Early on the morning of the 18th, Roosevelt set his caravan in motion for the long journey. For a hunting companion he had Merrifield and for teamster and cook he had a French Canadian named Norman Lebo, who, as Roosevelt subsequently remarked, to Lebo's indignation (for he prided himself on his scholarship), "possessed a most extraordinary stock of miscellaneous mis-information upon every conceivable subject." He was a short, stocky, bearded man, a born wanderer, who had left his family once for a week's hunting trip and remained away three years, returning at last only to depart again, after a week, for further Odyssean wanderings. "If I had the money," he had a way of saying, "no two nights would ever see me in the same bed." It was rumored that before Mrs. Lebo had permitted her errant spouse to go out of her sight, she had secured pledges from Roosevelt guaranteeing her three years' subsistence, in case the _wanderlust_ should once more seize upon her protector and provider.
Roosevelt rode ahead of the caravan, spending the first night with the Langs, who were always friendly and hospitable and full of good talk, and rejoining Merrifield and "the outfit" on the Keogh trail a few miles westward next morning. Slowly and laboriously the "prairie schooner" lumbered along the uneven route. The weather was sultry, and as they crossed the high divide which separated the Little Missouri basin from the valley of the Little Beaver they saw ahead of them the towering portents of storm. The northwest was already black, and in a space of time that seemed incredibly brief the masses of cloud boiled up and over the sky. The storm rolled toward them at furious speed, extending its wings, as it came, as though to gather in its victims.
[Illustration: Group of Bad Lands citizens. "Old man" Lebo is the second from the left, seated; to right of him is A. C. Huidekoper, whose H. T. horse-ranch was famous; beside him is Hell-Roaring Bill Jones; James Harmon is behind Huidekoper; at the right of the group (standing) is Schuyler Lebo; at the left, standing beside the Indian is Charles Mason, famous, above all, for his nickname which (with no irreverent intent) was "Whistling Jesus."]