The Triumphant Life of Theodore Roosevelt edited by J. Martin Miller

LIFE IN THE WEST 89
lanciers," says the narrator, "and he knew all the steps far
better than I did. He could have danced a minuet very well
with a little practice. The scene reminded one of the ball
where Bret Harte's heroine danced down the middle with the
man who shot Sandy Magee."
THE DELIGHTS OF THE CHASE
Mr. Roosevelt devoted much of his time to hunting among
the mountains and on the plains, both as' a pastime and to
procure hides, meat, and robes for use on the ranch; and it
was his good luck to kill all the various kinds of large game
that can properly be considered as belonging to temperate
North America. What a stirring description of the delights
of the chase, which he calls the best of all national pastimes,
is to be found in the following, taken from his book, "The
Wilderness Hunter":
"No one but he who has partaken thereof can understand
the keen delight of hunting in lonely lands. For his is the joy
of the horse well ridden and the rifle well held; for him the
long days of toil and hardship, resolutely endured, and
crowned at the end with triumph. In after years prairies
shimmering in the bright sun; of vast snow-clad wastes lying
desolate under gray skies; of the melancholy marshes; of the
rush of mighty rivers; of the breath of ice-armored pines at
the touch of the winds of winter; of cataracts roaring between
hoary mountain masses; of all the innumerable sights and
sounds of the wilderness; of its immensity and mystery; and
of the silences that brood in its still depths."
A BUFFALO HUKT
On one of his first hunting trips, some twenty years ago,
Mr. Roosevelt decided to go on a buffalo hunt. Leaving