, I speedily found what the "pain" was. We were traveling very light
indeed, I having practically nothing but my buffalo sleeping-bag, my
wash kit, and a pair of socks. I had also taken a flask of whisky for
emergencies--although, as I found that the emergencies never arose
and that tea was better than whisky when a man was cold or done out, I
abandoned the practice of taking whisky on hunting trips twenty years
ago. When I got back to camp the old fellow was sitting on a tree-trunk,
very erect, with his rifle across his knees, and in response to my nod
of greeting he merely leered at me. I leaned my rifle against a tree,
walked over to where my bed was lying, and, happening to rummage in it
for something, I found the whisky flask was empty. I turned on him at
once and accused him of having drunk it, to which he merely responded by
asking what I was going to do about it. There did not seem much to do,
so I said that we would part company--we were only four or five days
from a settlement--and I would go in alone, taking one of the horses. He
responded by cocking his rifle and saying that I could go alone and be
damned to me, but I could not take any horse. I answered "all right,"
that if I could not I could not, and began to move around to get some
flour and salt pork. He was misled by my quietness and by the fact that
I had not in any way resented either his actions or his language during
the days we had been together, and did not watch me as closely as he
ought to have done. He was sitting with the cocked rifle across his
knees, the muzzle to the left. My rifle was leaning against a tree near
the cooking things to his right. Managing to get near it, I whipped it
up and threw the bead on him, calling, "Hands up!" He of course put
up his hands, and then said, "Oh, come, I was only joking"; to which I
answered, "Well, I am not. Now straighten your legs and let your rifle
go to the ground." He remonstrated, saying the rifle would go off, and
I told him to let it go off. However, he straightened his legs in such
fashion that it came to the ground without a jar. I then made him move
back, and picked up the rifle. By this time he was quite sober, and
really did not seem angry, looking at me quizzically. He told me that if
I would give him back his rifle, he would call it quits and we could go
on together. I did not think it best to trust him, so I told him that
our hunt was pretty well through, anyway, and that I would go home.
There was a blasted pine on the trail, in plain view of the camp, about
a mile off, and I told him that I would leave his rifle at that blasted
pine if I could see him in camp, but that he must not come after me,
for if he did I should assume that it was with hostile intent and would
shoot. He said he had no intention of coming after me; and as he was
very much crippled with rheumatism, I did not believe he would do so.
Accordingly I took the little mare, with nothing but some flour, bacon,