Bush 'Satisfied' With Cheney's Response "President Bush said Thursday that Vice President Dick Cheney had handled the disclosure of an accidental shooting of a hunting partner ''just fine'' and that the incident had been a ''traumatic moment'' for Mr. Cheney as well as a tragic one for the victim. Mr. Bush's comments were his first on the matter since Mr. Cheney wounded the victim, a 78-year-old lawyer, Harry M. Whittington, on a quail-hunting expedition in Texas last weekend and his first public reaction to an interview that Mr. Cheney gave about the incident on Wednesday to Fox News. The remarks came on the same day that the local sheriff's department investigating the shooting said its inquiry was closed and no charges would be filed. The president's words appeared to be an effort to tamp down widespread talk about tensions between him and Mr. Cheney. Mr. Bush's aides had made little secret all week that they wished Mr. Cheney had handled the matter differently -- in particular by disclosing it more quickly and via a more established channel than the Web site of a local newspaper in Texas. And on Wednesday, the White House signaled that Mr. Bush was sympathetic to that view. The incident was not made public for more than 18 hours. ''I thought his explanation yesterday was a powerful explanation,'' Mr. Bush told reporters in the Oval Office, speaking of Mr. Cheney's interview on Fox. ''This is a man who likes the outdoors, and he likes to hunt. And he heard a bird flush and he turned and pulled the trigger and saw his friend get wounded. And it was a deeply traumatic moment for him, and obviously it was a tragic moment for Mr. Whittington.'' The president's words also appeared aimed at trying to put to rest an issue that has consumed the White House and kept Washington in an uproar for most of the week, distracting attention from Mr. Bush's efforts to rebuild his political standing and push his agenda. ''I'm satisfied with the explanation he gave,'' Mr. Bush said twice. As Mr. Bush spoke, Mr. Cheney headed to Wyoming, his home state, to make a speech to the Legislature on Friday. Mr. Cheney was expected to mention the hunting accident in his remarks, which were scheduled before the accident. In his interview with Brit Hume of Fox, Mr. Cheney talked readily of hunting as a part of his life. ''It's brought me great pleasure over the years,'' he said. ''I love the people that I've hunted with and do hunt with; love the outdoors. It's part of my heritage, growing up in Wyoming. It's part of who I am.'' But Mr. Cheney could not say if he would continue his pastime. ''The season is ending,'' he told Mr. Hume. ''I'm going to let some time pass over it and think about the future.'' Mr. Cheney's staff members and friends say he takes at least six hunting trips a year and hunts on weekends in his new Chesapeake Bay retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The Armstrong Ranch in South Texas, where he shot Mr. Whittington, was a favorite place to hunt quail. ''Everybody forgets, Dick is from Wyoming,'' said J. Robinson West, a longtime friend of Mr. Cheney who runs an energy consulting firm in Washington. ''What do you do in Wyoming? You fish and you shoot. This is how he relaxes. He doesn't play golf. I once asked him if he wanted to go sailing, and he stared at me blankly and said, 'I've never done it.' '' Taxpayers pay for Mr. Cheney's trips, including the Secret Service protection and communications equipment that travel with him. The Secret Service would not say on Thursday what kind of precautions are taken, including whether Mr. Cheney wears a bulletproof vest or what kind of security checks are done on his hunting companions. One former White House official said, however, the Secret Service did not view Mr. Cheney's hunting trips as unusually dangerous. ''There's more concern with the president using a chainsaw at his ranch,'' said the official, who asked not to be named because he did not want to be identified speaking about sensitive White House security matters. In Texas, the Kenedy County Sheriff's Department said that it had closed its investigation into the shooting at the Armstrong Ranch and that no charges would be filed. The department also issued a detailed account of its inquiry. Sheriff Ramon Salinas III said he had learned of the incident at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, moments after it happened, in a call from Capt. Charles Kirk, who said that he had been told of it -- in a way not explained in the report -- and that he was on his way to the ranch. Eight to 10 minutes later, the sheriff said, a Secret Service agent called him to report a shooting involving Mr. Cheney. Then, the account went on, Captain Kirk called to say he had been turned back at the ranch gate by a Border Patrol agent who said ''he didn't know anything about the accident.'' Sheriff Salinas said that he then called a former sheriff who was working at the ranch, Ramiro Medellin Jr., and that Mr. Medellin said, ''This in fact is an accident.'' The sheriff said he confirmed that with another unnamed ''eyewitness'' and decided to send his chief deputy to the ranch the next morning. In his account, the chief deputy, Gilberto San Miguel Jr., said he arrived at the ranch shortly after 8 a.m. Sunday and interviewed Mr. Cheney, who described accidentally shooting Mr. Whittington from about 30 yards away. The deputy then interviewed Katharine Armstrong, one of the ranch's owners, ''who told me pretty much the same story.'' On Monday, Deputy San Miguel continued, he and a lieutenant interviewed Mr. Whittington in the hospital. According to the deputy's account, ''Mr. Whittington again reiterated that this incident was just an accident.'' Deputy San Miguel said that he subsequently visited the site of the shooting and that he collected affidavits from witnesses. Some leading medical examiners, veteran hunters and shooting experts said Thursday that the shooting might have been at much closer range than cited in the accounts, based on reports of Mr. Whittington's medical condition. Dr. Michael M. Baden, director of the Medico-Legal Investigations Unit of the New York State Police, estimated that Mr. Whittington was 15 yards from Mr. Cheney when he was shot. ''Witnesses' estimates of distances are notoriously off in such accidents,'' Dr. Baden said, adding that to determine what actually happened, a re-enactment would be needed. But Duncan MacPherson, author of the book ''Bullet Penetration,'' said it was plausible that Mr. Whittington was 30 yards away. ''The difference between 20 yards and 30 yards would be too small to probably tell any difference,'' he said."