The fresh-faced young man from New York was eager to hunt mountain goats and was doing his best to persuade the rugged man from Missouri to act as his guide.
The Missourian was Jack Willis and the tenderfoot was 28-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, who was with a companion, William Merrifield. TR had just bought a ranch in the Dakota Territory and fancied himself as a hunter. He was also very good at pleading his case. Unfortunately, Willis was not easily impressed and soon had the young Easterner pleading for his help.
Willis eventually agreed to take the two men along as his guests into the sprawling wilderness of northern Idaho, though he refused to serve as their guide. Apparently he was skeptical about Roosevelt’s hunting abilities. However, once on the hunt, he soon realized that his initial skepticism was completely unfounded, and the two men became good friends as their adventure progressed.
Willis seemed to scramble over the rocks with the speed and agility of a mountain goat. Though TR struggled to keep up, Willis was surprised by how the bespectacled “dude” stayed with him on the rugged mountain terrain. Every now and then Roosevelt would pause and wipe the moisture from his glasses, then follow his guide with renewed enthusiasm. There seemed to be no stopping him and the hard-to-please Willis was impressed.
On the afternoon of the first day the men came upon a herd of goats. Within minutes a billy appeared and after cautiously checking for danger, wandered down to within 200 yards of the hunters.
TR raised his rifle and fired, somehow missing the goat, which bolted and pranced uphill away from the hunters. TR fired again and this time a bit of hair flew off one foreleg. Willis noticed that the goat was favoring his leg as he vanished among the rugged peaks.
The hunting party followed the blood trail until dark, which forced them back to camp. Coming down was almost as hard as going up, and TR’s disappointment seemed to cast even more darkness over the trio.
That night Merrifield nursed his sore feet while TR nursed his injured pride. Ignoring the encouragement of his fellow hunters, TR could not be consoled; he was determined to find the wounded animal.
At first light Willis and TR set off in search of the goat, while Merrifield bathed his feet in camp. They found the blood trail again, which led them to where Willis spotted a lone billy atop a rock outcrop a quarter-mile away. The gusty canyon winds would make the shot extremely difficult if not impossible, according to Willis. But TR decided to shoot anyway. To Willis’ absolute amazement, the goat took one leap and fell dead. The .45-75 bullet had smashed straight through his heart.
Once again impressed with the “dude,” Willis offered his hearty congratulations. TR could not contain his excitement and right then offered Willis a hundred-dollar bill for his expert guiding. Willis, true to form, refused the money.
When the two men reached the trophy, TR was especially pleased to see it was the goat he had wounded the previous day.
Roosevelt’s high country adventure was far from over. While Merrifield continued to nurse his sore feet, TR and Willis headed out the next day in search of a second billy. What ensued was a moment of terror they would never forget.
With the silent, sure-footed Willis leading the way, the men walked carefully in single file along a narrow, slate-covered pass that traversed the side of a high cliff. On one side was a sheer drop of some 60 feet.
The men clung to the rock wall as they sidestepped along the slippery ledge. Willis heard a sliding noise and turned to see TR tumbling headfirst into the canyon toward the sharp rocks at the bottom.
Willis felt sure TR would be killed. But as he peered over the ledge to watch his companion’s deathly fall, he was amazed to see TR hit the top of pine tree, breaking his initial fall, bounce into the branches of a second tree, and then roll into a third tree before miraculously landing on a moss-covered ledge.
“I am not hurt a bit! Wait till I find my glasses,” TR shouted up to the shocked Willis.
Amazingly, the future president – and his glasses – were unharmed.
This harrowing incident was one of many in TR’s life that ultimately led to the legend of “Roosevelt Luck.” When he returned from out West in the autumn of 1886, he had become not only an accomplished hunter, but also a complete man.