The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-12-24
GETTING A CHRISTMAS DINNER
ON A RANCH,
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

my ranch, so much work had to be
done that it was within a week of
Christmas before we we're able to
take any thought for the Christmas
dinner. The winter set in late that
year, and there had been compare
lively little cold weather, but one
day the ice on the river had been
sufficiently strong to enable us to
haul up wagonload of flour, with
enough salt pork to last through the
winter, and very few tins of can
ned goods, to be used at special
feasts. We had some bushels of po-
tatoes, the heroic victors of strug-
gle for existence in which the rest of
our garden vegetables had succumbed
to drought, frost and grasshoppers;
and we also had some wild plums and
dried elk vension. But we had no
fresh meat, and so one day my fore
man and l agreed to make hunt on
the morrow.
Accordingly one of the cowboys
rode out in the frosty afternoon to
fetch in the saddleband from the pla-
teau three miles off, where they were
grazing. 1t was after sunset when
he returned.
1t was necessary to get to the hunt
ing grounds by sunrise, and 1t will
lacked a couple of hours of dawn
when the foreman wakened me as l
lay asleep beneath the buffalo robes.
Dressing hurriedly and breakfasting
on a cup of coffee and some mouth
fuls of bread and jerked elk meat,
we slipped out to the barn, threw
the saddles on the horses, and were
off.
The air was bitterly chill; the cold
had been severe for two days, SO that
the river ice would again bear horses.
Beneath the light covering of pow
derry snow we could feel the rough
ground like wrinkled iron under the
horses hoofs. There was no moon,
but the stars shone beautifully down
through the cold, clear air, and our
willing horses galloped swiftly across
the long bottom on which the ranch
.ouse stood, threading their way deft-
ly among the clumps of sagebrush.
A mile off we crossed the river, the
ice cracking with noises like pistol
shots as our horses picked their way
gingerly over it. On the opposite
side was a dense jungle of bull-berry
bushes, and on breaking through this
we found ourselves galloping up
long, winding valley, which led back
many mics into the hills. The cram
nies and little side ravines were filled
with brushwood and grooves of stunt
nd a
faint flush of gray in the east, and
as we rode silently along we could
make out dimly the tracks made by
the wild animals as they had passed
and repassed in the snow. Several
times we dismounted to examine
them. A couple of coyotes, possibly
frightened by our approach, had
trotted and loped up the valley ahead
fus, leaving trail like that of two
dogs; the sharper, more delicate foot
prints of fox crossed our path; and
outside one long patch of brushwood
a series of round imprints in the
snow betrayed where bob-cat-as
plainsmen term the small lynx-had
been lurking around to try to pick
up rabbit or prairie fowl.
AS the dawn Redeemed, and it be-
came light enough to see objects
some little way off, we began to sit
erect in our saddles and to scan the
hillsides sharply for sight of feeding
deer. Hitherto we had seen no deer
tracks save inside the burberry
bushes by the river, and we knew
that deer that lived in that impene-
trable jungle were cunning white
tails which in such a place could be
hunted only by aid of a hound. But
just before sunrise we came on three
lines of heart-shaped footmarks in
the snow, which showed where as
many deer had just crossed little
plain ahead of us. They were walk
ing leisurely, and from the lay of the
land we believed that we should find
them over the ridge, where there
was brush coulee.
Riding to one side of the trail, we
topped the little ridge just as the
sun famed up, burning ball of
crimson, beyond the snowy waste at
our backs. Almost Immediately af-
terwards my companion leaped from
his horse and raised his rifle, and as
he pulled the trigger 1 saw through
the twigs of a brush patch on our
left the erect, startled head of a
young black-tailed doe as she turned
to look at us, her great mule-like
ears thrown forward. The ball broke
her neck, and she turned a complete
somersault downhill, while a sud
den smashing of underbrush told of
the flight of her terrified compan-
ions.
We both laughed and called out
dinner" as we sprang down toward
her, and in few minutes she was
dressed and hung up by the hind
legs on a small ash tree. The en-
trails and viscera we threw off to one
side, after carefully poisoning them
from a little bottle of strychnine
which had in my pocket. Almost
every cattleman carries poison and