During our stay, my original failure to leap, on my arrival, “from the locomotive to the back of a bucking bronco” had more or less been effaced from the memory of the cowboys by subsequent adventures, and the last day that we spent under the cottonwood-trees, by the banks of the Little Missouri, was made significant by the “surprise” gotten up by Merrifield and Sylvane for the special edification of my brother and husband. The surprise took the form of the “wrastling” of a calf by no less a person than myself! Merrifield had taught me to rope an animal, Sylvane had shown me with praiseworthy regularity the method of throwing a calf, and the great occasion was heralded amongst the other members of the party by an invitation to sit on the fence of the corral at three o’clock, the last afternoon of our visit to Elkhorn, and thus witness the struggle between a young woman of the East and a bovine denizen of the Western prairies. The corral, a plot of very muddy ground (having been watered by a severe rain the night before), was walled in by a fence, and generally used when we wished to keep the ponies from straying. On this occasion, however, it was emptied of all but the calf, which was to be the object of my efforts and prowess. I was then introduced by Merrifield, very much as the circus rider used to be introduced in the early Barnum and Bailey days; then followed a most gruelling pantomime; the calf, which was of an unusually unpleasant size, galloped around the corral and I, knee-deep in mud, galloped after it, and finally succeeded in achieving the first necessity, which was to rope it around the neck. After that, the method of procedure was as follows: The “wrastler”—on this occasion my unfortunate self—was supposed to get close enough to the animal in question to throw himself or herself across the back of the galloping calf, with the purpose of catching the left leg of the animal, the leg, in fact, farthest away from one’s right arm. If this deed could be accomplished and the leg forcibly bent under the calf, both calf and rider would go down in an inextricable heap, and the “wrastling” of the calf would be complete.
I can feel now the mud in my boots as I floundered with agonized effort after that energetic animal. I can still sense the strain in every nerve of my body as I finally flung myself across its back, and still, also, as if it were only yesterday, do I remember the jellied sensation within me, as for some torturing minutes I lay across the heifer’s spine, before, by a final Herculean effort, I caught that left leg with my right arm. The cries of “stay with him!” from the fence, the loud hand-clapping of the enthusiastic cowboys, the shrieks of laughter of my brother and my husband, all still ring in my ears, and when the deed was finally accomplished, when the calf, with one terrible lurch, actually “wrastled,” so to speak, fell over on its head in the mud, all sensation left me and I only remember being lifted up, bruised and encased in an armor of oozing dirt, and being carried triumphantly on the shoulders of the cowboys into the ranch-house, having redeemed, in their opinion, at least, the reputation which my brother had given me before I visited the Bad Lands.
Years later, when the young owner of Elkhorn Ranch had reached the higher estate of President of the United States, I, as the sister of the President, was receiving with my sister-in-law at the breakfast in the White House, at his Inaugural in 1905, and was attired in my best black velvet gown and “presidential sister” white plumes; I was surrounded by senators and ambassadors, when suddenly, coming toward me, I recognized the lithe figure of my brother’s quondam cowboy, Will Merrifield. He, too, had climbed the rungs of the ladder of fame, and now, as marshal of Montana, he had been intrusted by the State of Montana with the greetings of that state for the newly inaugurated President. Coming toward me with a gay smile of recognition, he shook me warmly by the hand and said: “Well, now, Mrs. Douglas, it’s a sight for sore eyes to see you again; why, almost the last time I laid eyes on you, you were standing on your head in that muddy corral with your legs waving in the air.” Senators and ambassadors seemed somewhat surprised, but Will Merrifield and the President’s sister shook hands gaily together, and reminisced over one of the latter’s most thrilling life victories. But to return to our farewell to Elkhorn Ranch in 1890.
* * * * *
The three weeks’ visit to the ranch-house had passed on fleet wings, and it was a very sad little party that turned its face toward Medora again, in preparation for the specially planned trip to Yellowstone Park. Theodore Roosevelt, as one may well imagine, was making a very real concession to family affection by arranging this trip for us and accompanying us upon it. What he loved was roughing it; near-roughing it was not his “métier,” nor, frankly, was it his “métier” to arrange a comfortable trip of any kind. He loved wild places and wild companions, hard tramps and thrilling adventure, and to be a part of the type of trip which women who were not accustomed to actual hunting could take, was really an act of unselfishness on his part. We paid huge sums for no comforts, and although supposed to go—as we were riding—where the ordinary travellers in stage-coach could not go in Yellowstone Park, yet there were times when we seemed to be constantly camping in the vicinity of tomato cans!
I write again to my aunt two weeks after we start our Yellowstone experiences:
“We have had a most delightful two weeks’ camping and have enjoyed every moment. The weather has been cloudless, and though the nights were cold, we were only really uncomfortable one night. We were all in the best of health and the best of spirits, and ate without a murmur the strange meals of ham, tomatoes, greasy cakes and coffee prepared by our irresistible Chinese cook. Breakfast and dinner were always the same, and lunch was generally bread and cheese carried in our pockets and eaten by the wayside. We have really had great comfort, however, and have enjoyed the pretense of roughing it and the delicious, free, open-air life hugely,—and such scenery! Nothing in my estimation can equal in unique beauty the Yellowstone canyon, the wonderful shapes of the rocks, some like peaks and turrets, others broken in strange fantastic jags, and then the marvellous colors of them all. Pale greens and yellows, vivid reds and orange, salmon pinks and every shade of brown are strewn with a lavish hand over the whole Canyon,—and the beautiful Falls are so foamy and white, and leap with such exultation from their rocky ledge 360 feet down.
“We had one really exciting ride. We had undertaken too long an expedition, namely, the ascent of Mt. Washburn, and then to Towers’ Falls in one day, during which, to add to the complications, Edith had been thrown and quite badly bruised. We found ourselves at Towers’ Falls at six o’clock in the evening instead of at lunch time, and realized we were still sixteen miles from Camp, and a narrow trail only to lead us back, a trail of which our guide was not perfectly sure. We galloped as long as there was light, but the sun soon set over the wonderful mountains, and although there was a little crescent moon, still, it soon grew very dark and we had to keep close behind each other, single file, and go very carefully as the trail lay along the mountainside. Often we had to traverse dark woods and trust entirely to the horses, who behaved beautifully and stepped carefully over the fallen logs. Twice, Dodge, our guide, lost the trail, and it gave one a very eerie feeling, but he found it again and on we went. Once at about 11 P. M., Theodore suggested stopping and making a great fire, and waiting until daylight to go on, for he was afraid that we would be tired out, but we all preferred to continue, and about 11:30, to our great joy, we heard the roar of the Falls and suddenly came out on the deep Canyon, looking very wonderful and mysterious in the dim starlight. We reached our Camp after twelve o’clock, having been fifteen hours away from it, thirteen and a half of which we had been in the saddle. It was really an experience.”
It was a hazardous ride and I did not terrify my aunt by some of the incidents such as the severe discomfort suffered by Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt when she was thrown and narrowly escaped a broken back, and when a few hours later my own horse sank in a quicksand and barely recovered himself in time to struggle to terra firma again, not to mention the dangers of the utter darkness when the small, dim crescent moon faded from the horizon. My brother was the real leader of the cavalcade, for the guide, Ira Dodge, proved singularly incompetent. Theodore kept up our flagging spirits, exhausted as we were by the long rough day in the saddle, and although furious with Dodge because of his ignorance of the trail through which he was supposed to guide us, he still gave us the sense of confidence, which is one’s only hope on such an adventure. Looking back over that camping trip in the Yellowstone, the prominent figure of the whole holiday was, of course, my brother. He was a boy in his tricks and teasing, crawling under the tent flaps at night, pretending to be the unexpected bear which we always dreaded. He was a real inspiration in his knowledge of the fauna and birds of the vicinity and his willingness to give us the benefit of that knowledge.
I find in my diary of that excursion a catalogue of the birds and other animals which he himself had pointed out to me, making me marvel again at the rapid observation which he had made part of his physical equipment. I note: “During the first four days we have been in the Park, we have seen chipmunk, red squirrel, little black bear, elk watering with the horses, muskrat in the streams, golden eagle, Peregrine falcon and other varieties, red-tailed hawk and pigeon hawk, Clark’s crow, Canada jay, raven, bittern, Canada goose, mallard and teal ducks, chicadee, nuthatch, dwarf-thrush, robin, water oozel, sunbird, longspur, grass finch, yellow-crowned warbler, Rocky Mountain white-throated sparrow, song-sparrow, and wren.”