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By Root 4059 0

when he was a boy. Just hearing the way Collier said “painter” (for panther) brought a smile to Roosevelt’s face. Nobody Roosevelt had ever met in the Rockies had as many close personal encounters with bears as Collier. Until the 1890s Collier had earned a very good living as a hunter, evolving into a first-rate guide. Collier hunted through the fall and winter months for thirty-plus years. He sold the meat to railroad workers, timber companies, and levee men. When not hunting he would follow the seasonal spring fairs from town to town, offering his services. In the summer he worked in the stable of his brother Marshall. Mainly, Collier was a survivalist, living off the land with his gun to keep him company. “Money don’t buy nothin’ in the cane-break, nohow,” he used to say, “and a man’s dog don’t care whether he’s rich or po’.”14

Roosevelt enjoyed such folk wisdom. When John M. Parker, who was choreographing the hunt, commented that its rigors might be too hazardous for a sitting president, a mildly insulted Roosevelt, looking at Collier with a half-embarrassed smile, exclaimed, “This is exactly what I want!” The other hunters, sensing that the president felt insulted, began shifting uneasily, uncomfortable with the ensuing silence.

“Good,” Parker shot back, “we will have bear meat for Sunday dinner!”—to which Roosevelt condescendingly replied, “Let us get the bear meat before we arrange for the dinner.” Except for this verbal sparring Roosevelt and Parker got on famously, and they formed an important political alliance in coming years.

Roosevelt understood that the secret of Holt Collier’s success, as with all good hunters, was that he revered bears and knew all their habits. Black bears, for example, would never sleep in a wet area: they pulled down cane stalks to make a comfortable nesting place. People who thought bears slept in the swamps were wrong. Although constantly maligned in the delta as meat-eating predators, bears actually preferred a diet of acorns, hickory nuts, black walnuts, persimmons, and melons. Sometimes they would wander onto farms to swipe piglets or to raid a hen house, but not often. Though Collier considered it unsportsmanlike, a fairly common bear trap used by others in the region was a pot of honey mixed with whiskey. Lapping up the honey, the bears eventually toppled over drunk; in such an inebriated condition they were easy to shoot or stab. Roosevelt made it clear upon his arrival in the delta that “pothunting,” as it was called, wouldn’t be tolerated.

Because the press had limited access to the campsite, details of the president’s six days in the Mississippi Delta are sketchy. The New York Times reported that Roosevelt often simply took to the trails to enjoy nature, preferring gentler episodes to the barking terriers, not particularly interested in rousting a bruin or pulling a ligament. An excellent dinner seemed to always be the main event, with bear paws, opossum, gravy, and sweet potatoes served on tin dishes and accompanied by wine. The clatter of fine cutlery was far more commonplace than gunshot fire during those six days. Bored reporters wrote about dreamy aromas rising from plates of onion fritters, hush puppies, and okra. Everything was served on a rough pine-board picnic table in a clearing; the scene looked like an advertisement for the national parks. The president stuck to his earlier decision not to shoot deer; they weren’t predators or nuisances. This was part of Roosevelt’s attempt to promote the sportsman’s ethic in the South. Despite the bad trails and impenetrable canebreak Roosevelt rode hard, enjoying what the newspapers described as “African jungle” terrain.15 “The President is enjoying his outing very much,” the Times reported. “He has not had three days of such complete freedom and rest since he entered the White House.”16

Collier, his baying hounds, and the terriers first picked up the scent of a bear on the morning of Friday, November 14. Roosevelt had been placed in a stand while Collier, following large misshapen paw prints, tracked the animal through mud