[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, allother inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling hasbeen maintained. 

Page 222: "Theodore Roosevelt, who used to was a great reformer" hasbeen replaced by "Theodore Roosevelt, who used to be a greatreformer". 

Page 384: Part of the illustration caption was illegible. ]

 PUBLICATIONS OF THE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

 I. ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS

 COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION INC. 

 R. J. CUDDIHY Arthur W. PAGE Mark SULLIVAN E. A. Van VALKENBURG

[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt. On the round-up, 1885. ]

 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS

 BY HERMANN HAGEDORN

 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

[Illustration: Editor's arm. ]

 BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1921

 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY HERMANN HAGEDORN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 TO WILLIAM BOYCE THOMPSON CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY AND DREAMER OF DREAMS

It was still the Wild West in those days, the Far West, the West ofOwen Wister's stories and Frederic Remington's drawings, the West ofthe Indian and the buffalo-hunter, the soldier and the cowpuncher. That land of the West has gone now, "gone, gone with lost Atlantis, "gone to the isle of ghosts and of strange dead memories. It was a landof vast silent spaces, of lonely rivers, and of plains where the wildgame stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scatteredranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and of reckless riders whounmoved looked in the eyes of life or death. In that land we led afree and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under thescorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered inthe heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard roundthe cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the starswere glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in thewinter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dustburnt our faces. There were monotonous days, as we guided the trailcattle or the beef herds, hour after hour, at the slowest of walks;and minutes or hours teeming with excitement as we stopped stampedesor swam the herds across rivers treacherous with quicksands or brimmedwith running ice. We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; andwe saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses andcattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beatof hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joyof living. 

 Theodore ROOSEVELT (_Autobiography_)

PREFACE

To write any book is an adventure, but to write this book has been thekind of gay and romantic experience that makes any man who haspartaken of it a debtor forever to the Giver of Delights. Historicalresearch, contrary to popular opinion, is one of the most thrilling ofoccupations, but I question whether any biographer has ever had abetter time gathering his material than I have had. Amid the oldscenes, the old epic life of the frontier has been re-created for meby the men who were the leading actors in it. But my contact with ithas not been only vicarious. In the course of this most grateful oflabors I have myself come to know something of the life that Rooseveltknew thirty-five years ago--the hot desolation of noon in thescarred butte country; the magic of dawn and dusk when the longshadows crept across the coulees and woke them to unexpected beauty;the solitude of the prairies, that have the vastness without themalignancy of the sea. I have come to know the thrill and the dust andthe cattle-odors of the round-up; the warm companionship of theranchman's dinner-table; such profanity as I never expect to hearagain; singing and yarns and hints of the tragedy of prairie women;and, at the height of a barbecue, the appalling intrusion of death. Ihave felt in all its potency the spell which the "short-grasscountry" cast over Theodore Roosevelt; and I cannot hear the wordDakota without feeling a stirring in my blood. 

It was Mr. Roosevelt himself who gave me the impulse to write thisbook, and it was the letters of introduction which he wrote early in1918 which made it possible for me to secure the friendly interest ofthe men who knew most about his life on the ranch and the range. "Ifyou want to know what I was like when I had bark on, " he said, "youought to talk to Bill Sewall and Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris and hisbrother Joe. " I was writing a book about him for boys at the time, andagain and again he said, "I want you to go out to Dakota!" On oneoccasion I referred to his life in the Bad Lands as "a kind of idyl. ""That's it!" he exclaimed. "That's it! That's exactly what it was!"

The wish he had expressed, living, became in a sense a command afterhe was dead. The letters he had given me unsealed the lips of the menwho, for thirty-five years, had steadily refused to reveal to"newspaper fellers" the intimate story of the romantic life they hadshared with the man who became President of the United States. FromDickinson, North Dakota, came Sylvane Ferris; from Terry, Montana, came "Joe" Ferris; from Somers, Montana, came "Bill" Merrifield, and, on their old stamping-ground along the Little Missouri, unfolded, bitby bit, the story of the four years of Roosevelt's active ranchinglife. In the deserted bar-room of the old "Metropolitan Hotel" atMedora (rechristened the "Rough Riders"); on the ruins of the MalteseCross cabin and under the murmuring cottonwoods at Elkhorn, they spuntheir joyous yarns. Apart from what they had to tell, it was worthtraveling two thirds across the Continent to come to know thesefigures of an heroic age; and to sit at Sylvane Ferris's side as hedrove his Overland along the trails of the Bad Lands and through thequicksands of the Little Missouri, was in itself not an insignificantadventure. Mrs. Margaret Roberts, at Dickinson, had her own stories totell; and in the wilderness forty miles west of Lake McDonald, on theIdaho border, John Reuter, known to Roosevelt as "Dutch Wannigan, "told, as no one else could, of the time he was nearly killed by theMarquis de Mores. A year later it was Schuyler Lebo who guided me in afurther search for material, fifty miles south from Medora bybuckboard through the wild, fantastic beauty of the Bad Lands. I doubtif there is any one I missed who had anything to tell of Roosevelt. 

So far as any facts relating to Roosevelt or to the Western frontiercan ever be described as "cold, " it is a narrative of cold facts whichI have attempted to tell in this book. The truth, in this case, isromantic enough and needs no embellishment. I have made every effortto verify my narrative, but, to some extent, I have had to depend, inevitably, on the character of the men and women who gave me my data, as every historical writer must who deals not with documents (whichmay, of course, themselves be mendacious), but with what is, in asense, "raw material. " One highly dramatic story, dealing withRoosevelt's defiance of a certain desperate character, which has atdifferent times during the past twenty-five years been printed inleading newspapers and periodicals, told always by the same writer, Ihave had to reject because I could find no verification of it, thoughI think it may well be true. 

In weaving my material into a connected narrative I have consciouslydeparted from fact in only one respect. Certain names--a half-dozenor so in all--are fictitious. In certain cases, in which the story Ihad to tell might give needless offense to the actors in it stillsurviving, or to their children, and in which I was consequentlyconfronted by the alternative of rejecting the story in question orchanging the names, I chose the latter course without hesitation. Itis quite unessential, for instance, what the real name was of the ladyknown in this book as "Mrs. Cummins"; but her story is an importantelement in the narrative. To those who may recognize themselves underthe light veil I have thrown over their portraits, and may feelgrieved, I can only say that, inasmuch as they were inhabitants of theBad Lands when Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores shapedtheir destinies there for good or ill, they became historical figuresand must take their chances at the judgment seat of posterity withNebuchadnezzar and Cæsar and St. Augustine and Calamity Jane. 

The Northwestern newspapers of the middle eighties contain muchvaluable material, not only about the Marquis and his romanticenterprises, which greatly interested the public, but about Roosevelthimself. The files of the _Press_ of Dickinson, North Dakota, and the_Pioneer_ of Mandan, have proved especially useful, though scarcelymore useful than those of the Bismarck _Tribune_, the Minneapolis_Journal_, and the _Dispatch_ and _Pioneer Press_ of St. Paul. The cutof Roosevelt's cattle-brands, printed on the jacket, is reproducedfrom the _Stockgrowers' Journal_ of Miles City. I have sought high andlow for copies of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, published in Medora, butonly one copy--Joe Ferris's--has come to light. "'Bad-man'Finnegan, " it relates among other things, "is serving time in theBismarck penitentiary for stealing Theodore Roosevelt's boat. " Butthat is a part of the story; and this is only a Preface. 

Colonel Roosevelt's own books, notably "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, ""Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, " "The Wilderness Hunter, " and the"Autobiography, " have furnished me an important part of my material, giving me minute details of his hunting experiences which I could havesecured nowhere else; and I am indebted to the publishers, Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, and the CenturyCompany, for permission to use them. I am indebted to the followingpublishers, likewise, for permission to reprint certain verses aschapter headings: Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company ("Riders of theStars, " by Henry Herbert Knibbs, and "Songs of Men, " edited by RobertFrothingham); the Macmillan Company ("Cowboy Songs, " edited byProfessor John A. Lomax); and Mr. Richard G. Badger ("Sun and SaddleLeather, " by Badger Clark). I am especially indebted to Mr. Roosevelt's sisters, Mrs. W. S. Cowles and Mrs. Douglas Robinson, andto the Honorable Henry Cabot Lodge for the opportunity to examine theunpublished letters of Colonel Roosevelt in their possession and toreprint excerpts from them. Through the courtesy of Mr. Clarence L. Hay I have been able to print a part of an extraordinary letterwritten by President Roosevelt to Secretary Hay in 1903; through thecourtesy of Messrs. Harper and Brothers I have been permitted to makeuse of material in "Bill Sewall's story of T. R. , " by William W. Sewall, and in "The Boys' Life of Theodore Roosevelt. "

Partly from books and letters, partly from documents and oldnewspapers, I have gathered bit by bit the story of Roosevelt's lifeas a ranchman; but my main sources of material have been the men andwomen (scattered now literally from Maine to the State of Washington)who were Roosevelt's companions and friends. It is difficult toexpress adequately my gratitude to them for their unfailinghelpfulness; their willingness to let themselves be quizzed, hourafter hour, and to answer, in some cases, a very drumfire ofimportunate letters; above all for their resistance, to what must attimes have been an almost overpowering temptation, to "string thetenderfoot. " They took my inquisition with grave seriousness and gaveme what they had without reserve and without elaboration. 

There are five men to whom I am peculiarly indebted: to Mr. SylvanusM. Ferris and Mr. A. W. Merrifield, who were Roosevelt'sranch-partners at the Maltese Cross Ranch, and to Mr. William W. Sewall, of Island Falls, Maine, who was his foreman at Elkhorn; to Mr. Lincoln A. Lang, of Philadelphia, who, having the seeing eye, hashelped me more than any one else to visualize the men and women whoplayed the prominent parts in the life of Medora; and to Mr. A. T. Packard, of Chicago, founder and editor of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, whotold me much of the efforts to bring law and order into BillingsCounty. To Mr. Joseph A. Ferris and Mrs. Ferris; to Mr. William T. Dantz, of Vineland, New Jersey; to Mrs. Margaret Roberts and Dr. Victor H. Stickney, both of Dickinson, North Dakota; to Mr. GeorgeMyers, of Townsend, Montana; to Mr. John Reuter, to Mr. John C. Fisher, of Vancouver, British Columbia, and to Mr. John Willis, ofGlasgow, Montana, Roosevelt's companion of many hunts, I am indebtedto a scarcely less degree. Others who gave me important assistancewere Mr. Howard Eaton, of Wolf, Wyoming, and Mr. "Pete" Pellessier ofSheridan, Wyoming; Mr. James Harmon, Mr. Oren Kendley, Mr. SchuylerLebo, and Mr. William McCarty, of Medora, North Dakota; Mr. William G. Lang, of Baker, Montana; Mr. W. H. Fortier, of Spokane, Washington;Mr. Edward A. Allen and Mr. George F. Will, of Bismarck, NorthDakota; Mr. J. B. Brubaker, of Terry; Mr. Laton A. Huffman and Mr. C. W. Butler, of Miles City, Montana; Dr. Alexander Lambert, of New YorkCity; Dr. Herman Haupt, of Setauket, New York; the Reverend EdgarHaupt, of St. Paul, Minnesota; Mr. Alfred White, of Dickinson; Mr. Dwight Smith, of Chicago; Mrs. Granville Stuart, of Grantsdale, Montana; Mr. Frank B. Linderman, of Somers, Montana; Mr. C. R. Greer, of Hamilton, Ohio; Mrs. George Sarchet, of New England, South Dakota;and especially, my secretary, Miss Gisela Westhoff. 

I have enjoyed the writing-man's rarest privilege--the assistance ofwise and friendly critics, notably Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, ofHarvard; President John Grier Hibben, of Princeton; and ProfessorWilliam A. Dunning, of Columbia, who generously consented to serve asa committee of the Roosevelt Memorial Association to examine mymanuscript; and Dr. John A. Lester, of the Hill School, who has readthe proof and given me valuable suggestions. 

To all these friendly helpers my gratitude is deep. My warmest thanks, however, are due Mr. William Boyce Thompson, President of theRoosevelt Memorial Association, whose quick imagination and effectiveinterest made possible the collection of the material under theauspices of the Association. 

 H. H. FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT _June 20, 1921_

CONTENTS

 Introduction . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Xxv

 Chapter I. Arrival -- Little Missouri -- A game country -- Joe Ferris -- The trail to Chimney Butte -- The three Canadians -- The buckskin mare . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 3

 Chapter II. Gregor Lang -- The Vine family -- The buffalo hunt -- The argonauts -- Politics -- The passing of the buffalo -- Pursuit -- The charge of the buffalo -- Broken slumbers -- Failure -- "It's dogged that does it" -- Roosevelt makes a decision -- He acquires two partners -- He kills his buffalo . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 18

 Chapter III. Jake Maunders -- The "bad men" -- Archie the precocious -- County organization -- The graces of the wicked . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 47

 Chapter IV. Marquis de Mores -- Founding of Medora -- The machinations of Maunders result in bloodshed -- The boom begins -- The Marquis in business -- Roosevelt returns East -- The Marquis's idea -- Packard -- Frank Vine's little joke -- Medora blossoms forth -- The Marquis has a new dream -- Joe Ferris acquires a store -- Roosevelt meets disaster -- Invasion -- Roosevelt turns West . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 58

 Chapter V. "I will not be dictated to!" -- George Myers -- Mrs. Maddox -- The Maltese Cross -- On the round-up -- "Hasten forward quickly there!" -- Trying out the tenderfoot -- A letter to "Bamie" -- The emerald biscuits . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 89

 Chapter VI. The neighbors -- Mrs. Roberts -- Hell-Roaring Bill Jones -- A good man for "sassing" -- The master of Medora -- The Marquis's stage-line -- The road to Deadwood -- The Marquis finds a manager . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 108

 Chapter VII. The gayety of Medora -- Holocaust -- Influence of the cowboy -- Moulding public opinion -- The "Bastile" -- The mass meeting -- The thieves -- The underground railway -- Helplessness of the righteous -- Granville Stuart -- The three argonauts . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 123

 Chapter VIII. The new ranch -- The bully at Mingusville -- The end of the bully -- Dakota discovers Roosevelt -- Stuart's vigilantes -- Sewall and Dow -- Mrs. Lang -- Sewall speaks his mind -- Enter the Marquis . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 148

 Chapter IX. "Dutch Wannigan" -- Political sirens -- "Able to face anything" . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 167

 Chapter X. The start for the Big Horns -- Roosevelt writes home -- A letter to Lodge -- Indians -- Camp in the mountains -- Roosevelt gets his bear . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 175

 Chapter XI. Rumblings from the Marquis -- The "stranglers" -- The band of "Flopping Bill" -- Fifteen marked men -- Maunders the discreet -- Sewall receives callers . .. .. .. .. .. . 189

 Chapter XII. "Medicine Buttes" -- Roosevelt returns to Elkhorn -- Maunders threatens Roosevelt -- Packard's stage-line -- The dress rehearsal -- Another bubble bursts . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 202

 Chapter XIII. Bleak camping -- Roosevelt "starts a reform" -- The deputy marshal -- Winter activities -- Breaking broncos -- A tenderfoot holds his own -- Wild country -- Mountain sheep -- The stockmen's association . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 215

 Chapter XIV. Winter misery -- Return to Medora -- Illness and recovery -- Mingusville -- "He's drunk and on the shoot" -- The seizure of Bill . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 235

 Chapter XV. The spring of 1885 -- Swimming the Little Missouri -- Ranching companions -- Golden expectations -- The boss of the Maltese Cross -- The buttermilk -- Hospitality at Yule -- Lang's love of debate -- Nitch comes to dine . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 248

 Chapter XVI. Cattle torture -- Trailing cattle -- Roosevelt's horsemanship -- Gentling the Devil -- The spring round-up -- The first encampment -- The day's work -- Diversions -- Profanity -- "Fight or be friends" . .. .. .. .. .. . 266

 Chapter XVII. The "mean" horse -- Ben Butler -- Dr. Stickney -- Dinner with Mrs. Cummins -- The stampede -- Roping an earl's son -- A letter to Lodge -- Sylvane's adventure -- Law . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 286

 Chapter XVIII. Sewall's skepticism -- Interview at St. Paul -- The womenfolks -- The Elkhorn "Outfit" -- The Wadsworths' dog . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 305

 Chapter XIX. Medora -- "Styles in the Bad Lands" -- The coming of law -- The preachers -- Packard's parson -- Johnny O'Hara . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 318

 Chapter XX. De Mores the undaunted -- Genealogy of the Marquis -- Roosevelt and the Marquis -- Hostility -- The first clash -- Indictment of the Marquis -- The Marquis's trial -- The Marquis sees red -- Peace . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 331

 Chapter XXI. Red man and white -- Roosevelt's adventure -- Good Indian, dead Indian -- Prairie fires -- Sewall delivers a lecture -- The testing of Mrs. Joe -- Mrs. Joe takes hold . .. 350

 Chapter XXII. The theft of the boat -- Redhead Finnegan -- Preparations for pursuit -- Departure -- "Hands up!" -- Capture of the thieves -- Marooned -- Cross country to jail -- Arrival in Dickinson -- "The only damn fool" . .. .. .. .. .. .. 365

 Chapter XXIII. Medora's first election -- The celebration -- Miles City meeting -- Roosevelt's cattle prospects -- "His upper lip is stiff" -- Completing "Benton" -- The summer of 1886 -- Influence over cowboys -- "A Big Day" -- Oratory -- Roosevelt on Americanism -- "You will be President" . .. .. .. .. 387

 Chapter XXIV. A troop of Rough Riders -- Premonitions of trouble -- The hold-up -- The Coeur d'Alênes -- Hunting white goats -- John Willis -- Elkhorn breaks up -- Facing east . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 412

 Chapter XXV. The bad winter -- The first blizzard -- Destruction of the cattle -- The spring flood -- The boneyard . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 429

 Chapter XXVI. Roosevelt's losses -- Morrill _vs. _ Myers -- Roosevelt takes a hand -- A country of ruins -- New schemes of the Marquis -- The fading of Medora . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 440

 Chapter XXVII. Bill Jones -- Old friends -- Seth Bullock -- Death of the Marquis -- Roosevelt's progress -- Return as Governor -- Medora celebrates -- The "cowboy bunch" -- Return as President -- Death of Bill Jones -- The Bad Lands to-day . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 453

 Appendix . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 477

 Index . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 483

ILLUSTRATIONS

 Theodore Roosevelt on the Round-up, 1885 . .. .. .. .. . _Frontispiece_ Photograph by Ingersoll, Buffalo, Minnesota. 

 Maltese Cross Ranch-House . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 16

 View from the Door of the Ranch-House . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 16

 The Prairie at the Edge of the Bad Lands . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 32 Photograph by Holmboe, Bismarck, N. D. 

 "Broken Country" . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 32 Photograph by Holmboe. 

 Roosevelt in 1883 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 48

 Medora in the Winter of 1883-84 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 48

 "Dutch Wannigan" and Frank O'Donald . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 64

 Scene of the Killing of Riley Luffsey . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 64

 Antoine de Vallombrosa, Marquis de Mores . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 76 By courtesy of L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Montana. 

 Sylvane Ferris . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 92

 A. W. Merrifield . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 92

 The Maltese Cross Ranch-House as it was when Roosevelt lived in it . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 92 Photograph by C. R. Greer, Hamilton, Ohio. 

 The Ford of the Little Missouri near the Maltese Cross . .. .. .. 108

 A. T. Packard . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 130

 Office of the "Bad Lands Cowboy" . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 130

 The Little Missouri just above Elkhorn . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 150

 Elkhorn Bottom . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 164

 A Group of Bad Lands Citizens . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 176

 Roosevelt's Brands . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 190 From the _Stockgrowers Journal_, Miles City. 

 Fantastic Formation at Medicine Buttes . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 202

 Medicine Buttes . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 202

 Poster of the Marquis de Mores's Deadwood Stage-Line . .. .. .. .. 212 By courtesy of the North Dakota Historical Society. 

 Theodore Roosevelt (1884) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 236

 Elkhorn Ranch Buildings from the River . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 252 Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt

 Gregor Lang . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 262

 Mrs. Lang . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 262

 The Maltese Cross "Outfit" . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 276

 The Maltese Cross "Chuck-Wagon" . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 276

 The Scene of the Stampede . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 296

 Elkhorn Ranch-House . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 310 Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt. 

 Site of Elkhorn (1919) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 310

 Hell-Roaring Bill Jones . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 320

 Bill Williams's Saloon (1919) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 320

 Hotel de Mores . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 332

 The Abattoir of the Marquis de Mores . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 332

 The Bad Lands near Medora . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 346

 Joseph A. Ferris . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 360

 Joe Ferris's Store . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 360

 Wilmot Dow and Theodore Roosevelt (1886) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 370

 The Piazza at Elkhorn . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 370 Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt. 

 Dow and Sewall in the Boat . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 384 Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt. 

 Medora in 1919 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 402

 Ferris and Merrifield on the Ruins of the Shack at Elkhorn . .. 424

 Corrals at Elkhorn . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 424 Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt. 

 George Myers . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 442

 The Little Missouri at Elkhorn . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 442

 Lincoln Lang . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 456

 William T. Dantz . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 456

 Margaret Roberts . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 456

 "Dutch Wannigan" . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 456

 Joe and Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield (1919) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 472

 Rough Riders Hotel . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 472

Photographs of Bad Lands scenes, unless otherwise indicated, were madeby the author. 

The end-paper map is from a drawing made for the book by Lincoln A. Lang. The town of Mingusville is indicated on it under its presentname--Wibaux. 

INTRODUCTION

The trail-tracer of Theodore Roosevelt's frontier life has given themembers of this Advisory Committee of Three of the Roosevelt MemorialAssociation the opportunity of a first reading of his book. The dutyof considering the manuscript and making suggestions has been mergedin the pleasure of the revealing account of that young man who fortyyears ago founded a personal College of the Plains in raw Dakota. 

Three are the essentials of the good biographer--historic sense, common sense, and human sense. To the mind of the Committee, Mr. Hagedorn has put into service all three of these senses. Every writerof history must make himself an explorer in the materials out of whichhe is to build. To the usual outfit of printed matter, public records, and private papers, Mr. Hagedorn has added an unexpected wealth ofpersonal memories from those who were part of Roosevelt's first greatadventure in life. The book is a thorough-going historicalinvestigation into both familiar and remote sources. 

The common sense of the work is in its choice of the things thatcounted in the experience of the ranchman, hunter, and citizen of atumultuous commonwealth. All the essential facts are here, and alsothe incidents which gave them life. Even apart from the centralfigure, the book reconstructs one of the most fascinating phases ofAmerican history. 

That is not all that is expected by the host of Roosevelt's friends. They want the man--the young Harvard graduate and New York clubman whosought the broader horizon of the Far West in making, and from it drewa knowledge of his kind which became the bed-rock of his later career. The writer's personal affection for and understanding of Roosevelthave illuminated the whole story. He paints a true portrait of anextraordinary man in a picturesque setting. 

 William A. DUNNING Albert BUSHNELL HART John GRIER HIBBEN

ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS

My friends, I never can sufficiently express the obligations I amunder to the territory of Dakota, for it was here that I lived anumber of years in a ranch house in the cattle country, and I regardmy experience during those years, when I lived and worked with my ownfellow ranchmen on what was then the frontier, as the most importanteducational asset of all my life. It is a mighty good thing to knowmen, not from looking at them, but from having been one of them. Whenyou have worked with them, when you have lived with them, you do nothave to wonder how they feel, because you feel it yourself. Every nowand then I am amused when newspapers in the East--perhaps, I may say, not always friendly to me--having prophesied that I was dead wrong ona certain issue, and then finding out that I am right, express acidwonder how I am able to divine how people are thinking. Well, sometimes I don't and sometimes I do; but when I do, it comes simplyfrom the fact that this is the way I am thinking myself. I know howthe man that works with his hands and the man on the ranch arethinking, because I have been there and I am thinking that way myself. It is not that I divine the way they are thinking, but that I thinkthe same way. 

 Theodore ROOSEVELT Speech at Sioux Falls _September 3, 1910_. 

ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS

I

 Rainy dark or firelight, bacon rind or pie, Livin' is a luxury that don't come high; Oh, be happy and onruly while our years and luck allow, For we all must die or marry less than forty years from now!

 Badger CLARK

The train rumbled across three hundred feet of trestle and came to astop. A young man, slender, not over-tall, with spectacles and amoustache, descended the steps. If he expected that his foot, gropingbelow the bottom step in the blackness for something to land on, wouldfind a platform, he was doomed to disappointment. The "depot" atLittle Missouri did not boast a platform. The young man pulled hisduffle-bag and gun-case down the steps; somebody waved a lantern; thetrain stirred, gained momentum, and was gone, having accomplished itsimmediate mission, which was to deposit a New York "dude, " politicianand would-be hunter, named Theodore Roosevelt, in the Bad Lands ofDakota. 

The time was three o'clock of a cool, September morning, and theplace, in the language of the Bad Lands, was "dark as the inside of acaow. " If the traveler from afar had desired illumination and areception committee, he should have set his arrival not for September7th, but for September 6th. Twenty-four hours previous, it happened, the citizens of Little Missouri had, in honor of a distinguished partywhich was on its way westward to celebrate the completion of the road, amply anticipated any passion for entertainment which the passengerson the Overland might have possessed. As the engine came to a stop, adeafening yell pierced the night, punctuated with pistol-shots. Cautious investigation revealed figures dancing wildly around abonfire; and the passengers remembered the worst they had ever heardabout Indians. The flames shot upward, setting the shadowsfantastically leaping up the precipitous bluffs and among the weirdpetrifactions of a devil's nightmare that rimmed the circle of flaringlight. A man with a gun in his hand climbed aboard the train and madehis way to the dining-car, yelling for "cow-grease, " and demanding, atthe least, a ham-bone. It took the burliest of his comrades totransport the obstreperous one back to solid earth just as the trainmoved out. 

There was nothing so theatrical awaiting Theodore Roosevelt. The"depot" was deserted. Roosevelt dragged his belongings through thesagebrush toward a huge black building looming northeastward throughthe night, and hammered on the door until the proprietor appeared, muttering curses. 

The face that Roosevelt saw, in the light of a smoky lantern, was notone to inspire confidence in a tenderfoot on a dark night. Thefeatures were those of a man who might have been drinking, withinconsiderable interruptions, for a very long time. He was short andstout and choleric, with a wiry moustache under a red nose; and seemedto be distinctly under the impression that Roosevelt had donesomething for which he should apologize. 

He led the way upstairs. Fourteen beds were scattered about the loftwhich was the second story of the Pyramid Park Hotel, and which, Roosevelt heard subsequently, was known as the "bull-pen. " One wasunoccupied. He accepted it without a murmur. 

What the thirteen hardened characters who were his roommates said nextmorning, when they discovered the "Eastern punkin-lily" which hadblossomed in their midst, is lost to history. It was unquestionablyfrank, profane, and unwashed. He was, in fact, not a sight to awakensympathy in the minds of such inhabitants as Little Missouripossessed. He had just recovered from an attack of cholera morbus, andthough he had written his mother from Chicago that he was already"feeling like a fighting-cock, " the marks of his illness were still onhis face. Besides, he wore glasses, which, as he later discovered, were considered in the Bad Lands as a sign of a "defective moralcharacter. "

It was a world of strange and awful beauty into which Rooseveltstepped as he emerged from the dinginess of the ramshackle hotel intothe crisp autumn morning. Before him lay a dusty, sagebrush flatwalled in on three sides by scarred and precipitous clay buttes. Atrickle of sluggish water in a wide bed, partly sand and partly bakedgumbo, oozed beneath steep banks at his back, swung sharply westward, and gave the flat on the north a fringe of dusty-looking cottonwoods, thirstily drinking the only source of moisture the country seemed toafford. Directly across the river, beyond another oval-shaped piece ofbottom-land, rose a steep bluff, deeply shadowed against the east, andsouth of it stretched in endless succession the seamed ranges andfantastic turrets and cupolas and flying buttresses of the Bad Lands. 

It was a region of weird shapes garbed in barbaric colors, gray-olivestriped with brown, lavender striped with black, chalk pinnaclescapped with flaming scarlet. French-Canadian _voyageurs_, a centuryprevious, finding the weather-washed ravines wicked to travel through, spoke of them as _mauvaises terres pour traverser_, and the nameclung. The whole region, it was said, had once been the bed of a greatlake, holding in its lap the rich clays and loams which the rainscarried down into it. The passing of ages brought vegetation, and thepassing of other ages turned that vegetation into coal. Other depositssettled over the coal. At last this vast lake found an outlet in theMissouri. The wear and wash of the waters cut in time through theclay, the coal, and the friable limestone of succeeding deposits, creating ten thousand watercourses bordered by precipitous bluffs andbuttes, which every storm gashed and furrowed anew. On the tops ofthe flat buttes was rich soil and in countless pleasant valleys weregreen pastures, but there were regions where for miles only sagebrushand stunted cedars lived a starved existence. Bad lands they were, forman or beast, and Bad Lands they remained. 

The "town" of Little Missouri consisted of a group of primitivebuildings scattered about the shack which did duty as a railroadstation. The Pyramid Park Hotel stood immediately north of the tracks;beside it stood the one-story palace of sin of which one, who shall, for the purposes of this story, be known as Bill Williams, was theowner, and one who shall be known as Jess Hogue, the evil genius. South of the track a comical, naïve Swede named Johnny Nelson kept astore when he was not courting Katie, the hired girl in Mrs. McGeeney's boarding-house next door, or gambling away his receiptsunder Hogue's crafty guidance. Directly to the east, on the brink ofthe river, the railroad section-foreman, Fitzgerald, had a shack and awife who quarreled unceasingly with her neighbor, Mrs. McGeeney. At acorresponding place on the other side of the track, a villainousgun-fighter named Maunders lived (as far as possible) by hisneighbors' toil. A quarter of a mile west of him, in a grove ofcottonwood trees, stood a group of gray, log buildings known as the"cantonment, " where a handful of soldiers had been quartered under amajor named Coomba, to guard the construction crews on the railroadfrom the attacks of predatory Indians seeking game in their ancienthunting-grounds. A few huts in the sagebrush, a half-dozen miners'shacks under the butte to the south, and one or two rather pretentiousframe houses in process of construction completed what was LittleMissouri; but Little Missouri was not the only outpost of civilizationat this junction of the railroad and the winding, treacherous river. On the eastern bank, on the flat under the bluff that six monthsprevious had been a paradise for jackrabbits, a few houses and a fewmen were attempting to prove to the world, amid a chorus of hammers, that they constituted a town and had a future. The settlement calleditself Medora. The air was full of vague but wonderful stories of aFrench marquis who was building it and who owned it, body and soul. 

Roosevelt had originally been turned in the direction of the Bad Landsby a letter in one of the New York papers by a man from Pittsburghnamed Howard Eaton and the corroborative enthusiasm of a high-spiritednaval officer named Gorringe, whose appeals for an adequate navybrought Roosevelt exuberantly to his side. Gorringe was a man of wideinterests and abilities, who managed, to a degree mysterious to alayman, to combine his naval activities with the work of a consultingengineer, the promotion of a shipyard, and the formation of asyndicate to carry on a cattle business in Dakota. He had gainedinternational notice by his skill in bringing the obelisk known as"Cleopatra's Needle" from Alexandria to New York, and had six monthsprevious flared before the public in front-page headlines by reason ofa sharp controversy with the Secretary of the Navy, which had resultedin Gorringe's resignation. 

Roosevelt had said that he wanted to shoot buffalo while there werestill buffalo left to shoot, and Gorringe had suggested that he go toLittle Missouri. That villainous gateway to the Bad Lands was, itseems, the headquarters for a motley collection of guides and hunters, some of them experts, [1] the majority of them frauds, who wereaccustomed to take tourists and sportsmen for a fat price into theheart of the fantastic and savage country. The region was noted forgame. It had been a great winter range for buffalo; and elk, mountain-sheep, blacktail and whitetail deer, antelope and beaver wereplentiful; now and then even an occasional bear strayed to the river'sedge from God knows whence. Jake Maunders, with his sinister face, wasthe center of information for tourists, steering the visitor in thedirection of game by day and of Bill Williams, Jess Hogue, and theircrew of gamblers and confidence men by night. Gorringe had planned togo with Roosevelt himself, but at the last moment had been forced togive up the trip. He advised Roosevelt to let one of the menrepresenting his own interests find him a guide, especially theVines, father and son. 

 [Footnote 1: Roosevelt tells, in his _Hunting Trips of a Ranchman_, of the most notable of these, a former scout and Indian fighter named "Vic" Smith, whose exploits were prodigious. ]

Roosevelt found that Vine, the father, was none other than the crustyold party who had reluctantly admitted him at three o'clock thatmorning to the Pyramid Park Hotel. The Captain, as he was called, refused to admit that he knew any one who would undertake theungrateful business of "trundling a tenderfoot" on a buffalo hunt; andsuggested that Roosevelt consult his son Frank. 

Frank Vine turned out to be far less savage than his father, but quiteas bibulous, a rotund hail-fellow-well-met, oily as an Esquimau, withround, twinkling eyes and a reservoir of questionable stories which hetapped on the slightest provocation. The guidebook called him "theinnkeeper, " which has a romantic connotation not altogether true tothe hard facts of Frank's hostelry, and spoke of him as "a jolly, fat, rosy-cheeked young man, brimming over with animal spirits. " Hehabitually wore a bright crimson mackinaw shirt, tied at the neck witha gaudy silk handkerchief, and fringed buckskin trousers, whichRoosevelt, who had a weakness for "dressing up, " no doubt envied him. He was, it seemed, the most obliging soul in the world, beingperfectly willing to do anything for anybody at any time except to behonest, to be sober, or to work; and agreed to find Roosevelt a guide, suggesting that Joe Ferris, who was barn superintendent for him at theCantonment and occasionally served as a guide for tourists who cameto see "Pyramid Park, " might be persuaded to find him a buffalo. 

Frank guided his "tenderfoot" to the Post store, of which he wasmanager. It was a long log building, one fourth used for trading andthe rest for storage. Single window lights, set into the wall here andthere, gave the place the air of perpetual dusk which, it was rumored, was altogether necessary to cloak Frank's peculiar business methods. 

They found Joe Ferris in the store. That individual turned out to beas harmless a looking being as any "down-East" farmer--a short, stockily built young fellow of Roosevelt's own age, with a moustachethat drooped and a friendly pair of eyes. He did not accept thesuggestion that he take Roosevelt on a buffalo hunt, without debate. The "dude" from the East did not, in fact, look at first sight asthough he would be of much comfort on a hunt. His large, round glassesgave him a studious look that to a frontiersman was ominous. JoeFerris agreed at last to help the tenderfoot find a buffalo, but heagreed with reluctance and the deepest misgivings. 

Ferris and Frank Vine, talking the matter over, decided that the campof Gregor Lang on Little Cannonball Creek fifty miles up the river, was the logical place to use as headquarters for the hunt. GregorLang, it happened, had just left town homeward bound with a wagon-loadof supplies. He was a Scotchman, who had been a prosperous distillerin Ireland, until in a luckless moment the wife of his employer hadcome to the conclusion that it was wicked to manufacture a productwhich, when taken in sufficient quantities, was instrumental insending people to hell; and had prevailed on her husband to close thedistillery. What Frank Vine said in describing Gregor Lang toRoosevelt is lost to history. Frank had his own reason for not lovingLang. 

Ferris had a brother Sylvane, who was living with his partner, A. W. Merrifield, in a cabin seven or eight miles south of Little Missouri, and suggested that they spend the night with him. Late that afternoon, Joe and his buckboard, laden to overflowing, picked Roosevelt up atthe hotel and started for the ford a hundred yards north of thetrestle. On the brink of the bluff they stopped. The hammer ofRoosevelt's Winchester was broken. In Ferris's opinion, moreover, theWinchester itself was too light for buffalo, and Joe thought it mightbe a good scheme to borrow a hammer and a buffalo-gun from JakeMaunders. 

Jake was at home. He was not a reassuring person to meet, nor one ofwhom a cautious man would care to ask many favors. His face wasvillainous and did not pretend to be anything else. He was glad tolend the hammer and the gun, he said. 

September days had a way of being baking hot along the LittleMissouri, and even in the late afternoon the air was usually like ablast from a furnace. But the country which appeared stark anddreadful under the straight noon sun, at dusk took on a magic moreenticing, it seemed, because it grew out of such forbiddingdesolation. The buttes, protruding like buttresses from the rangesthat bordered the river, threw lengthening shadows across the grassydraws. Each gnarled cedar in the ravines took on color andpersonality. The blue of the sky grew soft and deep. 

They climbed to the top of a butte where the road passed between graycliffs, then steeply down on the other side into the cool greenness ofa timbered bottom where the grass was high underfoot and thecottonwoods murmured and twinkled overhead. They passed a logranch-house known as the "Custer Trail, " in memory of the ill-fatedexpedition which had camped in the adjacent flat seven years before. Howard Eaton and his brothers lived there and kept open house for acontinuous stream of Eastern sportsmen. A mile beyond, they forded theriver; a quarter-mile farther on, they forded it again, passed througha belt of cottonwoods into a level valley where the buttes receded, leaving a wide stretch of bottom-lands dominated by a solitary peakknown as Chimney Butte, and drew up in front of a log cabin. 

Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield were there and greeted Rooseveltwithout noticeable enthusiasm. They admitted later that they thoughthe was "just another Easterner, " and they did not like his glasses atall. They were both lithe, slender young fellows, wiry and burnt bythe sun, Sylvane twenty-four or thereabouts, Merrifield four years hissenior. Sylvane was shy with a boyish shyness that had a way ofslipping into good-natured grins; Merrifield, the shrewder and moremature of the two, was by nature reserved and reticent. They did nothave much to say to the "dude" from New York until supper in thedingy, one-room cabin of cottonwood logs, set on end, gave way tocards, and in the excitement of "Old Sledge" the ice began to break. Asudden fierce squawking from the direction of the chicken-shed, abutting the cabin on the west, broke up the game and whateverrestraint remained; for they all piled out of the house together, hunting the bobcat which had raided the roost. They did not find thebobcat, but all sense of strangeness was gone when they returned tothe house, and settling down on bunks and boxes opened their lives toeach other. 

The Ferrises and Merrifield were Canadians who had drifted west fromtheir home in New Brunswick and, coming out to the Dakota frontier twoyears previous because the Northern Pacific Railroad carried emigrantswestward for nothing, had remained there because the return journeycost five cents a mile. They worked the first summer as section hands. Then, in the autumn, being backwoodsmen, they took a contract to cutcordwood, and all that winter worked together up the river at SawmillBottom, cutting timber. But Merrifield was an inveterate and skillfulhunter, and while Joe took to doing odd jobs, and Sylvane took todriving mules at the Cantonment, Merrifield scoured the prairie forbuffalo and antelope and crept through the underbrush of countlesscoulees for deer. For two years he furnished the Northern Pacificdining-cars with venison at five cents a pound. He was a sure shot, absolutely fearless, and with a debonair gayety that found occasionalexpression in odd pranks. Once, riding through the prairie near therailroad, and being thirsty and not relishing a drink of the alkaliwater of the Little Missouri, he flagged an express with his redhandkerchief, stepped aboard, helped himself to ice-water, and rodeoff again, to the speechless indignation of the conductor. 

The three men had prospered in a small way, and while Joe turnedbanker and recklessly loaned the attractive but unstable Johnny Nelsona hundred dollars to help him to his feet, Sylvane and Merrifieldbought a few horses and a few head of cattle, took on shares a hundredand fifty more, belonging to an old reprobate of a ranchman namedWadsworth and a partner of his named Halley, and, under the shadow ofthe bold peak that was a landmark for miles around, started a ranchwhich they called the "Chimney Butte, " and every one else called, after their brand, the "Maltese Cross. " A man named Bly who had kept ahotel in Bismarck, at a time when Bismarck was wild, and had driftedwest with the railroad, was, that season, cutting logs for ties ahundred and fifty miles south in the Short Pine Hills. He attemptedto float the timber down the river, with results disastrous to hisenterprise, but beneficial to the boys at Chimney Butte. A quantity oflogs perfectly adapted for building purposes stacked themselves at abend not an eighth of a mile from the center of their range. The boysset them on end, stockade-fashion, packed the chinks, threw on a mudroof, and called it "home. "

Lang's cow-camp, which was to be the starting-point for the buffalohunt, was situated some forty-five miles to the south, in theneighborhood of Pretty Buttes. Merrifield and the Ferrises had spentsome months there the previous winter, staying with a half-breed namedO'Donald and a German named Jack Reuter, known to the countryside as"Dutch Wannigan, " who had built the rough log cabin and used it astheir headquarters. Buffalo at that time had been plentiful there, andthe three Canadians had shot them afoot and on horseback, now and thenteasing one of the lumbering hulks into charging, for the excitementof the "close shave" the maddened beast would provide. If there werebuffalo anywhere, there would be buffalo somewhere near Pretty Buttes. 

[Illustration: Maltese Cross ranch-house. ]

[Illustration: View from the door of the Maltese Cross ranch-house. ]

Joe, who was of a sedentary disposition, decided that they would makethe long trip south in the buckboard, but Roosevelt protested. He sawthe need of the buckboard to carry the supplies, but he saw no reasonwhy he should sit in it all day. He asked for an extra saddle horse. 

The three declared they did not have an extra saddle horse. 

Roosevelt pleaded. The three Canadians thereupon became suspicious andannounced more firmly than before that they did not have an extrasaddle horse. 

Roosevelt protested fervidly that he could not possibly sit still in abuckboard, driving fifty miles. 

"By gosh, he wanted that saddle horse so bad, " said Joe a long timeafter, "that we were afraid to let him have it. Why, we didn't knowhim from Job's off ox. We didn't know but what he'd ride away with it. But, say, he wanted that horse so blamed bad, that when he see weweren't going to let him have it, he offered to buy it for cash. "

That proposal sounded reasonable to three cautious frontiersmen, and, before they all turned into their bunks that night, Roosevelt hadacquired a buckskin mare named Nell, and therewith his first physicalhold on the Bad Lands. 

II

 It rains here when it rains an' it's hot here when it's hot, The real folks is real folks which city folks is not. The dark is as the dark was before the stars was made; The sun is as the sun was before God thought of shade; An' the prairie an' the butte-tops an' the long winds, when they blow, Is like the things what Adam knew on his birthday, long ago. 

 From _Medora Nights_

Joe in the buckboard and Roosevelt on his new acquisition startedsouth at dawn. 

The road to Lang's--or the trail rather, for it consisted of twowheel-tracks scarcely discernible on the prairie grass and only to beguessed at in the sagebrush--lay straight south across a succession offlats, now wide, now narrow, cut at frequent intervals by the winding, wood-fringed Little Missouri; a region of green slopes and rocky wallsand stately pinnacles and luxuriant acres. Twenty miles south of theMaltese Cross, they topped a ridge of buttes and suddenly came uponwhat might well have seemed, in the hot mist of noonday, a billowyocean, held by some magic in suspension. From the trail, which woundalong a red slope of baked clay falling at a sharp angle into awitch's cauldron of clefts and savage abysses, the Bad Lands stretchedsouthward to the uncertain horizon. The nearer slopes were like yellowshores jutting into lavender waters. 

West of Middle Butte, that loomed like a purple island on their left, they took a short cut across the big Ox Bow from the mouth of BullionCreek on the one side to the mouth of Spring Creek on the other, thenfollowed the course of the Little Missouri southward once more. Theymet the old Fort Keogh trail where it crossed the river by the ruinsof the stage station, and for three or four miles followed its deepruts westward, then turned south again. They came at last to acrossing where the sunset glowed bright in their faces along the bedof a shallow creek that emptied into the Little Missouri. The creekwas the Little Cannonball. In a cluster of hoary cottonwoods, fiftyyards from the point where creek and river met, they found Lang'scabin. 

Lang turned out to be stocky, blue-eyed, and aggressively Scotch, wearing spectacles and a pair of "mutton-chop" whiskers. He hadhimself just arrived, having come from town by the longer trail overthe prairie to the west in order to avoid the uncertain rivercrossings which had a way of proving fatal to a heavily laden wagon. His welcome was hearty. With him was a boy of sixteen, fair-haired andblue-eyed, whom he introduced as his son Lincoln. The boy rememberedever after the earnestness of the tenderfoot's "Delighted to meetyou. "

 * * * * *

Roosevelt talked with Gregor Lang until midnight. The Scotchman was aman of education with views of his own on life and politics, and if hewas more than a little dogmatic, he was unquestionably sincere. 

He had an interesting story to tell. A year or less ago HenryGorringe, Abram S. Hewitt, of New York, and a noted London financiernamed Sir John Pender, who had been instrumental in laying the firstsuccessful Atlantic cable, had, in the course of a journey through theNorthwest, become interested in the cattle business and, in May, 1883, bought the Cantonment buildings at Little Missouri with the object ofmaking them the headquarters of a trading corporation which theycalled the Little Missouri Land and Stock Company. The details theyleft to the enterprising naval officer who had proposed the scheme. Gorringe had meanwhile struck up a friendship with Frank Vine. Thiswas not unnatural, for Frank was the social center of Little Missouriand was immensely popular. What is almost incredible, however, isthat, blinded evidently by Frank's social graces, he took the genialand slippery post-trader into the syndicate, and appointed himsuperintendent. It was possibly because he did not concur altogetherin this selection that Pender sent Gregor Lang, who, owing to LadyPender's scruples, was without employment, to report to Gorringe inNew York and then proceed to Little Missouri. 

What a somewhat precise Scotch Presbyterian thought of thatgathering-place of the wicked, the Presbyterian himself did not seefit to divulge. He established himself at the Cantonment, set to workwith European thoroughness to find out all there was to find out aboutthe cattle business, and quietly studied the ways of Frank Vine. Thoseways were altogether extraordinary. Where he had originally come fromno one exactly knew. His father, whom the new superintendent promptlyestablished as manager of the Pyramid Park Hotel, had been a Missouristeamboat captain and was regarded far and wide as a terror. He was, in fact, a walking arsenal. He had a way of collecting his bills witha cavalry saber, and once, during the course of a "spree, " hearingthat a great Irishman named Jack Sawyer had beaten up his son Frank, was seen emerging from the hotel in search of the oppressor of hisoffspring with a butcher-knife in his boot, a six-shooter at his belt, and a rifle in his hand. Frank himself was less of a buccaneer and wasconspicuous because he was practically the only man in Little Missouriwho did not carry arms. He was big-hearted and not without charm inhis nonchalant disregard of the moralities, but there was no truth inhim, and he was so foul-mouthed that he became the model for the youthof Little Missouri, the ideal of what a foul-mouthed reprobate shouldbe. 

"Frank was the darndest liar you ever knew, " remarked, long after, aman who had authority on his side. "And, by jinx, if he wouldn'tpreface his worst lies with 'Now this is God's truth!'"

He had an older brother named Darius who was famous as "the championbeer-drinker of the West, " having the engaging gift of being able toconsume untold quantities without ever becoming drunk. In their waythey were a notable family. 

Gregor Lang, with the fortunes of his employer at heart, watchedFrank's activities as storekeeper with interest. During the militaryrégime, Frank had been post-trader, a berth which was an eminentarticle of barter on the shelves of congressional politicians and forwhich fitness seemed to consist in the ability to fill lonely soldierswith untold quantities of bad whiskey. Frank's "fitness, " as the termwas understood, was above question, but his bookkeeping, Lang found, was largely in his mind. When he received a shipment of goods he setthe selling-price by multiplying the cost by two and adding thefreight; which saved much calculating. Frank's notions of "mine" and"thine, " Lang discovered, moreover, were elastic. His depredationswere particularly heavy against a certain shipment of patent medicinecalled "Tolu Tonic, " which he ordered in huge quantities at thecompany's expense and drank up himself. The secret was that Frank, whohad inherited his father's proclivities, did not like the "Forty-MileRed Eye" brand which Bill Williams concocted of sulphuric acid andcigar stumps mixed with evil gin and worse rum; and had found that"Tolu Tonic" was eighty per cent alcohol. 

Seeing these matters, and other matters for which the term"irregularity" would have been only mildly descriptive, Gregor Langsent Sir John a report which was not favorable to Frank Vine's régime. Sir John withdrew from the syndicate in disgust and ordered Lang tostart a separate ranch for him; and Gorringe himself began toinvestigate the interesting ways of his superintendent. Why Lang wasnot murdered, he himself was unable to say. 

Lang had made it his business to acquire all the information he couldsecure on every phase of the cattle industry, for Sir John was avid ofstatistics. Roosevelt asked question after question. The Scotchmananswered them. Joe Ferris, Lincoln, and a bony Scotch Highlander namedMacRossie, who lived with the Langs, had been asleep and snoring forthree hours before Gregor Lang and his guest finally sought theirbunks. 

It was raining when they awoke next morning. Joe Ferris, who waswilling to suffer discomfort in a good cause, but saw no reason forunnecessarily courting misery, suggested to Roosevelt that they waituntil the weather cleared. Roosevelt insisted that they start thehunt. Joe recognized that he was dealing with a man who meantbusiness, and made no further protest. 

They left Lang's at six, crossing the Little Missouri and threadingtheir way, mile after mile, eastward through narrow defiles and alongtortuous divides. It was a wild region, bleak and terrible, wherefantastic devil-carvings reared themselves from the sallow gray oferoded slopes, and the only green things were gnarled cedars thatlooked as though they had been born in horror and had grown up inwhirlwinds. 

The ground underfoot was wet and sticky; the rain continued all daylong. Once, at a distance, they saw two or three blacktail deer, and alittle later they came upon a single buck. They crept to within twohundred yards. Roosevelt fired, and missed. There was every reason whyhe should miss, for the distance was great and the rain made a clearaim impossible; but it happened that, as the deer bounded away, JoeFerris fired at a venture, and brought him down. It was a shot in athousand. 

Roosevelt flung his gun on the ground. "By Godfrey!" he exclaimed. "I'd give anything in the world if I could shoot like that!"

His rage at himself was so evident that Joe, being tender-hearted, wasalmost sorry that he had shot so well. 

They found no buffalo that day; and returned to Lang's after dusk, gumbo mud to the eyes. 

Of the two, Ferris was the one, it happened, who wrapped himself inhis buffalo robe immediately after supper and went to sleep. Roosevelt, apparently as fresh and vigorous as he had been when hestarted out in the morning, promptly set Gregor Lang to talking aboutcattle. 

Lang, who had been starved for intellectual companionship, was glad totalk; and there was much to tell. It was a new country for cattle. Less than five years before, the Indians had still roamed free andunmolested over it. A few daring white hunters (carrying each his vialof poison with which to cheat the torture-stake, in case of capture)had invaded their hunting-grounds; then a few surveyors; then gradingcrews under military guard with their retinue of saloon-keepers andprofessional gamblers; then the gleaming rails; then the thunderingand shrieking engines. Eastern sportsmen, finding game plentiful inthe Bad Lands, came to the conclusion that where game could survive inwinter and thrive in summer, cattle could do likewise, and began tosend short-horned stock west over the railroad. A man named Wadsworthfrom Minnesota settled twenty miles down the river from LittleMissouri; another named Simpson from Texas established the"Hash-Knife" brand sixty or seventy miles above. The Eatons and A. D. Huidekoper, all from Pittsburgh, Sir John Pender from England, LordNugent from Ireland, H. H. Gorringe from New York, came to hunt andremained in person or by proxy to raise cattle in the new-won prairiesof western Dakota and eastern Montana. These were the first wave. Henry Boice from New Mexico, Gregor Lang from Scotland, Antoine deVallombrosa, Marquis de Mores (very much from France)--these were thesecond; young men all, most under thirty, some under twenty-five, dare-devil adventurers with hot blood, seeing visions. 

Roosevelt and Lang talked well into the night. The next morning it wasstill raining. Roosevelt declared that he would hunt, anyway. Joeprotested, almost pathetically. Roosevelt was obdurate, and Joe, admiring the "tenderfoot" in spite of himself, submitted. They huntedall day and shot nothing, returning to the cabin after dark, coveredwith Dakota mud. 

Again it was Joe who tumbled into his corner, and the "tenderfoot"who, after supper, fresh as a daisy, engaged his host in conversation. They talked cattle and America and politics; and again, cattle. Theemphatic Scotchman was very much of an individual. The eyes behind theoval glasses were alert, intelligent, and not without a touch ofdefiance. 

Gregor Lang was one of those Europeans to whom America comes as agreat dream, long before they set foot on its soil. He felt sharplythe appeal of free institutions, and had proved ready to fight and tosuffer for his convictions. He had had considerable opportunity to doboth, for he had been an enthusiastic liberal in an arch-conservativefamily, frankly expressing his distaste for any form of government, including the British, which admitted class distinctions and gave tothe few at the expense of the many. His insistence on naming his sonafter the man who had been indirectly responsible for the closing ofEngland's cotton-mills had almost disrupted his household. 

He enjoyed talking politics, and found in Roosevelt, who was up to hiseyes in politics in his own State, a companion to delight his soul. Lang was himself a good talker and not given as a rule to patientlistening; but he listened to Theodore Roosevelt, somewhat because hewanted to, and somewhat because it was difficult for any one to doanything else in those days when Roosevelt once took the floor. Gregor Lang had known many reformers in his time, and some had beenprecise and meticulous and some had been fiery and eloquent, but nonehad possessed the overwhelming passion for public service that seemedto burn in this amazingly vigorous and gay-spirited American oftwenty-four. Roosevelt denounced "boss rule" until the rafters rang, coupling his denunciation of corrupt politicians with denunciations ofthose "fireside moralists" who were forever crying against badgovernment yet raising not a finger to correct it. The honest werealways in a majority, he contended, and, under the AmericanConstitution, held in their hands the power to overcome the dishonestminority. It was the solemn duty of every American citizen, hedeclared, not only to vote, but to fight, if need be, for goodgovernment. 

It was two in the morning before Gregor Lang and Theodore Rooseveltreluctantly retired to their bunks. 

Roosevelt was up and about at dawn. It was still raining. Joe Ferrissuggested mildly that they wait for better weather before plungingagain into the sea of gumbo mud, but Roosevelt, who had not come toDakota to twiddle his thumbs, insisted that they resume their hunt. They went and found nothing. The rain continued for a week. 

"He nearly killed poor Joe, " Lincoln remarked afterwards. "He wouldnot stop for anything. "

Every morning Joe entered his protest and Roosevelt overruled it, andevery evening Joe rolled, nigh dead, into his buffalo robe andRoosevelt talked cattle and politics with Gregor Lang until one andtwo in the morning. Joe and the Highlander sawed wood, but the boyLincoln in his bunk lay with wide eyes. 

"It was in listening to those talks after supper in the old shack onthe Cannonball, " he said, a long time after, "that I first came tounderstand that the Lord made the earth for all of us and not for achosen few. "

Roosevelt, too, received inspiration from these nocturnal discussions, but it was an inspiration of another sort. 

"Mr. Lang, " he said suddenly one evening, "I am thinking seriously ofgoing into the cattle business. Would you advise me to go into it?"

Gregor Lang was cautious. "I don't like to advise you in a matter ofthat kind, " he answered. "I myself am prepared to follow it out to theend. I have every faith in it. If it's a question of my faith, I havefull faith. As a business proposition, it is the best there is. "

They said no more about the matter that night. 

The weather cleared at last. Joe Ferris, who had started on the huntwith misgivings, had no misgivings whatever now. He confided inLincoln, not without a touch of pride in his new acquaintance, thatthis was a new variety of tenderfoot, altogether a "plumb good sort. "

They started out with new zest under the clear sky. They had, intheir week's hunting, come across the fresh tracks of numerousbuffalo, but had in no case secured a shot. The last great herd had, in fact, been exterminated six months before, and though the Ferrisesand Merrifield had killed a half-dozen within a quarter-mile of theMaltese Cross early that summer, these had been merely a stragglingremnant. The days when a hunter could stand and bombard a dull, panic-stricken herd, slaughtering hundreds without changing hisposition, were gone. In the spring of 1883 the buffalo had stillroamed the prairies east and west of the Bad Lands in huge herds, butmoving in herds they were as easy to shoot as a family cow and theprofits even at three dollars a pelt were great. Game-butchers swarmedforth from Little Missouri and fifty other frontier "towns, "slaughtering buffalo for their skins or for their tongues or for themere lust of killing. The hides were piled high at every shippingpoint; the carcasses rotted in the sun. Three hundred thousandbuffalo, driven north from the more settled plains of westernNebraska, and huddled in a territory covering not more than a hundredand fifty square miles, perished like cattle in a stockyard, almostovernight. It was one of the most stupendous and dramaticobliterations in history of a species betrayed by the sudden change ofits environment. 

Hunting buffalo on horseback had, even in the days of the great herds, been an altogether different matter from the methodical slaughter froma "stand, " where a robe for every cartridge was not an unusual "bag, "and where an experienced game-butcher could, without recourse to BaronMunchausen, boast an average of eighty per cent of "kills. " There wasalways the possibility that the bison, driven to bay, might charge thesportsman who drove his horse close in for a sure shot. With the greatherds destroyed, there was added to the danger and the privations ofthe wild country where the few remaining stragglers might be found, the zest and the arduousness of long searching. Roosevelt and JoeFerris had had their full share of the latter. 

They came on the fresh track of a buffalo two hours after theirdeparture, that clear warm morning, from Lang's hospitable cabin. Itwas, for a time, easy to follow, where it crossed and recrossed anarrow creek-bottom, but became almost undiscernible as it struck offup the side of a winding coulee, where the soil, soaked as it had beenby a week of September drizzle, was already baked hard by the hot sun. They rode for an hour cautiously up the ravine. Suddenly, as theypassed the mouth of a side coulee, there was a plunge and cracklethrough the bushes at its head, and a shabby-looking old bull bisongalloped out of it and plunged over a steep bank into a patch ofbroken ground which led around the base of a high butte. The bison wasout of sight before they had time to fire. At the risk of their necksthey sped their horses over the broken ground only to see the buffaloemerge from it at the farther end and with amazing agility climb upthe side of a butte over a quarter of a mile away. With his shaggymane and huge forequarters he had some of the impressiveness of a lionas he stood for an instant looking back at his pursuers. They followedhim for miles, but caught no glimpse of him again. 

They were now on the prairie far to the east of the river, a steaming, treeless region stretching in faint undulations north, east, andsouth, until it met the sky in the blurred distance. Here and there itwas broken by a sunken water-course, dry in spite of a week of wetweather, or a low bluff or a cluster of small, round-topped buttes. The grass was burnt brown; the air was hot and still. The country hadthe monotony and the melancholy and more than a little of the beautyand the fascination of the sea. 

They ate their meager lunch beside a miry pool, where a clump ofcedars under a bluff gave a few square feet of shadow. 

All afternoon they rode over the dreary prairie, but it was latebefore they caught another glimpse of game. Then, far off in themiddle of a large plain, they saw three black specks. 

The horses were slow beasts, and were tired besides and in nocondition for running. Roosevelt and his mentor picketed them in ahollow, half a mile from the game, and started off on their hands andknees. Roosevelt blundered into a bed of cactus and filled his handswith the spines; but he came within a hundred and fifty feet or lessof the buffalo. He drew up and fired. The bullet made the dust flyfrom the hide as it hit the body with a loud crack, but apparently didno particular harm. The three buffalo made off over a low rise withtheir tails in the air. 

The hunters returned to their horses in disgust, and for seven oreight miles loped the jaded animals along at a brisk pace. Now andagain they saw the quarry far ahead. Finally, when the sun had justset, they saw that all three had come to a stand in a gentle hollow. There was no cover anywhere. They determined, as a last desperateresort, to try to run them on their worn-out ponies. 

The bison faced them for an instant, then turned and made off. Withspurs and quirt, Roosevelt urged his tired pony forward. Night closedin and the full moon rose out of the black haze on the horizon. Thepony plunged to within sixty or seventy yards of the wounded bull, andcould gain no more. Joe Ferris, better mounted, forged ahead. Thebull, seeing him coming, swerved. Roosevelt cut across and came almostup to him. The ground over which they were running was broken intoholes and ditches, and the fagged horses floundered and pitchedforward at every step. 

At twenty feet, Roosevelt fired, but the pony was pitching like alaunch in a storm, and he missed. He dashed in closer. 

[Illustration: The prairie at the edge of the Bad Lands. ]

[Illustration: "Broken Country". ]

The bull's tail went up and he wheeled suddenly and charged withlowered horns. 

The pony, panic-stricken, spun round and tossed up his head, strikingthe rifle which Roosevelt was holding in both hands and knocking itviolently against his forehead, cutting a deep gash. The blood pouredinto Roosevelt's eyes. 

Ferris reined in his pony. "All right?" he called, evidentlyfrightened. 

"Don't mind me!" Roosevelt shouted, without turning an instant fromthe business in hand. "I'm all right. "

For an instant it was a question whether Roosevelt would get thebuffalo or the buffalo would get Roosevelt. But he swerved his horse, and the buffalo, plunging past, charged Ferris and followed him as hemade off over the broken ground, uncomfortably close to the tiredpony's tail. Roosevelt, half-blinded, tried to run in on him again, but his pony stopped, dead beat; and by no spurring could he force himout of a slow trot. Ferris, swerving suddenly and dismounting, fired, but the dim moonlight made accurate aim impossible, and the buffalo, to the utter chagrin of the hunters, lumbered off and vanished intothe darkness. Roosevelt followed him for a short space afoot inhopeless and helpless wrath. 

There was no possibility of returning to Lang's that night. They werenot at all certain where they were, but they knew they were a long wayfrom the mouth of the Little Cannonball. They determined to camp nearby for the night. 

They did not mount the exhausted horses, but led them, stumbling, foaming and sweating, while they hunted for water. It was an hourbefore they found a little mud-pool in a reedy hollow. They had drunknothing for twelve hours and were parched with thirst, but the waterof the pool was like thin jelly, slimy and nauseating, and they coulddrink only a mouthful. Supper consisted of a dry biscuit, previouslybaked by Lincoln under direction of his father, who insisted that theuse of a certain kind of grease whose name is lost to history wouldkeep the biscuits soft. They were hard as horn. [2] There was not atwig with which to make a fire, nor a bush to which they could fastentheir horses. When they lay down to sleep, thirsty and famished, theyhad to tie their horses with the lariat to the saddles which weretheir pillows. 

 [Footnote 2: "I would start to make biscuits and as usual go about putting shortening into them, which father didn't like. We'd argue over it a little, and I would say, 'Good biscuits can't be made without grease. ' Then he'd say, 'Well, use elbow grease. ' I'd say then, 'Well, all right, I'll try it. ' Then I'd go to work and knead the dough _hard_ (on purpose), understanding, of course, that kneading utterly spoils biscuit dough, whether there is shortening in it or not. The result is a pan of adamantine biscuits which, of course, I blame on him. "--_Lincoln Lang. _]

They did not go quickly to sleep. The horses were nervous, restless, alert, in spite of their fatigue, continually snorting or standingwith their ears forward, peering out into the night, as thoughconscious of the presence of danger. Roosevelt remembered somehalf-breed Crees they had encountered the day before. It was quitepossible that some roving bucks might come for their horses, andperhaps their scalps, for the Indians, who were still unsettled ontheir reservations, had a way of stealing off whenever they found achance and doing what damage they could. Stories he had heard ofvarious bands of horse-thieves that operated in the region between theLittle Missouri and the Black Hills likewise returned to mind toplague him. The wilderness in which Roosevelt and Ferris had pitchedtheir meager camp was in the very heart of the region infested by thebandits. They dozed fitfully, waking with a start whenever the soundof the grazing of the horses ceased for a moment, and they knew thatthe nervous animals were watching for the approach of a foe. It waslate when at last they fell asleep. 

They were rudely wakened at midnight by having their pillows whippedout from under their heads. They leapt to their feet. In the brightmoonlight they saw the horses madly galloping off, with the saddlesbounding and trailing behind them. Their first thought was that thehorses had been stampeded by horse-thieves, and they threw themselveson the ground, crouching in the long grass with rifles ready. 

There was no stir. At last, in the hollow they made out a shadowy, four-footed shape. It was a wolf who strode noiselessly to the lowcrest and disappeared. 

They rose and went after the horses, taking the broad trail made bythe saddles through the dewy grass. 

Once Joe Ferris stopped. "Say, I ain't ever committed any crimedeservin' that anything like this should happen!" he exclaimedplaintively. Then, turning straight to Roosevelt, evidently suspectingthat he had a Jonah on his hands, he cried, in a voice in which wrathwas mingled with comic despair, "Have you ever done anything todeserve this?"

"Joe, " Roosevelt answered solemnly, "I never have. "

"Then I can't understand, " Joe remarked, "why we're runnin' in suchluck. "

Roosevelt grinned at him and chuckled, and Joe Ferris grinned andchuckled; and after that the savage attentions of an unkind fate didnot seem so bad. 

They found the horses sooner than they expected and led them back tocamp. Utterly weary, they wrapped themselves in their blankets oncemore and went to sleep. But rest was not for them that night. At threein the morning a thin rain began to fall, and they awoke to findthemselves lying in four inches of water. Joe Ferris expectedlamentations. What he heard was, "By Godfrey, but this is fun!"

They cowered and shivered under their blankets until dawn. Then, soaked to the skin, they made breakfast of Lang's adamantine biscuits, mounted their horses, and were off, glad to bid good-bye to theinhospitable pool. 

A fine, drizzling mist, punctuated at intervals by heavy downpours ofrain, shrouded the desolate region and gathered them into a chillydesolation of its own. They traveled by compass. It was only afterhours that the mist lifted, revealing the world about them, and, inthe center of it, several black objects slowly crossing a piece ofrolling country ahead. They were buffalo. 

They picketed the horses, and crept forward on their hands and kneesthrough the soft, muddy prairie soil. A shower of cold rain blewup-wind straight in their faces and made the teeth chatter behindtheir blue lips. The rain was blowing in Roosevelt's eyes as he pulledthe trigger. He missed clean, and the whole band plunged into a hollowand were off. 

What Joe Ferris said upon that occasion remains untold. It was "one ofthose misses, " Roosevelt himself remarked afterwards, "which a man tohis dying day always looks back upon with wonder and regret. " In wet, sullen misery he returned with Joe to the horses. 

The rain continued all day, and they spent another wretched night. They had lived for two days on nothing but biscuits and rainwater, andprivation had thoroughly lost whatever charm it might have had for anadventurous young man in search of experience. The next morningbrought sunlight and revived spirits, but it brought no change intheir luck. 

"Bad luck followed us, " Joe Ferris remarked long after, "like a yellowdog follows a drunkard. "

Joe's horse nearly stepped on a rattlesnake, and narrowly escapedbeing bitten; a steep bluff broke away under their ponies' hoofs, andsent them sliding and rolling to the bottom of a long slope, a pile ofintermingled horses and men. Shortly after, Roosevelt's horse steppedinto a hole and turned a complete somersault, pitching his rider agood ten feet; and he had scarcely recovered his composure and hisseat in the saddle, when the earth gave way under his horse as thoughhe had stepped on a trap-door, and let him down to his withers insoft, sticky mud. They hauled the frightened animal out by the lariat, with infinite labor. Altogether it was not a restful Sunday. 

More than once Joe Ferris looked at Roosevelt quizzically, wonderingwhen the pleasant "four-eyed tenderfoot" would begin to worry aboutcatching cold and admit at last that the game was too much for him. But the "tenderfoot, " it happened, had a dogged streak. He made nosuggestion of "quitting. "

"He could stand an awful lot of hard knocks, " Joe explained later, "and he was always cheerful. You just couldn't knock him out of sorts. He was entertaining, too, and I liked to listen to him, though, on thewhole, he wasn't much on the talk. He said that he wanted to get awayfrom politics, so I didn't mention political matters; and he had bookswith him and would read at odd times. "

Joe began to look upon his "tenderfoot" with a kind of awe, which wasnot diminished when Roosevelt, blowing up a rubber pillow which hecarried with him, casually remarked one night that his doctors backEast had told him that he did not have much longer to live, and thatviolent exercise would be immediately fatal. 

They returned to Lang's, Roosevelt remarking to himself that it was"dogged that does it, " and ready to hunt three weeks if necessary toget his buffalo. 

If Lang had any notion that the privations of the hunt had dampenedRoosevelt's enthusiasm for the frontier, Roosevelt himself speedilydispelled it. 

Roosevelt had, for a year or more, felt the itch to be a monarch ofacres. He had bought land at Oyster Bay, including an elevation knownto the neighbors as Sagamore Hill, where he was building a house; buta view and a few acres of woodland could not satisfy his craving. Hewanted expanses to play with, large works to plan and execute, subordinates to inspire and to direct. He had driven his uncles, whowere as intensely practical and thrifty as Dutch uncles should be, andhis sisters, who were, at least, very much more practical in moneymatters than he was, nearly frantic the preceding summer by declaringhis intention to purchase a large farm adjoining the estate of hisbrother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, in the Mohawk Valley; for his kinknew, what he himself failed to recognize, that he was not made to bea farmer and that he who loved to be in the center of the seethingworld would explode, or burn himself out, in a countryside a night'srun from anywhere. They knew also that farming was not a spiritualadventure, but a business, and that Theodore, with his generous habitof giving away a few thousands here and a few thousands there, was notexactly a business man. He had yielded to their abjurations; but hishankering for acres had remained. 

Here in Dakota were all the acres that any man could want, and theywere his for the asking. 

To this vague craving to be monarch of all he surveyed (or nearlyall), another emotion which Roosevelt might have identified withbusiness acumen had during the past year been added. Together with aHarvard classmate, Richard Trimble, he had become interested in aranching project known as the Teschmaker and Debillier Cattle Company, which "ran" some thousands of head of cattle fifty or sixty milesnorth of Cheyenne; and he had invested ten thousand dollars in it. Commander Gorringe, seeking to finance the enterprise in which he wasinvolved, in the course of his hunting accounts doubtlessly spokeglowingly to Roosevelt of the huge profits that awaited Easterndollars in the Bad Lands. Roosevelt, it appears, asked his uncle, James Roosevelt, his father's elder brother and head of the bankingfirm of Roosevelt and Son, whether he would advise him to invest afurther sum of five thousand dollars in cattle in Dakota. 

Uncle James, to whom, as investments, cattle ranches were in a classwith gold mines, emphatically informed Theodore that he would not atall advise him to do anything of the kind. How deeply Roosevelt wasimpressed by this information subsequent events clearly indicate. 

Roosevelt and Lang sat at the table long after Lincoln had cleared itthat night. Joe and the Highlander were asleep, but Lincoln heard thetwo men talking and, years after, remembered the conversation of thatmomentous September night. 

"Mr. Lang, " said Roosevelt abruptly, "I have definitely decided to gointo the cattle business. I want somebody to run cattle for me onshares or to take the management of my cattle under some arrangementto be worked out. Will you take charge of my cattle?"

The Scotchman, who was naturally deliberate, was not prepared to meetsuch precipitancy. He told Roosevelt that he appreciated his offer. "Unfortunately, " he added reluctantly, "I am tied up with the otherpeople. "

Roosevelt's regret was evident. He asked Lang whether there was anyone he would recommend. Without hesitation, Lang suggested SylvaneFerris and Bill Merrifield. Early the next morning Lincoln Lang wasdispatched to the Maltese Cross. 

Meanwhile Roosevelt and Joe continued the pursuit of the elusivebuffalo. But again luck was far from them. For two days they hunted invain. When they returned to Lang's the second dusk, Sylvane andMerrifield were there waiting for them. 

That evening, after supper, Roosevelt sat on a log outside Lang'scabin with the two ranchmen and asked them how much in their opinionit would cost adequately to stock a cattle-ranch. 

"Depends what you want to do, " answered Sylvane. "But my guess is, ifyou want to do it right, that it'll spoil the looks of forty thousanddollars. "

"How much would you need right off?" Roosevelt went on. 

"Oh, a third would make a start. "

"Could you boys handle the cattle for me?"

"Why, yes, " said Sylvane in his pleasant, quiet drawl, "I guess wecould take care of 'em 'bout as well as the next man. "

"Why, I guess _so_!" ejaculated Merrifield. 

"Well, will you do it?"

"Now, that's another story, " said Sylvane. "Merrifield here and me isunder contract with Wadsworth and Halley. We've got a bunch of cattlewith them on shares. I guess we'd like to do business with you rightenough, Mr. Roosevelt, but there's nothing we can do until Wadsworthand Halley releases us. "

"I'll buy those cattle. "

"All right, " remarked Sylvane. "Then the best thing for us to do is togo to Minnesota an' see those men an' get released from our contract. When that's fixed up, we can make any arrangements you've a mind to. "

"That will suit me. "

Roosevelt drew a checkbook from his pocket, and there, sitting on thelog (oh, vision of Uncle James!) wrote a check, not for thecontemplated five thousand dollars, but for fourteen, and handed it toSylvane. Merrifield and Sylvane, he directed, were to purchase a fewhundred head of cattle that fall in addition to the hundred and fiftyhead which they held on shares for Wadsworth. 

"Don't you want a receipt?" asked Merrifield at last. 

"Oh, that's all right, " said Roosevelt. "If I didn't trust you men, Iwouldn't go into business with you. "

They shook hands all around; whereupon they dropped the subject fromconversation and talked about game. 

"We were sitting on a log, " said Merrifield, many years later, "up atwhat we called Cannonball Creek. He handed us a check for fourteenthousand dollars, handed it right over to us on a verbal contract. Hedidn't have a scratch of a pen for it. "

"All the security he had for his money, " added Sylvane, "was ourhonesty. "

The man from the East, with more than ordinary ability to read thefaces of men, evidently thought that that was quite enough. 

The next dawn Roosevelt did not go hunting as usual. All morning hesat over the table in the cabin with Lang and the two Canadianslaboring over the contract which three of them were to sign in casehis prospective partners were released from the obligation which forthe time bound them. It was determined that Ferris and Merrifieldshould go at once to Minnesota to confer with Wadsworth and Halley. Roosevelt, meanwhile, would continue his buffalo hunt, remaining inthe Bad Lands until he received word that the boys from the MalteseCross were in a position to "complete the deal. " The wheels of the newventure having thus, in defiance of Uncle James, been set in motion, Roosevelt parted from his new friends, and resumed the interruptedchase. 

The red gods must have looked with favor on Roosevelt's adventurousspirit, for luck turned suddenly in his favor. Next morning he wasskirting a ridge of broken buttes with Joe Ferris, near the upperwaters of the Little Cannonball west of Lang's camp over the Montanaline, when suddenly both ponies threw up their heads and snuffed theair, turning their muzzles toward a coulee that sloped gently towardthe creek-bottom they were traversing. Roosevelt slipped off his ponyand ran quickly but cautiously up the side of the ravine. In the softsoil at the bottom he saw the round prints of a bison's hoof. 

He came upon the buffalo an instant later, grazing slowly up thevalley. Both wind and shelter were good, and he ran close. The bullthrew back his head and cocked his tail in the air. 

Joe Ferris, who had followed close at Roosevelt's heels, pointed out ayellow spot on the buffalo, just back of the shoulder. "If you hit himthere, " he whispered, "you'll get him right through the heart. "

It seemed to Joe that the Easterner was extraordinarily cool, as heaimed deliberately and fired. With amazing agility the buffalo boundedup the opposite side of the ravine, seemingly heedless of two morebullets aimed at his flank. 

Joe was ready to throw up his hands in despair. But suddenly they sawblood pouring from the bison's mouth and nostrils. The great bullrushed to the ridge at a lumbering gallop, and disappeared. 

They found him lying in the next gully, dead, as Joe Ferris remarked, "as Methusalem's cat. "

Roosevelt, with all his intellectual maturity, was a good deal of aboy, and the Indian war-dance he executed around the prostrate buffaloleft nothing in the way of delight unexpressed. Joe watched theperformance open-mouthed. 

"I never saw any one so enthused in my life, " he said in after days, "and, by golly, I was enthused myself for more reasons than one. I wasplumb tired out, and, besides, he was so eager to shoot his firstbuffalo that it somehow got into my blood; and I wanted to see himkill his first one as badly as he wanted to kill it. "

Roosevelt, out of the gladness of his heart, then and there presentedhim with a hundred dollars; so there was another reason for Joe to behappy. 

They returned to Lang's, chanting pæans of victory. Early next dayRoosevelt returned with Joe to the place where they had left thebuffalo and with endless labor skinned the huge beast and brought thehead and slippery hide to camp. 

The next morning Roosevelt took his departure. 

Gregor Lang watched the mounted figure ride off beside the rattlingbuckboard. "He is the most extraordinary man I have ever met, " he saidto Lincoln. "I shall be surprised if the world does not hear from himone of these days. "

III

 Some came for lungs, and some for jobs, And some for booze at Big-mouth Bob's, Some to punch cattle, some to shoot, Some for a vision, some for loot; Some for views and some for vice, Some for faro, some for dice; Some for the joy of a galloping hoof, Some for the prairie's spacious roof, Some to forget a face, a fan, Some to plumb the heart of man; Some to preach and some to blow, Some to grab and some to grow, Some in anger, some in pride, Some to taste, before they died, Life served hot and _a la cartee_-- And some to dodge a necktie-party. 

 From _Medora Nights_

Roosevelt remained in Little Missouri to wait for news from Merrifieldand Sylvane, who had departed for Minnesota a day or two previous. Possibly it occurred to him that a few days in what was said to be theworst "town" on the Northern Pacific might have their charm. 

Roosevelt was enough of a boy rather to relish things that wereblood-curdling. Years after, a friend of Roosevelt's, who had himselfcommitted almost every crime in the register, remarked; in commentingin a tone of injured morality on Roosevelt's frank regard for acertain desperate character, that "Roosevelt had a weakness formurderers. " The reproach has a delightful suggestiveness. Whether itwas merited or not is a large question on which Roosevelt himselfmight have discoursed with emphasis and humor. If he actually didpossess such a weakness, Little Missouri and the boom town were fullyable to satisfy it. 

"Little Missouri was a terrible place, " remarked, years after, a manwho had had occasion to study it. It was, in fact, "wild and woolly"to an almost grotesque degree, and the boom town was if anything alittle cruder than its twin across the river. The men who had driftedinto Medora after the news was noised abroad that "a crazy Frenchman"was making ready to scatter millions there, were, many of them, outcasts of society, reckless, greedy, and conscienceless; fugitivesfrom justice with criminal records, and gunmen who lived by crookedgambling and thievery of every sort. The best of those who had comethat summer to seek adventure and fortune on the banks of the LittleMissouri were men who cared little for their personal safety, courtingdanger wherever it beckoned, careless of life and limb, reticent ofspeech and swift of action, light-hearted and altogether human. Theywere the adventurous and unfettered spirits of hundreds of communitieswhom the restrictions of respectable society had galled. Here theywere, elbowing each other in a little corner of sagebrush countrywhere there was little to do and much whiskey to drink; and the handof the law was light and far away. 

[Illustration: Roosevelt in 1883. ]

[Illustration: Medora in the winter of 1883-84. The office andcompany-store of the Marquis de Mores. ]

Somewhere, hundreds of miles to the south, there was a United Statesmarshal; somewhere a hundred and fifty miles to the east there was asheriff. Neither Medora nor Little Missouri had any representativeof the law whatsoever, no government or even a shadow ofgovernment. The feuds that arose were settled by the parties involvedin the ancient manner of Cain. 

Of the heterogeneous aggregation of desperate men that made up thepopulation of the frontier settlement, Jake Maunders, the man who hadlent Roosevelt a hammer and a buffalo-gun, was, by all odds, the mostprominent and the least trustworthy. 

He had been one of the first to settle at Little Missouri, and for awhile had lived in the open as a hunter. But the influx of touristsand "floaters" had indicated to him a less arduous form of labor. Heguided "tenderfeet, " charging exorbitant rates; he gambled(cautiously); whenever a hunter left the Bad Lands, abandoning hisshack, Maunders claimed it with the surrounding country, and, when asettler took up land near by, demanded five hundred dollars for hisrights. A man whom he owed three thousand dollars had been opportunelykicked into oblivion by a horse in a manner that was mysterious to menwho knew the ways of horses. He had shot MacNab, the Scotchman, incold blood, as he came across the sagebrush flat from Bill Williams'ssaloon, kneeling at the corner of his shack with his rifle on hisknee. Another murder was laid directly at his door. But the forces oflaw were remote from Little Missouri, and Jake Maunders not onlylived, but flourished. 

His enemies said he was "the sneakiest man in town, always figuring onsomebody else doing the dirty work for him, and him reap thebenefits"; but his friends said that "once Jake was your friend, hewas your friend, and that was all there was to it. " The truth remainsthat the friends Jake chose were all characters only a little lessshady than himself. 

Most prominent of these were the precious pair who "operated" BillWilliams's saloon. Bill Williams was a Welshman who had drifted intoLittle Missouri while the railroad was being built, and, recognizingthat the men who made money in frontier settlements were the men whosold whiskey, had opened a saloon to serve liquid refreshment invarious vicious forms to the grading crews and soldiers. 

"He always reminded me of a red fox, " said Lincoln Lang long after, "for, besides having a marked carroty complexion, there was a cunningleer in his face which seemed, as it were, to show indistinctlythrough the transparency of the manufactured grin with which he soughtto cover it. When he got mad over something or other and swept thegrin aside, I do not think that an uglier countenance ever existed onearth or in hell. He was rather short of stature, bullet-headed andbull-necked, with a sloping forehead and a somewhat underslung chin. His nose was red and bulbous, his eyes narrow-set beneath bushy redeyebrows. He had a heavy red moustache not altogether concealing anabnormally long mouth, and through it at times, when he smiled, histeeth showed like fangs. "

He was a man of natural shrewdness, a moneymaker, a gambler, and likeMaunders (it was rumored) a brander of cattle that were not his. Buthe was not without a certain attractive quality, and when he wasslightly drunk he was brilliant. He was deathly afraid of being alone, and had a habit on those infrequent occasions when his bar was for themoment deserted, of setting the chairs in orderly rows as in a chapel, and then preaching to them solemnly on the relative merits of KingSolomon and Hiram, King of Tyre. 

His partner, Jess Hogue, was the brains of the nefarious trio, a dark, raw-boned brute with an ugly, square-jawed, domineering face, a bellowlike a bull's, and all the crookedness of Bill Williams without hisredeeming wit. His record of achievement covered a broader field thanthat of either of his associates, for it began with a sub-contract onthe New York water system, involved him with the United StatesGovernment in connection with a certain "phantom mail route" betweenBismarck and Miles City, and started him on the road to affluence withthe acquisition of twenty-eight army mules which, with the aid of BillWilliams and the skillful use of the peculiar type of intelligencewith which they both seemed to be endowed, he had secured at less thancost from Fort Abraham Lincoln at Mandan. 

Associated with Williams, Hogue, and Maunders, in their variousventures, was a man of thirty-eight or forty named Paddock, withflorid cheeks, and a long, dark moustache and goatee that made himlook something like Buffalo Bill and something like Simon Legree. Heconducted the local livery-stable with much profit, for his rates werewhat was known to the trade as "fancy, " and shared with Maunderswhatever glory there was in being one of the most feared men in LittleMissouri. Like Maunders, he had his defenders; and he had apleasant-faced wife who gave mute tribute to a side of Jerry Paddockwhich he did not reveal to the world. 

The banks of the Little Missouri in those days of September, 1883, were no place for soft hands or faint hearts; and a place for womenonly who had the tough fiber of the men. There were scarcely ahalf-dozen of them in all the Bad Lands up and down the river. InLittle Missouri there were four--Mrs. Roderick, who was the cook atthe Pyramid Park Hotel; Mrs. Paddock, wife of the livery-stablekeeper; Mrs. Pete McGeeney who kept a boarding-house next to JohnnyNelson's store; and her neighbor and eternal enemy, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Pete McGeeney was a section-boss on the railroad, but what else hewas, except the husband of Mrs. McGeeney, is obscure. He was mildlyfamous in Little Missouri because he had delirium tremens, and now andthen when he went on a rampage had to be lassoed. Mrs. McGeeney's feudwith Mrs. Fitzgerald was famous throughout the countryside. They livedwithin fifty feet of each other, which may have been the cause of theextreme bitterness between them, for they were both Irish and theirtongues were sharp. 

Little Missouri had, until now, known only one child, but that one hadfully lived up to the best traditions of the community. It was ArchieMaunders, his father's image and proudest achievement. At the age oftwelve he held up Fitzgerald, the roadmaster, at the point of apistol, and more than once delayed the departure of the OverlandExpress by shooting around the feet of the conductors. 

Whether he was still the waiter at the Pyramid Park Hotel whenRoosevelt arrived there is dark, for it was sometime that autumn thata merciful God took Archie Maunders to him before he could grow intothe fullness of his powers. He was only thirteen or fourteen years oldwhen he died, but even the guidebook of the Northern Pacific had takennotice of him, recounting the retort courteous he had delivered on oneoccasion when he was serving the guests at the hotel. 

"Tea or coffee?" he asked one of the "dudes" who had come in on theOverland. 

"I'll take tea, if you please, " responded the tenderfoot. 

"You blinkety blank son of a blank!" remarked Archie, "you'll takecoffee or I'll scald you!"

The "dude" took coffee. 

His "lip" was, indeed, phenomenal, and one day when he aimed it atDarius Vine (who was not a difficult mark), that individual bestirredhis two hundred and fifty pounds and set about to thrash him. Archiepromptly drew his "six-shooter, " and as Darius, who was notconspicuous for courage, fled toward the Cantonment, Archie followed, shooting about his ears and his heels. Darius reached his brother'sstore, nigh dead, just in time to slam the door in Archie's face. Archie shot through the panel and brought Darius down with a bullet inhis leg. 

Archie's "gayety" with his "six-shooter" seemed to stir no emotion inhis father except pride. But when Archie finally began to shoot at hisown brother, Jake Maunders mildly protested. "Golly, golly, " heexclaimed, "don't shoot at your brother. If you want to shoot atanybody, shoot at somebody outside the family. "

Whether or not the boy saw the reasonableness of this paternalinjunction is lost in the dust of the years. But the aphorism that thegood die young has no significance so far as Archie Maunders isconcerned. 

The lawless element was altogether in the majority in the Bad Landsand thieving was common up and down the river and in the heart of thesettlement itself. Maunders himself was too much of a coward to steal, too politic not to realize the disadvantage in being caughtred-handed. Bill Williams was not above picking a purse when areasonably safe occasion offered, but as a rule, like Maunders, he andhis partner Hogue contrived to make some of the floaters andfly-by-nights, fugitives from other communities, do the actualstealing. 

Maunders ruled by the law of the bully, and most men took him at thevaluation of his "bluff. " But his attempt to intimidate Mrs. McGeeneywas a rank failure. One of his hogs wandered south across the railroadtrack and invaded Mrs. McGeeney's vegetable garden; whereupon, todiscourage repetition, she promptly scalded it. Maunders, discoveringthe injury to his property, charged over to Mrs. McGeeney's house withblood in his eyes. She was waiting for him with a butcher-knife in herhand. 

"Come on, ye damn bully!" she exclaimed. "Come on! I'm ready for ye!"

Maunders did not accept the invitation, and thereafter gave Mrs. McGeeney a wide berth. 

There had been talk early in 1883 of organizing Billings County inwhich Little Missouri was situated. The stimulus toward this projecthad come from Jake Maunders, Bill Williams, and Hogue, backed by theunholy aggregation of saloon rats and floaters who customarilygathered around them. Merrifield and the Ferrises, who had taken thefirst steps in the community toward the reign of law when they hadrefused to buy stolen horses, were heartily anxious to secure someform of organized government, for they had no sympathy with thelawlessness that made the settlement a perilous place for honest men. But they were wise enough to see that the aim of Jake Maunders and hiscrew in organizing the county was not the establishment of law andorder, but the creation of machinery for taxation on which they couldwax fat. The Maltese Cross group therefore objected strenuously to anyattempt on the part of the other group to force the organization ofthe county. Merrifield, Sylvane and Joe, and two or three ranchmen andcowboys who gathered around them, among them Gregor Lang and BillDantz (an attractive youngster of eighteen who had a ranch half adozen miles south of the Maltese Cross), were in the minority, butthey were respected and feared, and in the face of their oppositioneven such high-handed scoundrels as Maunders, Hogue, and Williamsdeveloped a vein of caution. 

Meanwhile public safety was preserved in ways that were not altogetherlawful, but were well known to all who lived in frontier communities. 

"Many is the man that's cleared that bend west of Little Missouri withbullets following his heels, " said Merrifield, years after. "That'sthe way we had of getting rid of people we didn't like. There was nocourt procedure, just a notice to get out of town and a lot ofbullets, and, you bet, they got out. "

Little Missouri's leading citizens were a wild crew, but with alltheir violence and their villainy, they were picturesque beings, andwere by no means devoid of redeeming traits. Frank Vine, who evidentlythought nothing of robbing his employers and was drunk more than halfthe time, had an equable temper which nothing apparently could ruffle, and a good heart to which no one in trouble ever seemed to appeal invain. Mrs. McGeeney was a very "Lady of the Lamp" when any one wassick. Even Maunders had his graces. Roosevelt could not have livedamong them a week without experiencing a new understanding of theinconsistencies that battle with each other in the making of men'slives. 

IV

 No, he was not like other men. He fought at Acre (what's the date?), Died, and somehow got born again Seven hundred years too late. 

 It wasn't that he hitched his wagon To stars too wild to heed his will-- He was just old Sir Smite-the-dragon Pretending he was J. J. Hill. 

 And always when the talk was cattle And rates and prices, selling, buying, I reckon he was dreaming battle, And, somewhere, grandly dying. 

 From _Medora Nights_

The inhabitants of "Little Misery" who regarded law as a potentialball-and-chain were doing a thriving business by one crooked means oranother and looked with uneasiness upon the coming of the cattlemen. There were wails and threats that autumn in Bill Williams's saloonover "stuck-up tenderfeet, shassayin' 'round, drivin' in cattle andchasin' out game. "

"Maunders disliked Roosevelt from the first, " said Bill Dantz. "He hadno personal grudge against him, but he disliked him for what herepresented. Maunders had prospered under the loose and lawlesscustoms of the Northwest, and he shied at any man who he thought mighttry to interfere with them. "

The coming of the Marquis de Mores six months previous had servedgreatly to heighten Maunders's personal prestige and to strengthenthe lawless elements. For the Marquis was attracted by Jake's evidentpower, and, while he drew the crafty schemer into his inner counsels, was himself drawn into a subtle net that was yet to entangle both menin forces stronger than either. 

When one day in March, 1883, a striking young Frenchman, who said hewas a nobleman, came to Little Missouri with a plan ready-made tobuild a community there to rival Omaha, and a business that wouldstartle America's foremost financiers, the citizens of the wickedlittle frontier settlement, who thought that they knew all thepossibilities of "tenderfeet" and "pilgrims" and "how-do-you-do-boys, "admitted in some bewilderment that they had been mistaken. TheFrenchman's name was Antoine de Vallombrosa, Marquis de Mores. He wasa member of the Orleans family, son of a duke, a "white lily ofFrance, " remotely in line for the throne; an unusually handsome man, tall and straight, black of hair and moustache, twenty-five ortwenty-six years old, athletic, vigorous, and commanding. He had beena French officer, a graduate of the French military school of SaintCyr, and had come to America following his marriage abroad with Medoravon Hoffman, the daughter of a wealthy New York banker of Germanblood. His cousin, Count Fitz James, a descendant of the Jacobinexiles, had hunted in the Bad Lands the year previous, returning toFrance with stories of the new cattle country that stirred theMarquis's imagination. He was an adventurous spirit. "He had nojudgment, " said Merrifield, "but he was a fighter from hell. " Thestories of life on the frontier lured him as they had lured others, but the dreams that came to him were more complex and expensive dreamsthan those which came to the other young men who turned toward Dakotain those early eighties. 

The Marquis arrived in Little Missouri with his father-in-law'smillions at his back and a letter of introduction to Howard Eaton inhis pocket. The letter, from a prominent business man in the East, ended, it seemed to Eaton, rather vaguely: "I don't know whatexperience he has had in business or anything of that kind, but he hassome large views. "

The Marquis enthusiastically unfolded these views. "I am going tobuild an abattoir. I am going to buy all the beef, sheep, and hogsthat come over the Northern Pacific, and I am going to slaughter themhere and then ship them to Chicago and the East. "

"I don't think you have any idea how much stock comes over theNorthern Pacific, " Eaton remarked. 

"It doesn't matter!" cried the Marquis. "My father-in-law has tenmillion dollars and can borrow ten million dollars more. I've got oldArmour and the rest of them matched dollar for dollar. "

Eaton said to himself that unquestionably the Marquis's views were"large. "

"Do you think I am impractical?" the Marquis went on. "I am notimpractical. My plan is altogether feasible. I do not merely thinkthis. I know. My intuition tells me so. I pride myself on having anatural intuition. It takes me only a few seconds to understand asituation that other men have to puzzle over for hours. I seem to seeevery side of a question at once. I assure you, I am gifted in thisway. I have wonderful insight. "

But Eaton said to himself, "I wonder if the Marquis isn't raising hissights too high?"

The Marquis formed the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company withtwo brothers named Haupt as his partners and guides; and plunged intohis dream as a boy into a woodland pool. But it did not take him longto discover that the water was cold. Frank Vine offered to sell outthe Little Missouri Land and Cattle Company to him for twenty-fivethousand dollars, and when the Marquis, discovering that Frank hadnothing to sell except a hazy title to a group of ramshacklebuildings, refused to buy, Frank's employers intimated to the Marquisthat there was no room for the de Mores enterprises in LittleMissouri. The Marquis responded by buying what was known as Valentinescrip, or soldiers' rights, to the flat on the other side of the riverand six square miles around it, with the determination of literallywiping Little Missouri off the map. On April Fool's Day, 1883--auspicious date!--he pitched his tent in the sagebrush andfounded the town of Medora. 

The population of Little Missouri did not exhibit any noticeablewarmth toward him or his dream. The hunters did not like "dudes" ofany sort, but foreign "dudes" were particularly objectionable to them. His plans, moreover, struck at the heart of their free and untrammeledexistence. As long as they could live by what their guns brought down, they were independent of the machinery of civilization. The coming ofcattle and sheep meant the flight of antelope and deer. Hunters, tolive, would have to buy and sell like common folk. That meant storesand banks, and these in time meant laws and police-officers; andpolice-officers meant the collapse of Paradise. It was all wrong. 

The Marquis recognized that he had stepped in where, previously, angels had feared to tread. It occurred to him that it would be thepart of wisdom to conciliate Little Missouri's hostile population. Hebegan with the only man who, in that unstable community, looked solid, and appealed to Gregor Lang, suggesting a union of forces. Lang, whodid not like the grandiose Frenchman, bluntly refused to entertain theidea. 

"I am sorry, " said the Marquis with a sincerity which was attractiveand disarming. "I desire to be friends with every man. "

The Marquis's efforts to win supporters were not altogether withoutsuccess, for the liveryman, Jerry Paddock, became his foreman, andJake Maunders, evidently seeing in the noble Frenchman one of thosegifts from the patron saint of crooked men which come to a knave onlyonce in a lifetime, attached himself to him and became his closestadviser. Maunders, as one who had known him well remarked longafterwards, "was too crooked to sleep in a roundhouse. " Whether he setabout deliberately to secure a hold on the Marquis, which the Marquiscould never shake off, is a secret locked away with Maundersunderground. If he did, he was more successful than wiser men havebeen in their endeavors. Insidiously he drew the Marquis into aquarrel, in which he himself was involved, with a hunter named FrankO'Donald and his two friends, John Reuter, known as "Dutch Wannigan, "and Riley Luffsey. He was a crafty Iago, and the Marquis, born in arose-garden and brought up in a hot-house, was guileless and trusting. Incidentally, the Marquis was "land hungry" and not altogether tactfulin regarding the rights of others. Maunders carried blood-curdlingtales from the Marquis to O'Donald and back again, until, as HowardEaton remarked, "every one got nervous. "

"What shall I do?" the Marquis asked Maunders, unhappily, whenMaunders reported that O'Donald was preparing for hostilities. 

"Look out, " answered Maunders, "and have the first shot. "

The Marquis went to Mandan to ask the local magistrate for advice. "There is the situation, " he said. "What shall I do?"

"Why, shoot, " was the judicial reply. 

He started to return to the center of hostilities. A friendprotested. "You'll get shot if you go down there, " he declared. 

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "But I have got to go. "

"Now, why do you have to go?"

"Why, " replied the Marquis, "William is there. He is my valet. Hisfather was my father's valet, and his grandfather was my grandfather'svalet. I cannot leave William in the lurch. "

Whereupon, smiling his engaging smile, he boarded the west-boundexpress. 

What followed is dead ashes, that need not be raked over. Just west ofthe town where the trail ran along the railroad track, the Marquis andhis men fired at the hunters from cover. O'Donald and "Wannigan" werewounded, Riley was killed. Maunders, claiming that the hunters hadstarted the shooting, charged them with manslaughter, and had themarrested. 

[Illustration: "Dutch Wannigan" (Left) and Frank O'Donald. ]

[Illustration: Scene of the killing of Riley Luffsey, June 26, 1883. ]

The excitement in the little settlement was intense. Gregor Lang wasoutspoken in his indignation against the Marquis, and the fewlaw-abiding citizens rallied around him. The Marquis was arrested andacquitted, but O'Donald and "Dutch Wannigan" were kept under lock andkey. The better element in Little Missouri snorted in indignation anddisgust, but for the moment there was nothing to be done about it. Theexcitement subsided. Riley Luffsey slept undisturbed on GraveyardButte; the Marquis took up again the amazing activities which theepisode of the quarrel had interrupted; and Maunders, his mentor, flourished like the green bay tree. It was said that "after themurder, Maunders could get anything he wanted out of the Marquis"; so, from his point of view, the whole affair had been eminentlysuccessful. 

All this was in the summer of 1883. 

 * * * * *

For all their violence and lawlessness there was no denying, meanwhile, that the settlements on both sides of the river, roughlyknown as Little Missouri, were beginning to flourish, and to catch theattention of a curious world. 

The Mandan _Pioneer_ spoke of surprising improvements; and even theDickinson _Press_, which was published forty miles to the east andwhich as a rule regarded Little Missouri as an outrageous butinteresting blot on the map of Dakota, was betrayed into momentaryenthusiasm. 

 This town, situated in Pyramid Park on the banks of the Little Missouri River and surrounded by the Bad Lands with their fine scenery, is, at the present time, one of the most prosperous and rapidly growing towns along the line of the Northern Pacific. New buildings of every description are going up as fast as a large force of carpenters can do the work and an air of business and enterprise is apparent that would do honor to many an older town. 

The "personals" that follow give a glimpse into the Little Missouri ofwhich Roosevelt was a part during that third week of September, 1883. 

NOTES

 Business booms. J. H. Butler is right on sight. [MCGeeney] and Walker are doing a good business. Geo. Fitzpatrick is doing a rushing business. J. B. Walker takes a good share of trade. Anderson's restaurant refreshes the inner man. Frank [Vine] rents the soldiers' quarters to tourists. [P. McGeeney] will have a fine hotel when it is completed. We found the Marquis de Mores a pleasant gentleman. Little Missouri will double her population before spring. The new depot will be soon completed and will be a good one. 

It is worth remarking that Butler, McGeeney, Walker, Fitzpatrick, Anderson, and Frank Vine all conducted bars of one description oranother. The "business" which is "booming" in the first line, therefore, seems to have been exclusively the business of selling andconsuming liquor. 

There is one further item in those "Notes":

 L. D. Rumsey, of Buffalo, N. Y. , recently returned from a hunting expedition with Frank O'Donald. Frank is a good hunter and thoroughly posted about the country. 

For the bloodthirsty desperado, by whose unconscious aid Maunders hadcontrived to get the Marquis into his power, was back in the BadLands, earning his living by hunting as he had earned it before thefatal June 26th when the Marquis lost his head. There had been a"reconciliation. " When O'Donald had returned to Little Missouri fromhis sojourn in the Mandan jail, he had been without money, and, as theMandan _Pioneer_ explained, "the Marquis helped him out by buying thehay on his ranch 'in stubble. '" He bought the hay, it was rumored, forthe sum of one thousand dollars, which was high for hay which wouldnot begin growing for another eight months. But the "reconciliation"was complete. 

If Roosevelt met the Marquis during the week he spent in LittleMissouri, that September, there is no record of that meeting. TheMarquis was here, there, and everywhere, for the stately house he wasbuilding, on a grassy hill southward and across the river from his new"town, " was not yet completed, and he was, moreover, never inclined tostay long on one spot, rushing to Miles City or St. Paul, to Helena orto Chicago, at a moment's notice, in pursuit of one or the other ofhis expensive dreams. 

The Haupt brothers, it was said, were finding their senior partnersomewhat of a care. He bought steers, and found, when he came to sellthem as beef, that he had bought them at too high a price; he boughtcows and found that the market would not take cow-meat at all. Thereupon (lest the cold facts which he had acquired concerning cattleshould rob him of the luxury of spacious expectations) he bought fivethousand dollars worth of broncos. He would raise horses, he declared, on an unprecedented scale. 

The horses had barely arrived when the Marquis announced that heintended to raise sheep also. The Haupt brothers protested, but theMarquis was not to be diverted. 

The hunters and cattlemen looked on in anger and disgust as sheep andever more sheep began to pour into the Bad Lands. They knew, what theMarquis did not know, that sheep nibble the grass so closely that theykill the roots, and ruin the pasture for cattle and game. He temperedtheir indignation somewhat by offering a number of them a form ofpartnership in his enterprise. "His plan, " says the guidebook of theNorthern Pacific, published that summer of 1883, "is to engageexperienced herders to the number of twenty-four, supply them with asmany sheep as they may desire, and provide all necessary buildings andfunds to carry on operations for a period of seven years. At the endof this time a division of the increase of the flocks is to be made, from which alone the Marquis is to derive his profits. "

There was no one in the Bad Lands, that summer of 1883, who, if askedwhether he knew anything about business or live stock or the laws ofsidereal space, would not have claimed that he knew all that it wasnecessary for any man to know. The Marquis had no difficulty infinding the desired twenty-four. Each signed a solemn contract withhim and let the sheep wander where they listed, eating mutton withrelish and complaining to the Marquis of the depredations of thecoyotes. 

One who was more honest than the rest went to Herman Haupt at the endof August and drew his attention to the fact that many of the wethersand ewes were so old that they had no teeth to nibble with and werebound to die of starvation. Haupt rode from ranch to ranch examiningthe herds and came to the conclusion that six thousand out of twelvewere too old to survive under the best conditions, and telegraphed theMarquis to that effect, advising that they be slaughtered at once. 

The answer of the Marquis was prompt. "Don't kill any sheep, " it ran. Haupt shrugged his shoulders. By the time Roosevelt left LittleMissouri the end of September, the sheep were already beginning, oneby one, to perish. But by this time the Marquis was absorbed in a newundertaking and was making arrangements to ship untold quantities ofbuffalo-meat and other game on his refrigerator cars to Easternmarkets, unaware that a certain young man with spectacles had justshot one of the last buffalo that the inhabitants of Little Missouriwere ever destined to see. 

Roosevelt, learning a great deal about the ways of men who arecivilized too little and men who are civilized too much, spent a weekwaiting in Little Missouri and roundabout for word from Merrifield andSylvane. It came at last in a telegram saying that Wadsworth andHalley had given them a release and that they were prepared to enterinto a new partnership. Roosevelt started promptly for St. Paul, andon September 27th signed a contract[3] with the two Canadians. Sylvane and Merrifield thereupon went East to Iowa, to purchase threehundred head of cattle in addition to the hundred and fifty which theyhad taken over from Wadsworth and Halley; while Roosevelt, who alittle less than three weeks previous had dropped off the train atLittle Missouri for a hunt and nothing more, took up again the soberthreads of life. 

 [Footnote 3: See Appendix. ]

He returned East to his lovely young wife and a campaign for a thirdterm in the New York Legislature, stronger in body than he had everfelt before. If he expected that his family would think as highly ofhis cattle venture as he did himself, he was doomed to disappointment. Those members of it whom he could count on most for sincere solicitudefor his welfare were most emphatic in their disapproval. Theyconsidered his investment foolhardy, and said so. Uncle James and theother business men of the family simply threw up their hands indespair. His sisters, who admired him enormously and had confidence inhis judgment, were frankly worried. Pessimists assured him that hiscattle would die like flies during the winter. 

He lost no sleep for apprehensions. 

Little Missouri, meanwhile, was cultivating the air of one who isconscious of imminent greatness. The Marquis was extending hisbusiness in a way to stir the imagination of any community. In MilesCity he built a slaughter-house, in Billings he built another. Heestablished offices in St. Paul, in Brainerd, in Duluth. He builtrefrigerator plants and storehouses in Mandan and Bismarck andVedalles and Portland. 

His plan, on the surface, was practical. It was to slaughter on therange the beef that was consumed along the Northern Pacific Railway, west of St. Paul. The Marquis argued that to send a steer on the hooffrom Medora to Chicago and then to send it back in the form of beef toHelena or Portland was sheer waste of the consumer's money in freightrates. A steer, traveling for days in a crowded cattle-car, moreover, had a way of shrinking ten per cent in weight. It was more expensive, furthermore, to ship a live steer than a dead one. Altogether, thescheme appeared to the Marquis as a heaven-sent inspiration; andcooler-headed business men than he accepted it as practical. Thecities along the Northern Pacific acclaimed it enthusiastically, hoping that it meant cheaper beef; and presented the company that wasexploiting it with all the land it wanted. 

The Marquis might have been forgiven if, in the midst of the cheering, he had strutted a bit. But he did not strut. The newspapers spoke ofhis "modest bearing" as he appeared in hotel corridors in Washingtonand St. Paul and New York, with a lady whose hair was "Titan-red, " asthe _Pioneer Press_ of St. Paul had it, and who, it was rumored, was abetter shot than the Marquis. He had great charm, and there wassomething engaging in the perfection with which he played the _grandseigneur_. 

"How did you happen to go into this sort of business?" he was asked. 

"I wanted something to do, " he answered. 

In view of the fact that before his first abattoir was in operation hehad spent upwards of three hundred thousand dollars, an impartialobserver might have remarked that his desire for activity wasexpensive. 

Unquestionably the Marquis had made an impression on the Northwestcountry. The hints he threw out concerning friends in Paris who wereeager to invest five million dollars in Billings County weresufficient to cause palpitation in more than one Dakota bosom. TheMarquis promised telephone lines up and down the river and other civicimprovements that were dazzling to the imagination and stimulating tothe price of building lots; and implanted firmly in the minds of theinhabitants of Medora the idea that in ten years their city wouldrival Omaha. Meanwhile, Little Missouri and the "boomtown" wereleading an existence which seemed to ricochet back and forth betweenAcadian simplicity and the livid sophistication of a mining-camp. 

"Sheriff Cuskelly made a business trip to Little Missouri, " is thegist of countless "Notes" in the Dickinson _Press_, "and reportseverything as lively at the town on the Little Muddy. "

Lively it was; but its liveliness was not all thievery and violence. "On November 5th, " the Dickinson _Press_ announces, "the citizens ofLittle Missouri opened a school. " Whom they opened it for is dark asthe ancestry of Melchizedek. But from somewhere some one procured ateacher, and in the saloons the cowboys and the hunters, thehorse-thieves and gamblers and fly-by-nights and painted ladies"chipped in" to pay his "board and keep. " The charm of this outpouringof dollars in the cause of education is not dimmed by the fact thatthe school-teacher, in the middle of the first term, discovered a moreprofitable form of activity and deserted his charges to open a saloon. 

Late in November a man of a different sort blew into town. His namewas A. T. Packard. He was joyously young, like almost every one elsein Little Missouri, except Maunders and Paddock and Captain Vine, having graduated from the University of Michigan only a year before. He drifted westward, and, having a taste for things literary, becamemanaging editor of the Bismarck _Tribune_. Bismarck was lurid in thosedays, and editing a newspaper there meant not only writing practicallyeverything in it, including the advertisements, but also persuadingthe leading citizens by main force that the editor had a right to saywhat he pleased. Packard had been an athlete in college, and his eyesgave out before his rule had been seriously disputed. After throwingsundry protesting malefactors downstairs, he resigned and undertookwork a trifle less exacting across the Missouri River, on the Mandan_Pioneer_. 

Packard became fascinated with the tales he heard of Little Missouriand Medora and, being foot loose, drifted thither late in November. Ithappened that Frank Vine, who had by that time been deposed as agentof the Gorringe syndicate, was running the Pyramid Park Hotel. He hadmet Packard in Mandan and greeted him like a long-lost brother. As thenewcomer was sitting in a corner of the bar-room after supper, writinghome, Frank came up and bent over him. 

"You told me down in Mandan that you'd never seen anhonest-to-goodness cowboy, " he whispered. "See that fellow at thefarther end of the bar? Well, that's a real cowboy. "

Packard looked up. The man was standing with his back toward the wall, and it struck the tenderfoot that there was something in his attitudeand in the look in his eye that suggested that he was on the watch andkept his back to the wall with a purpose. He wore the paraphernalia ofthe cowboy with ease and grace. 

Packard started to describe him to his "folks" in distant Indiana. Hedescribed his hat, his face, his clothes, his shaps, his looselyhanging belt with the protruding gun. He looked up and studied theman; he looked down and wrote. The man finally became conscious thathe was the subject of study. Packard observed Frank Vine whisper aword of explanation. 

He finished his letter and decided to take it to the "depot" and askthe telegraph operator to mail it on the east-bound train that passedthrough Little Missouri at three. He opened the door. The night wasblack, and a blast of icy wind greeted him. He changed his mind. 

The next afternoon he was riding up the river to the Maltese Crosswhen he heard hoofs behind him. A minute later the object of hisartistic efforts of the night before joined him and for an hour lopedalong at his side. He was not slow in discovering that the man waspumping him. It occurred to him that turn-about was fair play, and hetold him all the man wanted to know. 

"So you're a newspaper feller, " remarked the man at length. "That'sdamn funny. But I guess it's so if you say so. You see, " he added, "Frank Vine he said you was a deputy-sheriff on the lookout for ahorse-thief. "

Packard felt his hair rise under his hat. 

"Where was you going last night when you started to go out?"

"To the telegraph-office. "

"I made up my mind you was going to telegraph. "

"I was just going to mail a letter. "

"Well, if you'd gone I'd have killed you. "

Packard gasped a little. Frank Vine was a joker with a vengeance. Theyrode on, talking of lighter matters. [4]

 [Footnote 4: A year later, Packard, as Chief of Police, officiated at what was euphemistically known as a "necktie party" at which his companion of that ride was the guest of honor. ]

Packard had come to the Bad Lands with the idea of spending the winterin the open, hunting, but he was a newspaper man from top to toe andin the back of his mind there was a notion that it would be a gooddeal of a lark, and possibly a not unprofitable venture, to start aweekly newspaper in the Marquis de Mores's budding metropolis. He had, at the tender age of thirteen, been managing editor of a countrynewspaper, owned by his father, and ever since had been drawn againand again back into the "game" by that lure which few men who yield toit are ever after able to resist. 

He broached the matter to the Marquis. That gentleman was patronizing, but agreed that a special organ might prove of value to his Company. He offered to finance the undertaking. 

Packard remarked that evidently the Marquis did not understand. If hestarted a paper it would be an organ for nobody. He intended tofinance it himself and run it to please himself. All he wanted was abuilding. 

The Marquis, a little miffed, agreed to rent him a building north ofhis general store in return for a weekly advertisement for theCompany. Packard ordered his type and his presses and betook himselfto the solitude of the wintry buttes to think of a name for his paper. His battle was half won when he came back with the name of _The BadLands Cowboy_. 

His first issue came out early in February, 1884. It was greeted withinterest even by so mighty a contemporary as the New York _Herald_. 

[Illustration: Marquis de Mores. ]

 We hail with pleasure the birth of a new Dakota paper, _The Bad Lands Cowboy_ [runs the note of welcome]. The _Cowboy_ is really a neat little journal, with lots to read in it, and the American press has every reason to be proud of its new baby. We are quite sure it will live to be a credit to the family. The _Cowboy_ evidently means business. It says in the introductory notice to its first number that it intends to be the leading cattle paper of the Northwest, and adds that it is not published for fun, but for $2 a year. 

All the autumn and winter Medora and her rival across the river hadbeen feverishly competing for supremacy. But Little Missouri, thoughshe built ever so busily, in such a contest had not a chance in theworld. For the Little Missouri Land and Stock Company, which was itsonly hope, was moribund, and the Marquis was playing, in a sense, withloaded dice. He spoke persuasively to the officials of the NorthernPacific and before the winter was well advanced the stop for expresstrains was on the eastern side of the river, and Little Missouri, protest as she would, belonged to the past. When the _Cowboy_ appearedfor the first time, Medora was in the full blaze of national fame, having "broken into the front page" of the New York _Sun_. For theMarquis was bubbling over with pride and confidence, and the tales hetold a credulous interviewer filled a column. A few were based onfact, a few were builded on the nebulous foundation of hope, and a fewwere sheer romance. The most conspicuous case of romance was a storyof the stage-line from Medora to the prosperous and wild little miningtown of Deadwood, two hundred miles or more to the south. 

"The Marquis had observed, " narrates the interviewer, "that thedivide on the top of the ridge between the Little Missouri and theMissouri Rivers was almost a natural roadway that led directly towardDeadwood. He gave this roadway needed artificial improvements, andstarted the Deadwood and Medora stage-line. This is now diverting theDeadwood trade to Medora, to the great advantage of both places. "

Who, reading that sober piece of information, would have dreamed thatthe stage-line in question was at the time nothing but a pious hope?

The Dickinson _Press_ was blunt in its comment. "Stages are notrunning from Medora to Deadwood, " it remarked editorially, "nor hasthe roadway ever been improved. The Marquis should put a curb on histoo vivid imagination and confine himself a little more strictly tofacts. "

But facts were not the things on which a nature like de Mores's fed. 

His sheep meanwhile, were dying by hundreds every week. Of the twelvethousand he had turned loose on the range during the preceding summer, half were dead by the middle of January. There were rumors that rivalsof the Marquis had used poison. 

 The loss [declared a dispatch to the _Minneapolis Journal_] can be accounted for on no other ground. It is supposed that malicious motives prompted the deed, as the Marquis is known to have had enemies since the killing of Luffsey. 

If the Marquis took any stock in these suspicions, his partners, theHaupt brothers, did not. They knew that it was a physicalimpossibility to poison six thousand sheep scattered over ten thousandsquare miles of snowbound landscape. 

The Haupts were by this time thoroughly out of patience with de Mores. There was a stormy meeting of the directors of the Northern PacificRefrigerator Car Company in St. Paul, in the course of which the Hauptbrothers told their distinguished senior partner exactly what theythought of his business ability; and suggested that the Company gointo liquidation. 

The Marquis jumped to his feet in a rage. "I won't let it go intoliquidation, " he cried. "My honor is at stake. I have told my friendsin France that I would do so and so and so, that I would make money, agreat deal of money. I must do it. Or where am I?"

The Haupts did not exactly know. They compromised with the Marquis bytaking the bonds of the Company in exchange for their stock, andretired with inner jubilation at having been able to withdraw from aperilous situation with skins more or less intact. 

The Marquis, as usual, secreted himself from the stern eyes ofExperience, in the radiant emanations of a new dream. The Dickinson_Press_ announced it promptly:

 The Marquis de Mores has a novel enterprise under way, which he is confident will prove a success, it being a plan to raise 50, 000 cabbages on his ranch at the Little Missouri, and have them ready for the market April 1. They will be raised under glass in some peculiar French manner, and when they have attained a certain size, will be transplanted into individual pots and forced rapidly by rich fertilizers, made from the offal of the slaughter-houses and for which preparation he owns the patent. Should the cabbages come out on time, he will try his hand on other kinds of vegetables, and should he succeed the citizens along the line will have an opportunity to get as early vegetables as those who live in the sunny South. 

The cabbages were a dream which seems never to have materialized evento the point of being a source of expense, and history speaks no moreof it. 

The boys at the Chimney Butte, meanwhile, were hibernating, hunting asthe spirit moved them and keeping a general eye on the stock. OfRoosevelt's three friends, Joe was the only one who was really busy. Joe, it happened, was no longer working for Frank Vine. He was now astorekeeper. It was all due to the fateful hundred dollars which hehad loaned the unstable Johnny Nelson. 

For Johnny Nelson, so far as Little Missouri was concerned, was nomore. He had bought all his goods on credit from some commission housein St. Paul; but his payments, due mainly to the fact that hisreceipts all drifted sooner or later into the guileful hands of JessHogue, were infrequent and finally stopped altogether. Johnny receivedword that his creditor in St. Paul was coming to investigate him. Hebecame frantic and confided the awful news to every one he met. Hogue, Bill Williams, Jake Maunders, and a group of their satellites, hearing the doleful recital in Bill Williams's saloon, told Johnnythat the sheriff would unquestionably close up his store and takeeverything away from him. 

"You give me the keys, " said Jake Maunders, "and I'll see that thesheriff don't get your stuff. "

Johnny in his innocence gave up the keys. That night Jake Maunders andhis "gang" entered the store and completely cleaned it out. They didnot leave a button or a shoestring. It was said afterwards that JakeMaunders did not have to buy a new suit of clothes for seven years, and even Williams's two tame bears wore ready-made coats from St. Paul. 

Johnny Nelson went wailing to Katie, his betrothed. 

"I've lost everything!" he cried. "I've lost all my goods and I can'tget more. I've lost my reputation. I can't marry you. I've lost myreputation. "

Katie was philosophic about it. "That's all right, Johnny, " she saidcomfortingly, "I lost mine long ago. "

At that, Johnny "skipped the country. " And so it was that Joe Ferris, to save his hundred dollars attached Johnny's building and becamestorekeeper. 

For Roosevelt, two thousand miles to the east, the winter was provingexciting. He had won his reëlection to the Assembly with ease and hadplunged into his work with a new vigor and a more solidself-reliance. He became the acknowledged leader of the progressiveelements in the Legislature, the "cyclone member" at whom thereactionaries who were known as the "Black Horse Cavalry" sneered, butof whom, nevertheless, they were heartily afraid. 

He "figured in the news, " day in, day out, for the public, it seemed, was interested in this vigorous and emphatic young man from the"Silkstocking District" of New York. Roosevelt took his publicity withzest, for he was human and enjoyed the sensation of being counted withthose who made the wheels go around. Meanwhile he worked all day andconversed half the night on a thousand topics which his ardor madethrilling. In society he was already somewhat of a lion; and he wasonly twenty-five years old. 

Life was running, on the whole, very smoothly for Theodore Rooseveltwhen in January, 1884, he entered upon his third term in theLegislature. He was happily married, he had wealth, he had a notablebook on the War of 1812 to his credit; he had, it seemed, a smoothcourse ahead of him, down pleasant roads to fame. 

On February 12th, at ten o'clock in the morning, his wife gave birthto a daughter. At five o'clock the following morning his mother died. Six hours later his wife died. 

He was stunned and dazed, but within a week after the infinitelypathetic double funeral he was back at his desk in the Assembly, readyto fling himself with every fiber of energy at his command into thefight for clean government. He supported civil service reform; he waschairman of a committee which investigated certain phases of New YorkCity official life, and carried through the Legislature a bill takingfrom the Board of Aldermen the power to reject the Mayor'sappointments. He was chairman and practically the only active memberof another committee to investigate living conditions in the tenementsof New York, and as spokesman of the worn and sad-looking foreignerswho constituted the Cigar-Makers' Union, argued before GovernorCleveland for the passage of a bill to prohibit the manufacture ofcigars in tenement-houses. His energy was boundless, it seemed, butthe heart had gone out of him. He was restless, and thought longinglyof the valley of the Little Missouri. 

The news that came from the boys at Chimney Butte was favorable. Thethree hundred head of young cattle which Sylvane and Merrifield hadbought in Iowa, were doing well in spite of a hard winter. Roosevelt, struck by Sylvane's enthusiastic report, backed by a painstakingaccount-sheet, wrote Sylvane telling him to buy a thousand or twelvehundred head more. 

Sylvane's reply was characteristic and would have gratified UncleJames. "Don't put in any more money until you're sure we've scatteredthe other dollars right, " he said in effect. "Better come out firstand look around. "

That struck Roosevelt as good advice, and he accepted it. 

While Roosevelt was winning clear, meanwhile, of the tangles andsnares in Albany, he was unconsciously being enmeshed in the web thatwas spinning at Medora. 

It came about this way. The Marquis, who had many likable qualities, did not possess among them any strict regard for the rights of others. He had a curious obsession, in fact, that in the Bad Lands there wereno rights but his; and with that point of view had directed hissuperintendent, a man named Matthews, to drive fifteen hundred head ofcattle over on an unusually fine piece of bottom-land northwestwardacross the river from the Maltese Cross, which, by all the laws of therange, belonged to the "Roosevelt outfit. " Matthews declared that theMarquis intended to hold the bottom permanently for fatteningbeef-cattle, and to build a cabin there. 

"You'll have to move those cattle by daylight, " said Merrifield, "orwe'll move them for you. You can take your choice. "

"I've got my orders from the Marquis to keep the cattle here, "answered Matthews. "That's all there is to it. They'll stay here. "

It was late at night, but Sylvane and Merrifield rode to Medora takinga neighboring cowboy named Pete Marlow along as witness, "for theMarquis is a hard man to deal with, " remarked Merrifield. To Pete itwas all the gayest sort of adventure. He confided the object of thenocturnal expedition to the first man he came upon. 

The Marquis was not at his home. The boys were told that he mightstill be at his office, though the time was nearing midnight. 

Meanwhile Pete's news had spread. From the base of Graveyard Butte, Jake Hainsley, the superintendent of the coal mine, who dearly loved afight, came running with a rifle in his hand. "I've got forty menmyself, " he cried, "and I've Winchesters for every mother's son of'em, and if you need help you just let me know and we'll back you allright, we will. "

The Marquis was in his office in Medora next to the new Company store, working with Van Driesche, his valet and secretary. He asked what thethree men wanted of him at that hour in the night. Merrifieldexplained the situation. 

They told him: "We want you to write an order to move those cattle atdaylight. "

"If I refuse?"

Sylvane and Merrifield had thoroughly discussed the question what theywould do in case the Marquis refused. They would take tin pans andstampede the herd. They were under no illusions concerning theprobabilities in case they took that means of ridding themselves ofthe unwelcome herd. There would be shooting, of course. 

"Why, Marquis, " said Merrifield, "if Matthews don't move those cattle, I guess there's nothing to it but what we'll have to move themourselves. "

The Marquis had not lived a year in the Bad Lands without learningsomething. In a more conciliatory mood he endeavored to find groundfor a compromise. But "the boys" were not inclined to compromise witha man who was patently in the wrong. Finally, the Marquis offered themfifteen hundred dollars on the condition that they would allow him touse the piece of bottom-land for three weeks. 

It was on its face a munificent offer; but Merrifield and Sylvane knewthat the Marquis's "three weeks" might not terminate after twenty-onedays. They knew something else. "After we had made our statement, "Merrifield explained later, "no matter how much he had offered us wewould not have accepted it. We knew there'd be no living with a manlike the Marquis if you made statements and then backed down for anyprice. "

_Never draw your gun_, ran a saying of the frontier, _unless you meanto shoot_. 

"Marquis, " said Merrifield, "we've made our statement once for all. Ifyou don't see fit to write that order there won't be any more talk. Wewill move the cattle ourselves. "

The Marquis was courteous and even friendly. "I am sorry you cannot dothis for me, " he said; but he issued the order. Merrifield and Sylvanethemselves carried it to the offending superintendent. Matthews wasfurious; but he moved the cattle at dawn. The whole affair did notserve to improve the relations between the groups which the killing ofRiley Luffsey had originally crystallized. 

Roosevelt probably remained unaware of the interesting complicationsthat were being woven for him in the hot-hearted frontier community ofwhich he was now a part; for Merrifield and Sylvane, ascorrespondents, were laconic, not being given to spreading themselvesout on paper. His work in the Assembly and the pre-convention campaignfor presidential candidates completely absorbed his energies. He waseager that a reform candidate should be named by the Republicans, vigorously opposing both Blaine and Arthur, himself preferring SenatorEdmunds of Vermont. He fought hard and up to a certain pointsuccessfully, for at the State Republican Convention held in Utica inApril he thoroughly trounced the Old Guard, who were seeking to send adelegation to Chicago favorable to Arthur, and was himself electedhead of the delegates at large, popularly known as the "Big Four. "

He had, meanwhile, made up his mind that, however the dice might fallat the convention, he would henceforth make his home, for a part ofthe year at least, in the Bad Lands. He had two friends in Maine, backwoodsmen mighty with the axe, and born to the privations of thefrontier, whom he decided to take with him if he could. One was "Bill"Sewall, a stalwart viking at the end of his thirties, who had been hisguide on frequent occasions when as a boy in college he had soughthealth and good hunting on the waters of Lake Mattawamkeag; the otherwas Sewall's nephew, Wilmot Dow. He flung out the suggestion to them, and they rose to it like hungry trout; for they had adventurousspirits. 

The Republican National Convention met in Chicago in the first days ofJune. Roosevelt, supported by his friend Henry Cabot Lodge and a groupof civil service reformers that included George William Curtis andCarl Schurz, led the fight for Edmunds. But the convention wantedBlaine, the "Plumed Knight"; and the convention got Blaine. 

Roosevelt raged, but refused to follow Curtis and Schurz, who hinteddarkly at "bolting the ticket. " He took the first train to Dakota, sick at heart, to think things over. 

V

 He wears a big hat and big spurs and all that, And leggins of fancy fringed leather; He takes pride in his boots and the pistol he shoots And he's happy in all kinds of weather; He's fond of his horse, it's a broncho, of course, For oh, he can ride like the devil; He is old for his years and he always appears Like a fellow who's lived on the level; He can sing, he can cook, yet his eyes have the look Of a man that to fear is a stranger; Yes, his cool, quiet nerve will always subserve For his wild life of duty and danger. He gets little to eat, and he guys tenderfeet, And for fashion, oh well! he's not in it; But he'll rope a gay steer when he gets on its ear At the rate of two-forty a minute. 

 _Cowboy song_

Blaine was nominated on June 7th. On the 8th Roosevelt was already inSt. Paul, on his way to the Bad Lands. A reporter of the _PioneerPress_ interviewed him and has left this description of him as heappeared fresh from the battle at Chicago:

 He is short and slight and with rather an ordinary appearance, although his frame is wiry and his flashing eyes and rapid, nervous gestures betoken a hidden strength. He is not at all an ideal Harvard alumnus, for he lacks that ingrained conceit and grace of manner that a residence at Cambridge insures. Although of the old Knickerbocker stock, his manner and carriage is awkward and not at all impressive. 

He arrived in Medora on the evening of the 9th. The Ferrises andMerrifield were at the "depot" to meet him. They all adjourned toPackard's printing-office, since that was the only place in town of asemi-public character which was not at that hour in possession of anoisy aggregation of Medora's thirstiest citizens. 

The office of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, which stood under a gnarledcottonwood-tree north of the Marquis's store, was a one-room framebuilding which served as the editor's parlor, bedroom, and bath, aswell as his printing-office and his editorial sanctum. It was built ofperpendicular boards which let in the wintry blasts in spite of thetwo-inch strips which covered the joints on the outside. It had, infact, originally served as the Marquis's blacksmith shop, and theaddition of a wooden floor had not altogether converted it into ahabitable dwelling, proof against Dakota weather. On this particularJune night the thermometer was in the thirties and a cannon stoveglowed red from a steady application of lignite. 

A half-dozen voices greeted Roosevelt with pleas for the latest newsof the "great Republican round-up. " Roosevelt was not loath tounburden his soul. For an hour he told of the battles and themanipulations of the convention, of the stubborn fight against animpending nomination which he had known would be a fatal mistake, butwhich the majority seemed to be bound to make. 

Packard told about it years afterward. "He gave us such a swingingdescription of the stirring scenes of the convention that the eyes ofthe boys were fairly popping out of their heads. But it was when hetold how Roscoe Conkling attempted to dominate the situation andoverride the wishes of a large portion of the New York delegation thatthe fire really began to flash in his eyes. I can see him now asplainly as I did then, as he straightened up, his doubled fist in theair, his teeth glittering, and his eyes squinting in something thatwas far from a smile as he jerked out the words, 'By Godfrey! I willnot be dictated to!'"

Roosevelt rode to the Maltese Cross next morning. The old stockadeshack, with the dirt floor and dirt roof, had, as he had suggested, been converted into a stable, and a simple but substantialone-and-a-half story log cabin had been built with a shingle roof anda cellar, both luxuries in the Bad Lands. An alcove off the one largeroom on the main floor was set aside for Roosevelt's use as combinedbedroom and study; the other men were quartered in the loft above. East of the ranch-house beside a patch of kitchen-garden, stood thestrongly made circular horse-corral, with a snubbing-post in themiddle, and at some distance from it the larger cow-corral for thebranding of the cattle. Between them stood the cowsheds and thehayricks. 

The ranch-buildings belonged to Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield. Inbuying out the Maltese Cross, Roosevelt had bought only cattle andhorses; not buildings or land. The ranges on which his cattle grazedwere owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and by the Government. Itwas the custom for ranchmen to claim for grazing purposes a certainstretch of land north, east, south, and west of the bottom on whichthe home ranch stood. 

"You claim so much land each way, " Sylvane explained to a tenderfoot along time after, "according to how many cattle you have. For instance, if you have one hundred head of cattle, you don't require very muchrange; if you have a thousand head, you need so much more. Therewouldn't be any sense of one man trying to crowd his cattle onto yourrange and starve out both outfits. So each man claims as much land ashe needs. Of course, that doesn't mean that the other fellow doesn'tget over on your range--that's the reason we brand our cattle; itsimply means that a certain given number of cattle will have a certaingiven amount of grazing land. Our cattle may be on the other fellow'srange and some of his may be on our range, but he'll claim so muchland each way and we'll claim so much land each way, and then itdoesn't make any difference if they do get on each other's territory, so long as there is enough grazing for the two outfits. "

The range claimed by the "Maltese Cross outfit" extended northward tothe river-crossing above Eaton's "Custer Trail Ranch, " and southwardto the crossing just below what was known as "Sloping Bottom, "covering a territory that had a frontage of four miles on both sidesof the river and extended back on each side for thirty miles to theheads of the creeks which emptied into the Little Missouri. 

[Illustration: Merrifield. ]

[Illustration: Sylvane Ferris. ]

[Illustration: The Maltese Cross ranch-house as it was when Rooseveltlived in it. ]

The cattle, Roosevelt found, were looking sleek and well-fed. Hehad lost about twenty-five head during the winter, partly from thecold, partly from the attacks of wolves. There were, he discovered, ahundred and fifty fine calves. 

A new cowpuncher had been added to the Maltese Cross outfit, he found, since the preceding autumn. It was George Myers, whom he had met onthe ride down the river from Lang's. Roosevelt had purchased fivehundred dollars' worth of barbed wire and George was diggingpost-holes. He was a boyish and attractive individual whom the_wanderlust_ had driven westward from his home in Wisconsin. Hishonesty fairly leaped at you out of his direct, clear eyes. 

Roosevelt spent two days contemplating his new possessions. At the endof the second he had reached a decision, and he announced it promptly. He told Sylvane and Merrifield to get ready to ride to Lang's with himthe next day for the purpose of drawing up a new contract. He haddetermined to make cattle-raising his "regular business" and intended, at once (in riotous defiance of Uncle James!), to put a thousand headmore on the range. 

The Langs were situated seven miles nearer civilization than they hadbeen on Roosevelt's previous visit, and were living in a dugout builtagainst a square elevation that looked like a low fortress or the"barrow" of some dead Viking chief. They were building a ranch-housein anticipation of the coming of Mrs. Lang and two children, a girl ofeighteen or nineteen and a son a half-dozen years younger thanLincoln. The dugout was already overcrowded with three or fourcarpenters who were at work on the house, and Gregor Lang suggestedthat they ride five miles up the river to a cabin of his on what wasknown as "Sagebrush Bottom, " where he and Lincoln had spent thewinter. They had moved out of the shack on the Little Cannonball fortwo reasons. One was that a large cattle outfit from New Mexico, namedthe Berry-Boyce Cattle Company, had started a ranch, known as the"Three Seven, " not half a mile down the river; the other was thatGregor Lang was by disposition not one who was able to learn from theexperience of others. For it happened that, a few weeks afterRoosevelt's departure in September, a skunk had invaded the cabin andmade itself comfortable under one of the bunks. Lincoln and theHighlander were in favor of diplomacy in dealing with the invader. ButGregor Lang reached for a pitchfork. They pleaded with him, withouteffect. The skunk retaliated in his own fashion; and shortly after, they moved forever out of the cabin on the Little Cannonball. 

Roosevelt, who recognized Gregor Lang's limitations, recognized alsothat the Scotchman was a good business man. He set him to work nextmorning drawing up a new contract. It called for further investment onhis part of twenty-six thousand dollars to cover the purchase of athousand head or more of cattle. Merrifield and Sylvane signed it andreturned promptly to the Maltese Cross. 

Roosevelt remained behind. "Lincoln, " he said, "there are two things Iwant to do. I want to get an antelope, and I want to get a buckskinsuit. "

Lincoln thought that he could help him to both. Some twenty miles tothe east lived a woman named Mrs. Maddox who had acquired some fame inthe region by the vigorous way in which she had handled the oldreprobate who was her husband; and by her skill in making buckskinshirts. She was a dead shot, and it was said of her that even"Calamity Jane, " Deadwood's "first lady, " was forced "to yield thepalm to Mrs. Maddox when it came to the use of a vocabulary whichadequately searched every nook and cranny of a man's life from birthto ultimate damnation. "

They found her in her desolate, little mud-roofed hut on Sand Creek, amile south of the old Keogh trail. She was living alone, havingrecently dismissed her husband in summary fashion. It seems that hewas a worthless devil, who, under the stimulus of some whiskey he hadobtained from an outfit of Missouri "bull-whackers" who were drivingfreight to Deadwood, had picked a quarrel with his wife and attemptedto beat her. She knocked him down with a stove-lid lifter and the"bull-whackers" bore him off, leaving the lady in full possession ofthe ranch. She now had a man named Crow Joe working for her, aslab-sided, shifty-eyed ne'er-do-well, who was suspected of stealinghorses on occasion. 

She measured Roosevelt for his suit[5] and gave him and Lincoln adinner that they remembered. A vigorous personality spoke out of herevery action. Roosevelt regarded her with mingled amusement and awe. 

 [Footnote 5: The buckskin suit which was still doing service thirty years later, was made under the supervision of Mrs. Maddox by her niece, now Mrs. Olmstead, of Medora. ]

They found their antelope on the way home. They found two antelopes, in fact, but Roosevelt, who had been as cool as an Indian an instantbefore, was so elated when he saw the first drop to his rifle that hewas totally incapacitated from aiming at the second when that animal, evidently bewildered, began to run in circles scarcely twenty-fiveyards away. He had dropped his gun with a whoop, waving his arms overhis head and crying, "I got him! I got him!"

"Shoot the other one!" Lincoln called. 

Roosevelt burst into a laugh. "I can't, " he called back. "Not to savemy life. "

They met at the side of the antelope. "This would not have seemednearly so good if somebody had not been here to see it, " Rooseveltexclaimed. "Do you know what I am going to do? I am going to make youa present of my shot-gun. "

Lincoln, being only sixteen, did not know exactly what to make of thegenerosity of this jubilant young man. It struck him that Roosevelt, in the excitement of the moment, was giving away a thing of greatvalue and might regret it on sober second thought. Lincoln repliedthat he could not accept the gift. It struck him that Roosevelt lookedhurt for an instant. 

They dressed the antelope together, Roosevelt taking the position ofhumble pupil. The next day he returned alone to the Maltese Cross. 

He now entered with vigor into the life of a Dakota ranchman. Thecountry was at its best in the clear June weather. The landscape inwhich the ranch-house was set had none of the forbidding desolatenessof sharp bluff and scarred ravine that characterized the regionsurrounding Little Missouri. The door of the cabin looked out on awide, semi-circular clearing covered with sagebrush, bordered on theeast by a ring of buttes and grassy slopes, restful in their gray andgreen for eyes to gaze upon. Westward, not a quarter of a mile fromthe house, behind a hedge of cottonwoods, the river swung in a longcircle at the foot of steep buttes crested with scoria. At the ends ofthe valley were glades of cottonwoods with grassy floors where deerhid among the buckbrush by day, or at dusk fed silently or, at thesound of a step, bounded, erect and beautiful, off into deepershelter. In an almost impenetrable tangle of bullberry bushes, whosehither edge was barely one hundred yards from the ranch-house, twofawns spent their days. They were extraordinarily tame, and in theevenings Roosevelt could frequently see them from the door as theycame out to feed. Walking on the flat after sunset, or riding homewhen night had fallen, he would run across them when it was too darkto make out anything but their flaunting white tails as they canteredout of the way. 

Roosevelt, who never did things by halves, took up his new activitiesas though they constituted the goal of a lifetime spent in a searchfor the ultimate good. Ranch-life was altogether novel to him; at nopoint had his work or his play touched any phase of it. He had riddento hounds and was a fair but by no means a "fancy" rider. Hisexperience in the Meadowbrook Hunt, however, had scarcely prepared himadequately for combat with the four-legged children of Satan that"mewed their mighty youth" on the wild ranges of the Bad Lands. 

"I have a perfect dread of bucking, " he confided to an unseen publicin a book which he began that summer, "and if I can help it I neverget on a confirmed bucker. " He could not always help it. Sylvane, whocould ride anything in the Bad Lands, was wedded to the idea that anyanimal which by main force had been saddled and ridden was a "brokehorse, " and when Roosevelt would protest mildly concerning this orthat particularly vicious animal, Sylvane would look at him in agrieved and altogether captivating way, saying, "Why, I call that aplumb gentle horse. "

"When Sylvane says that a horse is 'plumb gentle, '" remarkedRoosevelt, on one occasion, "then you want to look out. "

Sylvane and Merrifield were to start for the East to purchase theadditional cattle on the 18th of June, and Roosevelt had determined toset forth on the same day for a solitary camping-trip on the prairie. Into the three or four intervening days he crowded all the experiencesthey would hold. 

He managed to persuade Sylvane, somewhat against that individual'spersonal judgment (for Sylvane was suspicious of "dudes"), that heactually intended "to carry his own pack. " Sylvane found, to hissurprise, that the "dude" learnt quickly. He showed Roosevelt once howto saddle his horse, and thereafter Roosevelt saddled his horseshimself. Sylvane was relieved in spirit, and began to look with neweyes on the "four-eyed tenderfoot" who was entrusting a fortune to hiscare. 

There was no general round-up in the valley of the Little Missourithat spring of 1884, for the cattle had not had the opportunity towander to any great distance, having been on the range, most of them, only a few months. The different "outfits, " however, held their ownround-ups, at each of which a few hundred cattle might be gatheredfrom the immediate vicinity, the calves "cut out" and roped andbranded, and turned loose again to wander undisturbed until the "beefround-up" in the fall. 

At each of these round-ups, which might take place on any of a dozenbottoms up or down the river, the Maltese Cross "outfit" had to berepresented, and Sylvane and Merrifield and George Myers were keptbusy picking up their "strays. " Roosevelt rode with them, as "boss"and at the same time as apprentice. It gave him an opportunity to getacquainted with his own men and with the cowpunchers of half a dozenother "outfits. " He found the work stirring and the men singularlyhuman and attractive. They were free and reckless spirits, who did notmuch care, it seemed, whether they lived or died; profane youngsters, who treated him with respect in spite of his appearance because theyrespected the men with whom he had associated himself. They came fromall parts of the Union and spoke a language all their own. 

"We'll throw over an' camp to-night at the mouth o' Knutson Creek, "might run the round-up captain's orders. "Nighthawk'll be corralin'the cavvy in the mornin' 'fore the white crow squeals, so we kin becuttin' the day-herd on the bed-groun'. We'll make a side-cut o' themavericks an' auction 'em off pronto soon's we git through. "

All that was ordinary conversation. When an occasion arose whichseemed to demand a special effort, the talk around the "chuck-wagon"was so riddled with slang from all corners of the earth, so full ofstartling imagery, that a stranger might stare, bewildered, unable toextract a particle of meaning. And through it blazed such a continualshower of oaths, that were themselves sparks of satanic poetry, that, in the phrase of one contemplative cowpuncher, "absodarnnlutely had tobe parted in the middle to hold an extra one. "

It was to ears attuned to this rich and racy music that Roosevelt camewith the soft accents of his Harvard English. The cowboys bore up, showing the tenderfoot the frigid courtesy they kept for "dudes" whohappened to be in company, which made it impolite or inexpedient toattempt "to make the sucker dance. "

It happened, however, that Roosevelt broke the camel's back. Some cowswhich had been rounded up with their calves made a sudden bolt out ofthe herd. Roosevelt attempted to head them back, but the wily cattleeluded him. 

"Hasten forward quickly there!" Roosevelt shouted to one of his men. 

The bounds of formal courtesy could not withstand that. There was aroar of delight from the cowpunchers, and, instantly, the phrasebecame a part of the vocabulary of the Bad Lands. That day, and onmany days thereafter when "Get a git on yuh!" grew stale and "Head offthem cattle!" seemed done to death, he heard a cowpuncher shout, in apiping voice, "Hasten forward quickly there!"

Roosevelt, in fact, was in those first days considered somewhat of ajoke. Beside Gregor Lang, forty miles to the south, he was the onlyman in the Bad Lands who wore glasses. Lang's glasses, moreover, weresmall and oval; Roosevelt's were large and round, making him, in theopinion of the cowpunchers, look very much like a curiously nervousand emphatic owl. They called him "Four Eyes, " and spoke without toomuch respect, of "Roosenfelder. "

Merrifield rode to town with him one day and stopped at the Marquis'scompany store to see a man named Fisher, who had succeeded Edgar Hauptas local superintendent of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator CarCompany, asking Fisher as he was departing whether he did not want tomeet Roosevelt. Fisher had heard of the "four-eyed dude from New York"and heard something of his political reforming. He went outdoors withMerrifield, distinctly curious. 

Roosevelt was on horseback chatting with a group of cowboys, and theimpression he made on Fisher was not such as to remove the naturalprejudice of youth against "reformers" of any sort. What Fisher sawwas "a slim, anæmic-looking young fellow dressed in the exaggeratedstyle which new-comers on the frontier affected, and which wasconsidered indisputable evidence of the rank tenderfoot. " If anyfurther proof of Roosevelt's status was needed, the great roundglasses supplied it. Fisher made up his mind that he knew all heneeded to know about the new owner of the Maltese Cross. 

No doubt he expressed his opinions to Merrifield. The taciturn hunterdid not dispute his conclusions, but a day or two after he dropped inon Fisher again and said, "Get your horse and we'll take the youngfellow over the old Sully Trail and try out his nerve. We'll let onthat we're going for a little hunt. "

Fisher agreed with glee in his heart. He knew the Sully Trail. It ranmainly along the sides of precipitous buttes, southeast of Medora, and, being old and little used, had almost lost the little semblanceit might originally have had of a path where four-footed creaturesmight pick their way with reasonable security. A recent rain had madethe clay as slippery as asphalt in a drizzle. 

It occurred to Fisher that it was as truly wicked a trail as he hadever seen. Merrifield led the way; Fisher maneuvered for last placeand secured it. In the most perilous places there was always somethingabout his saddle which needed adjustment, and he took care not toremount until the danger was behind them. Roosevelt did not dismountfor any reason. He followed where Merrifield led, without comment. 

They came at last to a grassy slope that dipped at an angle offorty-five degrees to a dry creek-bed. "There goes a deer!" shoutedMerrifield suddenly and started down the slope as fast as his horsecould go. Roosevelt followed at the same speed. He and Merrifieldarrived at the bottom at the identical moment; but with a difference. Roosevelt was still on his horse, but Merrifield and his pony hadparted company about a hundred yards above the creek-bed and rolledthe rest of the way. Fisher, who was conservative by nature, arrivedin due course. 

Roosevelt pretended to be greatly annoyed. "Now see what you've done, Merrifield, " he exclaimed as that individual, none the worse for histumble, drew himself to his feet. "That deer is in Montana by thistime. " Then he burst into laughter. 

A suspicion took root in Fisher's mind that Merrifield had intendedthe hazardous performance as much for Fisher's education as forRoosevelt's. He was quite ready to admit that his first impression hadbeen imperfect. Meanwhile, he wondered whether the joke was on himselfor on Merrifield. Certainly it was not on the tenderfoot. 

Roosevelt enjoyed it all with the relish of a gourmand at a feastcooked by the gods. 

 Theodore Roosevelt, the young New York reformer [remarked the _Bad Lands Cowboy_], made us a very pleasant call Monday in full cowboy regalia. New York will certainly lose him for a time at least, as he is perfectly charmed with our free Western life and is now figuring on a trip into the Big Horn country. 

In a letter to his sister Anna, written from Medora, the middle ofJune, we have Roosevelt's own record of his reactions to his firstexperiences as an actual ranchman. "Bamie" or "Bye, " as heaffectionately called her, was living in New York. She had taken hismotherless little Alice under her protecting wing, and, since thedisasters of February, had been half a mother to him also. 

 Well, I have been having a glorious time here [he writes], and am well hardened now (I have just come in from spending thirteen hours in the saddle). For every day I have been here I have had my hands full. First and foremost, the cattle have done well, and I regard the outlook for making the business a success as being _very_ hopeful. I shall buy a thousand more cattle and shall make it my regular business. In the autumn I shall bring out Sewall and Dow and put them on a ranch with very few cattle to start with, and in the course of a couple of years give them quite a little herd also. 

 I have never been in better health than on this trip. I am in the saddle all day long either taking part in the round-up of the cattle, or else hunting antelope (I got one the other day; another good head for our famous hall). I am really attached to my two "factors, " Ferris and Merrifield, they are very fine men. 

 The country is growing on me, more and more; it has a curious, fantastic beauty of its own; and as I own six or eight horses I have a fresh one every day and ride on a lope all day long. How sound I do sleep at night now! There is not much game, however; the cattlemen have crowded it out and only a few antelope and deer remain. I have shot a few jackrabbits and curlews, with the rifle; and I also killed eight rattlesnakes. 

 To-morrow my two men go East for the cattle; and I will start out alone to try my hand at finding my way over the prairie by myself. I intend to take a two months' trip in the fall, for hunting; and may, as politics look now, stay away over Election day; so I shall return now very soon, probably leaving here in a week. 

On the following day Ferris and Merrifield started for the East, andRoosevelt set out on his solitary hunting trip, half to test out hisown qualities as a frontiersman and half to replenish the larder. 

 For the last week I have been fulfilling a boyish ambition of mine [he wrote to "Bamie" after his return to the Maltese Cross]; that is, I have been playing at frontier hunter in good earnest, having been off entirely alone, with my horse and rifle, on the prairie. I wanted to see if I could not do perfectly well without a guide, and I succeeded beyond my expectations. I shot a couple of antelope and a deer--and missed a great many more. I felt as absolutely free as a man could feel; as you know, I do not mind loneliness; and I enjoyed the trip to the utmost. The only disagreeable incident was one day when it rained. Otherwise the weather was lovely, and every night I would lie wrapped up in my blanket looking at the stars till I fell asleep, in the cool air. The country has widely different aspects in different places; one day I could canter hour after hour over the level green grass, or through miles of wild-rose thickets, all in bloom; on the next I would be amidst the savage desolation of the Bad Lands, with their dreary plateaus, fantastically shaped buttes, and deep, winding canyons. I enjoyed the trip greatly, and have never been in better health. 

George Myers was holding the fort at the Maltese Cross, building hisfour-mile fence, keeping an eye on the horses and cattle and acting asgeneral factotum and cook. He was successful in everything except hiscooking. Even that was excellent, except for an occasional andunaccountable lapse; but those lapses were dire. 

It happened that, on the day of his return to the semi-civilization ofthe Maltese Cross, Roosevelt intimated to George Myers thatbaking-powder biscuits would be altogether welcome. George was ratherproud of his biscuits and set to work with energy, adding an extra bitof baking powder from the can on the shelf beside the stove to besure that they would be light. The biscuits went into the oven lookingas perfect as any biscuits which George had ever created. They cameout a rich, emerald green. 

Roosevelt and George Myers stared at them, wondering what imp in theoven had worked a diabolical transformation. But investigation provedthat there was no imp involved. It was merely that Sylvane orMerrifield, before departing, had casually dumped soda into thebaking-powder can. 

Evidently Roosevelt thereupon decided that if accidents of that sortwere liable to happen to George, he had better take charge of theculinary department himself. George was off on the range the followingmorning, and Roosevelt, who had stayed home to write letters, filled akettle with dry rice, poured on what looked like a reasonable amountof water, and set it on the oven to cook. Somewhat to his surprise, the rice began to swell, brimming over on the stove. He dipped outwhat seemed to him a sufficient quantity, and returned to his work. The smell of burning rice informed him that there was trouble in thewind. The kettle, he found, was brimming over again. He dipped outmore rice. All morning long he was dipping out rice. By the timeGeorge returned, every bowl in the cabin, including the wash-basin, was filled with half-cooked rice. 

Roosevelt handed the control of the kitchen back to George Myers. 

VI

 Once long ago an ocean lapped this hill, And where those vultures sail, ships sailed at will; Queer fishes cruised about without a harbor-- I will maintain there's queer fish round here still. 

 _The Bad Lands Rubáiyat_

Through the long days of that soft, green June, Roosevelt was makinghimself at home in his new and strange surroundings. A carpenter, whose name was the same as his trade, built him a bookcase out ofscraps of lumber, and on the shelves of it he assembled oldfriends--Parkman and Irving and Hawthorne and Cooper and Lowell, "IkeMarvel's breezy pages and the quaint, pathetic character-sketches ofthe Southern writers--Cable, Craddock, Macon, Joel Chandler Harris, and sweet Sherwood Bonner. " Wherever he went he carried some book orother about him, solid books as a rule, though he was not averse onoccasion to what one cowpuncher, who later became superintendent ofeducation in Medora, and is therefore to be regarded as an authority, reproachfully described as "trash. " He consumed the "trash, " it seems, after a session of composition, which was laborious to him, and whichset him to stalking to and fro over the floor of the cabin and up anddown through the sagebrush behind it. 

[Illustration: The ford of the Little Missouri near the Maltese Cross. ]

He read and wrote in odd minutes, as his body required now and then arespite from the outdoor activities that filled his days; but inthat first deep quaffing of the new life, the intervals out of thesaddle were brief and given mainly to meals and sleep. As he plungedinto books to extract from them whatever facts or philosophy theymight hold which he needed to enrich his personality and hisusefulness, so he plunged into the life of the Bad Lands seeking tocomprehend the emotions and the mental processes, the personalitiesand the social conditions that made it what it was. With a warmhumanity on which the shackles of social prejudice already hung loose, he moved with open eyes and an open heart among the men and women whomthe winds of chance had blown together in the valley of the LittleMissouri. 

They were an interesting and a diverse lot. Closest to the MalteseCross, in point of situation, were the Eatons, who had establishedthemselves two years previously at an old stage station, five milessouth of Little Missouri, on what had been the first mail routebetween Fort Abraham Lincoln and Fort Keogh. Custer had passed thatway on his last, ill-fated expedition, and the ranch bore the name ofthe Custer Trail in memory of the little army that had camped besideit one night on the way to the Little Big Horn. The two-room shack ofcottonwood logs and a dirt roof, which had been the station, wasinhabited by calves and chickens who were kept in bounds by thestockade which only a little while before had served to keep theIndians at a distance. 

The four Eaton brothers were men of education and family, who hadsuffered financial reverses and migrated from Pittsburgh, where theylived, to "make their fortunes, " as the phrase went, in the Northwest. A wealthy Pennsylvanian named Huidekoper, a lover of good horses, backed Howard at the Custer Trail and another Easterner named VanBrunt started a second ranch with him, known as the "V-Eye, " fortymiles down the river at the mouth of Beaver Creek; a third, named"Chris" McGee, who was a somewhat smoky light in the murk ofPennsylvania politics, went into partnership with Charles, at anotherranch six miles up Beaver. The Custer Trail was headquarters for themall, and at the same time for an endless procession of Eastern friendswho came for the hunting. The Eatons kept open house. Travelers wroteabout the hospitality that even strangers were certain to find there, and carried away with them the picture of Howard Eaton, "who sat hishorse as though he were a centaur and looked a picturesque and noblefigure with his clean-shaven cheeks, heavy drooping moustache, sombrero, blue shirt, and neckerchief with flaming ends. " About thetime Roosevelt arrived, friends who had availed themselves of theEaton hospitality until they were in danger of losing theirself-respect, had prevailed on the reluctant brothers to make"dude-ranching" a business. "Eaton's dudes" became a notable factor inthe Bad Lands. You could raise a laugh about them at Bill Williams'ssaloon when nothing else could wake a smile. 

One of the few women up or down the river was living that June at theCuster Trail. She was Margaret Roberts, the wife of the Eatons'foreman, a jovial, garrulous woman, still under thirty, with hair thatcurled attractively and had a shimmer of gold in it. She was utterlyfearless, and was bringing up numerous children, all girls, with acool disregard of wild animals and wilder men, which, it was rumoredshocked her relatives "back East. " She had been brought up in Iowa, but ten horses could not have dragged her back. 

Four or five miles above the Maltese Cross lived a woman of adifferent sort who was greatly agitating the countryside, especiallyMrs. Roberts. She had come to the Bad Lands with her husband anddaughter since Roosevelt's previous visit, and established a ranch onwhat was known as "Tepee Bottom. " Her husband, whose name, for thepurposes of this narrative, shall be Cummins, had been sent to Dakotaas ranch manager for a syndicate of Pittsburgh men, why, no oneexactly knew, since he was a designer of stoves, and, so far as anyone could find out, had never had the remotest experience with cattle. He was an excellent but ineffective little man, religiously inclined, and consequently dubbed "the Deacon. " Nobody paid very much attentionto him, least of all his wife. That lady had drawn the fire of Mrs. Roberts before she had been in the Bad Lands a week. She was a goodwoman, but captious, critical, complaining, pretentious. She had inher youth had social aspirations which her husband and a little townin Pennsylvania had been unable to gratify. She brought into her lifein Dakota these vague, unsatisfied longings, and immediately set towork to remould the manners, customs, and characters of the communitya little nearer to her heart's desire. To such an attitude there was, of course, only one reaction possible; and she got it promptly. 

Mrs. Roberts, energetic, simple-hearted, vigorous, plain-spoken, wasthe only woman within a dozen miles, and it was not long before Mrs. Roberts hated Mrs. Cummins as Jeremiah hated Babylon. For Mrs. Cumminswas bent on spreading "culture, " and Mrs. Roberts was determined thatby no seeming acquiescence should it be spread over her. 

"Roosevelt was a great visitor, " said Howard Eaton in after time. "When he first came out there, he was a quiet sort of a fellow, withnot much to say to anybody, but the best kind of a mixer I ever saw. "

The Bad Lands no doubt required the ability to mix with all manner ofmen, for it was all manner of men that congregated there. Rooseveltevaded the saloons but established friendly relations with the men whodid not. When he rode to town for his mail or to make purchases at JoeFerris's new store, he contracted the habit of stopping at the officeof the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, where those who loved conversation morethan whiskey had a way of foregathering. 

It was there that he came to know Hell-Roaring Bill Jones. 

Bill Jones was a personage in the Bad Lands. He was, in fact, morethan that. He was (like Roosevelt himself) one of those rare beingswho attain mythical proportions even in their lifetime and draw aboutthemselves the legendry of their generation. Bill Jones was the typeand symbol of the care-free negation of moral standards in the wildlittle towns of the frontier, and men talked of him with an awe whichthey scarcely exhibited toward any symbol of virtue and sobriety. Hesaid things and he did things which even a tolerant observer, hardenedto the aspect of life's seamy side, might have felt impelled to calldepraved, and yet Bill Jones himself was not depraved. He was, likethe community in which he lived, "free an' easy. " Morality meant nomore to him than grammar. He outraged the one as he outraged theother, without malice and without any sense of fundamental differencebetween himself and those who preferred to do neither. 

The air was full of tales of his extraordinary doings, for he was afighter with pistols and with fists and had an ability as a "butter"which was all his own and which he used with deadly effect. What hishistory had been was a secret which he illuminated only fitfully. Itwas rumored that he had been born in Ireland of rather good stock, andin the course of an argument with an uncle of his with whom he livedhad knocked the uncle down. Whether he had killed him the rumorsfailed to tell, but the fact that Bill Jones had found it necessary"to dust" to America, under an assumed name, suggested several things. Being inclined to violence, he naturally drifted to that part of thecountry where violence seemed to be least likely to have seriousconsequences. By a comic paradox, he joined the police force ofBismarck. He casually mentioned the fact one day to Roosevelt, remarking that he had left the force because he "beat the Mayor overthe head with his gun one day. "

"The Mayor, he didn't mind it, " he added, "but the Superintendent ofPolice guessed I'd better resign. "

He was a striking-looking creature, a man who could turn dreams intonightmares, merely by his presence in them. He was rather short ofstature, but stocky and powerfully built, with a tremendous chest andlong, apelike arms, hung on a giant's shoulders. The neck was abrute's, and the square protruding jaw was in keeping with it. Hislips were thin, his nose was hooked like a pirate's, and his keenblack eyes gleamed from under the bushy black eyebrows like agrizzly's from a cave. He was not a thing of beauty, but, at the backof his unflinching gaze, humor in some spritely and satanic shape wasalways disporting itself, and there was, as Lincoln Lang described it, "a certain built-in look of drollery in his face, " which made oneforget its hardness. 

He was feared and, strange to say, he was loved by the very men whofeared him. For he was genial, and he could build a yarn that had thearchitectural completeness of a turreted castle, created out of smokeby some imaginative minstrel of hell. His language on all occasionswas so fresh and startling that men had a way of following him aboutjust to gather up the poppies and the nightshade of his exuberantconversation. 

As Will Dow later remarked about him, he was "an awfully good man tohave on your side if there was any sassing to be done. "

Roosevelt was not one of those who fed on the malodorous stories whichhad gained for their author the further sobriquet of "Foul-mouthedBill"; but he rather liked Bill Jones. [6] It happened one day, in the_Cowboy_ office that June, that the genial reprobate was holding forthin his best vein to an admiring group of cowpunchers. 

 [Footnote 6: "As I recall Bill, his stories were never half as bad as Frank [Vine's], for instance. Where he shone particularly was in excoriating those whom he did not like. In this connection he could--and did--use the worst expressions I have ever heard. He was a born cynic, who said his say in 'plain talk, ' not 'langwidge. ' For all that, he was filled to the neck with humor, and was a past-master in the art of repartee, always in plain talk, remember. Explain it if you can. Bill was roundly hated by many because he had a way of talking straight truth. He had an uncanny knack of seeing behind the human scenery of the Bad Lands, and always told right out what he saw. That is why they were all afraid of him. "--_Lincoln Lang. _]

Roosevelt, who was inclined to be reserved in the company of his newassociates, endured the flow of indescribable English as long as hecould. Then, suddenly, in a pause, when the approving laughter hadsubsided, he began slowly to "skin his teeth. "

"Bill Jones, " he said, looking straight into the saturnine face, andspeaking in a low, quiet voice, "I can't tell why in the world I likeyou, for you're the nastiest-talking man I ever heard. "

Bill Jones's hand fell on his "six-shooter. " The cowpunchers, knowingtheir man, expected shooting. But Bill Jones did not shoot. For aninstant the silence in the room was absolute. Gradually a sheepishlook crept around the enormous and altogether hideous mouth of BillJones. "I don't belong to your outfit, Mr. Roosevelt, " he said, "andI'm not beholden to you for anything. All the same, I don't mindsaying that mebbe I've been a little too free with my mouth. "

They became friends from that day. 

If Roosevelt had tried to avoid the Marquis de Mores on his trips tothe Marquis's budding metropolis in those June days, he would scarcelyhave succeeded. The Marquis was the most vivid feature of thelandscape in and about Medora. His personal appearance would haveattracted attention in any crowd. The black, curly hair, the upturnedmoustaches, waxed to needle-points, the heavy eyelids, the cool, arrogant eyes, made an impression which, against that primitivebackground, was not easily forgotten. His costume, moreover, wasextraordinary to the point of the fantastic. It was the Marquis whoalways seemed to wear the widest sombrero, the loudest neckerchief. Hewent armed like a battleship. A correspondent of the Mandan _Pioneer_met him one afternoon returning from the pursuit of a band of cattlewhich had stampeded. "He was armed to the teeth, " ran his report. "Aformidable-looking belt encircled his waist, in which was stuck amurderous-looking knife, a large navy revolver, and two rows ofcartridges, and in his hand he carried a repeating rifle. "

A man who appeared thus dressed and accoutered would either be amaster or a joke in a community like Medora. There were severalreasons why he was never a joke. His money had something to do withit, but the real reason was, in the words of a contemporary, that"when it came to a show-down, the Marquis was always there. " Hecompletely dominated the life of Medora. His hand was on everything, and everything, it seemed, belonged to him. It was quite like "Puss inBoots. " His town was really booming and was crowding its rival on thewest bank completely out of the picture. The clatter of hammers on newbuildings sounded, in the words of the editor of the _Cowboy_, "like ariveting machine. " The slaughter-house had already been expanded. FromChicago came a score or more of butchers, from the range came herds ofcattle to be slaughtered. The side-track was filled with empty cars ofthe Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, which, as they wereloaded with dressed beef, were coupled on fast east-bound trains. TheMarquis, talking to newspaper correspondents, was glowing in hisaccounts of the blooming of his desert rose. He announced that italready had six hundred inhabitants. Another, calmer witnessestimated fifty. The truth was probably a hundred, including thefly-by-nights. Unquestionably, they made noise enough for six hundred. 

The Marquis, pending the completion of his house, was livingsumptuously in his private car, somewhat, it was rumored, to theannoyance of his father-in-law, who was said to see no connectionbetween the rough life of a ranchman, in which the Marquis appeared toexult, and the palace on wheels in which he made his abode. But he wasnever snobbish. He had a friendly word for whoever drifted into hisoffice, next to the company store, and generally "something for thesnake-bite, " as he called it, that was enough to bring benedictions tothe lips of a cowpuncher whose dependence for stimulants was on BillWilliams's "Forty-Mile Red-Eye. " To the men who worked for him he wasextraordinarily generous, and he was without vindictiveness towardthose who, since the killing of Luffsey, had openly or tacitly opposedhim. He had a grudge against Gregor Lang, [7] whose aversion to titlesand all that went with them had not remained unexpressed during theyear that had intervened since that fatal June 26th, but if he heldany rancor toward Merrifield or the Ferrises, he did not reveal it. Hewas learning a great deal incidentally. 

 [Footnote 7: "He held the grudge all right, and it may have been largely because father sided against him in regard to the killing. But I think the main reason was because father refused to take any hand in bringing about a consolidation of interests. Pender was a tremendously rich man and had the ear of some of the richest men in England, such as the Duke of Sutherland and the Marquis of Tweeddale. "--_Lincoln Lang. _]

Shortly before Roosevelt's arrival from the Chicago convention, theMarquis had stopped at the Maltese Cross one day for a chat withSylvane. He was dilating on his projects, "spreading himself" on hisdreams, but in his glowing vision of the future, he turned, for once, a momentary glance of calm analysis on the past. 

"If I had known a year ago what I know now, " he said rather sadly, "Riley Luffsey would never have been killed. "

It was constantly being said of the Marquis that he was self-willedand incapable of taking advice. The charge was untrue. The difficultywas rather that he sought advice in the wrong quarters and lacked thejudgment to weigh the counsel he received against the characters andaims of the men who gave it. He was constantly pouring out the tale ofhis grandiose plans to Tom and Dick and Abraham, asking for guidancein affairs of business and finance from men whose knowledge ofbusiness was limited to frontier barter and whose acquaintance withfinance was of an altogether dubious and uneconomic nature. He waspossessed, moreover, by the dangerous notion that those who spokebluntly were, therefore, of necessity opposed to him and not worthregarding, while those who flattered him were his friends whosecounsel he could trust. 

It was this attitude of mind which encumbered his project for astage-line to the Black Hills with difficulties from the very start. The project itself was feasible. Deadwood could be reached only bystage from Pierre, a matter of three hundred miles. The distance toMedora was a hundred miles shorter. Millions of pounds of freight wereaccumulating for lack of proper transportation facilities to Deadwood. That hot little mining town, moreover, needed contact with the greattranscontinental system, especially in view of the migratory movement, which had begun early in the year, of the miners from Deadwood andLead to the new gold-fields in the Coeur d'Alênes in Idaho. 

Bill Williams and Jess Hogue, with the aid of the twenty-eight armymules which they had acquired in ways that invited research, hadstarted a freight-line from Medora to Deadwood, but its service turnedout to be spasmodic, depending somewhat on the state of Medora'sthirst, on the number of "suckers" in town who had to be fleeced, andon the difficulty under which both Williams and Hogue seemed to sufferof keeping sober when they were released from their obvious duties inthe saloon. There appeared to be every reason, therefore, why astage-line connecting Deadwood with the Northern Pacific, carryingpassengers, mail, and freight, and organized with sufficient capital, should succeed. 

Dickinson, forty miles east, was wildly agitating for such a line torun from that prosperous little community to the Black Hills. TheDickinson _Press_ and the _Bad Lands Cowboy_ competed in deriding eachother's claims touching "the only feasible route. " The _Cowboy_ saidthat the Medora line would be more direct. The _Press_ agreed, butreplied that the country through which it would have to go wasimpassable even for an Indian on a pony. The _Cowboy_ declared that"the Dickinson road strikes gumbo from the start"; and the _Press_with fine scorn answered, "This causes a smile to percolate ourfeatures. From our experience in the Bad Lands we know that after aslight rain a man can carry a whole quarter-section off on his boots, and we don't wear number twelves either. " The _Cowboy_ insisted thatthe Dickinson route "is at best a poor one and at certain seasonsimpassable. " The _Press_ scorned to reply to this charge, remarkingmerely from the heights of its own eight months' seniority, "The_Cowboy_ is young, and like a boy, going through a graveyard at night, is whistling to keep up courage. "

There the debate for the moment rested. But Dickinson, whichunquestionably had the better route, lacked a Marquis. While the_Press_ was printing the statements of army experts in support of itsclaims, de Mores was sending surveyors south to lay out his route. From Sully Creek they led it across the headwaters of the Heart Riverand the countless affluents of the Grand and the Cannonball, past SlimButtes and the Cave Hills, across the valleys of the Bellefourche andthe Moreau, two hundred and twenty-five miles into the Black Hills andDeadwood. Deadwood gave the Marquis a public reception, hailing him asa benefactor of the race, and the Marquis, flushed and seeingvisions, took a flying trip to New York and presented a petition tothe directors of the Northern Pacific for a railroad from Medora tothe Black Hills. 

The dream was perfect, and everybody (except the Dickinson _Press_)was happy. Nothing remained but to organize the stage company, buy thecoaches, the horses and the freight outfits, improve the highway, establish sixteen relay stations, and get started. And there, the realdifficulties commenced. 

The Marquis, possibly feeling that it was the part of statesmanship toconciliate a rival, forgot apparently all other considerations andasked Bill Williams, the saloon-keeper, to undertake the organizationof the stage-line. Williams assiduously disposed of the money whichthe Marquis put in his hands, but attained no perceptible results. TheMarquis turned next to Bill Williams's partner in freighting and faroand asked Jess Hogue to take charge. Hogue, who was versatile and wasas willing to cheat a man in one way as in another, consented and fora time neglected the card-tables of Williams's "liquor-parlor" toenter into negotiations for the construction of the line. He was aclever man and had had business experience of a sort, but his interestin the Deadwood stage-line did not reach beyond the immediateopportunity it offered of acquiring a substantial amount of theMarquis's money. He made a trip or two to Bismarck and Deadwood; helooked busy; he promised great things; but nothing happened. TheMarquis, considerably poorer in pocket, deposed his second manager ashe had deposed the first, and looked about for an honest man. 

One day Packard, setting up the _Cowboy_, was amazed to see theMarquis come dashing into his office. 

"I want you to put on the stage-line for me, " he ejaculated. 

Packard looked at him. "But Marquis, " he answered, "I never saw astage or a stage-line. I don't know anything about it. "

"It makes no difference, " cried the Frenchman. "You will not rob me. "

Packard admitted the probability of the last statement. They talkedmatters over. To Packard, who was not quite twenty-four, the prospectof running a stage-line began to look rather romantic. He set about tofind out what stage-lines were made of, and went to Bismarck to studythe legal document the Marquis's lawyers had drawn up. It specified, in brief, that A. T. Packard was to be sole owner of the Medora andBlack Hills Stage and Forwarding Company when it should have paid foritself from its net earnings, which left nothing to be desired, especially as the total receipts from sales of building lots in Medoraand elsewhere were to be considered part of the earnings. It wasunderstood that the Marquis was to secure a mail contract from thePost-Office Department effective with the running of the first stagesometime in June. Packard attached his name to the document, andwaited for the money which the Marquis had agreed to underwrite toset the organization in motion. 

Day after day he waited in vain. Weeks passed. In June began an exodusfrom the Black Hills to the Coeur d'Alênes that soon became astampede. With an exasperation that he found it difficult to control, Packard heard of the thousands that were taking the roundabout journeyby way of Pierre or Miles City. He might, he knew, be running everynorth-bound coach full from front to hind boot and from thorough-braceto roof-rail; and for once the Marquis might make some money. Hepleaded for funds in person and by wire. But the Marquis, for themoment, did not have any funds to give him. 

Roosevelt and the Marquis were inevitably thrown together, for theywere men whose tastes in many respects were similar. They were bothfond of hunting, and fond also of books, and the Marquis, who wasrather solitary in his grandeur and possibly a bit lonely, jumped atthe opportunity Roosevelt's presence in Medora offered forcompanionship with his own kind. Roosevelt did not like him. Herecognized, no doubt, that if any cleavage should come in thecommunity to which they both belonged, they would, in all probability, not be found on the same side. 

VII

 An oath had come between us--I was paid by Law and Order; He was outlaw, rustler, killer--so the border whisper ran; Left his word in Caliente that he'd cross the Rio border-- Call me coward? But I hailed him--"Riding close to daylight, Dan!"

 Just a hair and he'd have got me, but my voice, and not the warning, Caught his hand and held him steady; then he nodded, spoke my name, Reined his pony round and fanned it in the bright and silent morning, Back across the sunlit Rio up the trail on which he came. 

 Henry Herbert KNIBBS

It was already plain that there were in fact two distinct groups alongthe valley of the Little Missouri. There are always two groups in anycommunity (short of heaven); and the fact that in the Bad Lands therewas a law-abiding element, and another element whose main interest inlaw was in the contemplation of its fragments, would not be worthremarking if it had not happened that the Marquis had allowed himselfto be maneuvered into a position in which he appeared, and in which infact he was, the protector of the disciples of violence. This was duepartly to Maunders's astute manipulations, but largely also to theobsession by which apparently he was seized that he was the lord ofthe manor in the style of the _ancien régime_, not to be bothered inhis beneficent despotism with the restrictions that kept the commonman in his place. As a foreigner he naturally cared little for thepolitical development of the region; as long as his own possessions, therefore, were not tampered with, he was not greatly disturbed byany depredations which his neighbors might suffer. He employed handswithout number; he seemed to believe any "fool lie" a man feltinclined to tell him; he distributed blankets, saddles and spurs. Naturally, Maunders clung to him like a leech with his train oflawbreakers about him. 

The immunity which Maunders enjoyed and radiated over his followerswas only one factor of many in perpetuating the lawlessness for whichthe Bad Lands had for years been famous. Geography favored thecriminal along the Little Missouri. Montana was a step or two to thewest, Wyoming was a haven of refuge to the southwest, Canada waswithin easy reach to the north. A needle in a haystack, moreover, wasless difficult to lay one's finger upon than a "two-gun man" tuckedaway in one of a thousand ravines, scarred with wash-outs and filledwith buckbrush, in the broken country west of Bullion Butte. 

Western Dakota was sanctuary, and from every direction of the compassknaves of varying degrees of iniquity and misguided ability came toenjoy it. There was no law in the Bad Lands but "six-shooter law. " Thedays were reasonably orderly, for there were "jobs" for every one; butthe nights were wild. There was not much diversion of an upliftingsort in Medora that June of 1884. There was not even an "op'ry house. "Butchers and cowboys, carpenters and laborers, adventurous youngcollege graduates and younger sons of English noblemen, drank andgambled and shouted and "shot up the town together" with"horse-rustlers" and faro-dealers and "bad men" with notches on theirguns. "Two-gun men" appeared from God-knows-whence, generally wellsupplied with money, and disappeared, the Lord knew whither, appearingelsewhere, possibly, with a band of horses whose brands had meltedaway under the application of a red-hot frying-pan, or suffered asea-change at the touch of a "running iron. " Again they came toMedora, and again they disappeared. The horse-market was brisk atMedora, though only the elect knew where it was or who bought and soldor from what frantic owner, two hundred miles to the north or south, the horses had been spirited away. 

It was a gay life, as Packard remarked. 

The "gayety" was obvious even to the most casual traveler whose trainstopped for three noisy minutes at the Medora "depot. " "DutchWannigan, " when he remarked that "seeing the trains come in was allthe scenery we had, " plumbed the depths of Medora's hunger "forsomething to happen. " A train (even a freight) came to stand forexcitement, not because of any diversion it brought of itself out of aworld of "dudes" and police-officers, but because of the deviltry itnever failed to inspire in certain leading citizens of Medora. 

For Medora had a regular reception committee, whose membership varied, but included always the most intoxicated cowpunchers who happened tobe in town. Its leading spirits were Bill Williams, the saloon-keeper, Van Zander, the wayward but attractive son of a Dutch patrician, andhis bosom friend, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones; and if they were fertile ininvention, they were no less energetic in carrying their inventionsinto execution. To shoot over the roofs of the cars was a regularpastime, to shoot through the windows was not unusual, but it was agenius who thought of the notion of crawling under the dining-car andshooting through the floor. He scattered the scrambled eggs which thenegro waiter was carrying, but did no other damage. These generalsalvos of greeting, Bill Jones, Bill Williams, and the millionaire'sson from Rotterdam were accustomed to vary by specific attention topassengers walking up and down the platform. 

It happened one day that an old man in a derby hat stepped off thetrain for a bit of an airing while the engine was taking water. BillJones, spying the hat, gave an indignant exclamation and promptly shotit off the man's head. The terrified owner hurried into the train, leaving the brim behind. 

"Come back, come back!" shouted Bill Jones, "we don't want theblinkety-blank thing in Medora. "

The old man, terrified, looked into Bill Jones's sinister face. Hefound no relenting there. Deeply humiliated, he walked over to wherethe battered brim lay, picked it up, and reëntered the train. 

Medora, meanwhile, was acquiring a reputation for iniquity withoverland tourists which the cowboys felt in duty bound to live up to. For a time the trains stopped both at Medora and Little Missouri. Onone occasion, as the engine was taking water at the wicked littlehamlet on the west bank, the passengers in the sleeping-car, which wasstanding opposite the Pyramid Park Hotel, heard shots, evidently firedin the hotel. They were horrified a minute later to see a man, apparently dead, being carried out of the front door and around theside of the hotel to the rear. A minute later another volley washeard, and another "dead" man was seen being carried out. It was aholocaust before the train finally drew out of the station, bearingaway a car-full of gasping "dudes. "

They did not know that it was the same man who was being carried roundand round, and only the wise ones surmised that the shooting was avolley fired over the "corpse" every time the "procession" passed thebar. 

All this was very diverting and did harm to nobody. Roosevelt himself, no doubt, took huge satisfaction in it. But there were aspects ofMedora's disregard for the conventions which were rather more serious. If you possessed anything of value, you carried it about with you ifyou expected to find it when you wanted it. You studied the ways ofitinerant butchers with much attention, and if you had any cattle ofyour own, you kept an eye on the comings and goings of everybody whosold beef or veal. The annoying element in all this vigilance, however, was that, even if you could point your finger at the man whohad robbed you, it did not profit you much unless you were ready toshoot him. A traveling salesman, whose baggage had been looted inMedora, swore out a warrant in Morton County, a hundred and fiftymiles to the east. The Morton County sheriff came to serve thewarrant, but the warrant remained in his pocket. He was "close-herded"in the sagebrush across the track from the "depot" by the greater partof the male population, on the general principle that an officer ofthe law was out of place in Medora whatever his mission might be; andput on board the next train going east. 

In all the turmoil, the Marquis was in his element. He was never aparticipant in the hilarity and he was never known to "take a drink"except the wine he drank with his meals. He kept his distance and hisdignity. But he regarded the lawlessness merely as part of frontierlife, and took no steps to stop it. Roosevelt was too young anduntested a member of the community to exert any open influence duringthose first weeks of his active life in the Bad Lands. It remained forthe ex-baseball player, the putative owner of a stage-line thatrefused to materialize, to give the tempestuous little community itsfirst faint notion of the benefits of order. 

[Illustration: A. T. Packard. ]

[Illustration: Office of the "Bad Lands Cowboy". ]

Packard, as editor of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, had, in a mannerentirely out of proportion to his personal force, or the personalforce that any other man except the most notable might have broughtto bear, been a civilizing influence from the beginning. The trainthat brought his presses from the East brought civilization with it, asomewhat shy and wraithlike civilization, but yet a thing made in theimage and containing in itself the germ of that spirit which is theantithesis of barbarism, based on force, being itself the visibleexpression of the potency of ideas. The _Bad Lands Cowboy_ brought thefirst tenuous foreshadowing of democratic government to the banks ofthe Little Missouri, inasmuch as it was an organ which could mouldpublic opinion and through which public opinion might findarticulation. It was thus that a youngster, not a year out of college, became, in a sense, the first representative of the American idea inthe Marquis de Mores's feudal appanage. 

Packard was extraordinarily well fitted not only to be a frontiereditor, but to be a frontier editor in Medora. His college educationgave him a point of contact with the Marquis which most of the othercitizens of the Bad Lands lacked; his independence of spirit, on theother hand, kept him from becoming the Frenchman's tool. He wasaltogether fearless, he was a crack shot and a good rider, and he wasnot without effectiveness with his fists. But he was also tactful andtolerant; and he shared, and the cowboys knew he shared, their love ofthe open country and the untrammeled ways of the frontier. Besides, hehad a sense of humor, which in Medora in the spring of 1884, wasbetter than great riches. 

The _Cowboy_ was Packard and Packard was the _Cowboy_. He printed whathe pleased, dictating his editorials, as it were, "to the machine, " hehimself being the machine translating ideas into type as they came. His personal responsibility was absolute. There was no one behind whomhe could hide. If any one objected to any statement in Medora's weeklynewspaper, he knew whom to reproach. "Every printed word, " saidPackard, a long time after, "bore my brand. There were no mavericks inthe _Bad Lands Cowboy_ articles. There was no libel law; no law of anykind except six-shooter rights. And I was the only man who nevercarried a six-shooter. "

To a courageous man, editing a frontier paper was an adventure whichhad thrills which editors in civilized communities never knew. Packardspoke his mind freely. Medora gasped a little. Packard expressed hisbelief that a drunken man who kills, or commits any other crime, should be punished for the crime and also for getting drunk, and thenthere was trouble; for the theory of the frontier was that a man whowas drunk was not responsible for what he did, and accidents whichhappened while he was in that condition, though unfortunate, were tobe classed, not with crimes, but with tornadoes and hailstorms andthunder bolts, rather as "acts of God. " The general expression of theeditor's opposition to this amiable theory brought only rumblings, butthe specific applications brought indignant citizens withsix-shooters. Packard had occasion to note the merits as a lethalweapon of the iron "side-stick" with which he locked his type forms. It revealed itself as more potent than a six-shooter, and acarving-knife was not in a class with it; as he proved to thesatisfaction of all concerned when a drunken butcher, who attempted tocut a Chinaman into fragments, came to the _Cowboy_ office, "toforestall adverse comment in the next issue. "

Packard was amused to note how much his ability to defend himselfsimplified the problem of moulding public opinion in Medora. 

The law-abiding ranchmen along the Little Missouri, who found aspokesman in the editor of the _Cowboy_, recognized that what the BadLands needed was government, government with a club if possible, butin any event something from which a club could be developed. But theelements of disorder, which had been repulsed when they had suggestedthe organization of Billings County a year previous, now vigorouslyresisted organization when the impetus came from the men who hadblocked their efforts. But the _Cowboy_ fought valiantly, and theDickinson _Press_ in its own way did what it could to help. 

 Medora is clamoring for a county organization in Billings County [the editor reported. ] We hope they will get it. If there is any place along the line that needs a criminal court and a jail it is Medora. Four-fifths of the business before our justice of the peace comes from Billings County. 

A week later, the _Press_ reported that the county was about to beorganized and that John C. Fisher and A. T. Packard were to be two outof the three county commissioners. Then something happened. What itwas is shrouded in mystery. Possibly the Marquis, who had never beenacquitted by a jury of the killing of Riley Luffsey, decided at thelast minute that, in case the indictment, which was hovering over himlike an evil bird, should suddenly plunge and strike, he would stand abetter chance away from Medora than in it. A word from him to Maundersand from Maunders to his "gang" would unquestionably have served tobring about the organization of the county; a word spoken against themove would also have served effectually to block it. There was, however, a certain opposition to the movement for organization on thepart of the most sober elements of the population. Some of the olderranchmen suggested to Packard and to Fisher that they count noses. They did so, and the result was not encouraging. Doubtless they mightorganize the county, but the control of it would pass into the handsof the crooked. Whatever causes lay behind the sudden evaporation ofthe project, the fact stands that for the time being the Bad Landsremained under the easy-going despotism of the Marquis de Mores andhis prime minister, Jake Maunders, unhampered and unillumined by theimpertinences of democracy. 

The Dickinson _Press_ had truth on its side when it uttered its wailthat Medora needed housing facilities for the unruly. Medora hadnever had a jail. Little Missouri had had an eight by ten shack whichone man, who knew some history, christened "the Bastile, " and whichwas used as a sort of convalescent hospital for men who were too drunkto distinguish between their friends and other citizens when theystarted shooting. But a sudden disaster had overtaken the Bastile oneday when a man called Black Jack had come into Little Missouri on awrecking train. He had a reputation that extended from Mandan to MilesCity for his ability to carry untold quantities of whiskey withoutshowing signs of intoxication; but Little Missouri proved his undoing. The "jag" he developed was something phenomenal, and he was finallylocked up in the Bastile by common consent. The train crew, lookingfor Black Jack at three in the morning, located him after muchsearching. But the Bastile had been built by the soldiers and resistedtheir efforts to break in. Thereupon they threw a line about the shackand with the engine hauled it to the side of a flatcar attached to thetrain. Then with a derrick they hoisted Little Missouri's onlydepository for the helpless inebriate on the flatcar and departedwestward. At their leisure they chopped Black Jack out of hisconfinement. They dumped the Bastile over the embankment somewhere amile west of town. 

The collapse of the efforts of the champions of order to organize thecounty left the problem of dealing with the lawlessness that wasrampant, as before, entirely to the impulse of outraged individuals. There was no court, no officer of the law. Each man was a law untohimself, and settled his own quarrels. The wonder, under suchcircumstances, is not that there was so much bloodshed, but that therewas so little. There was, after all, virtue in the anarchy of thefrontier. Personal responsibility was a powerful curb-bit. 

In the Bad Lands, in June, 1884, there was a solid minority oflaw-abiding citizens who could be depended on in any crisis. There wasa larger number who could be expected as a rule to stand with theangels, but who had friendly dealings with the outlaws and were opento suspicion. Then there was the indeterminate and increasing numberof men whose sources of revenue were secret, who toiled not, but wereknown to make sudden journeys from which they returned with fat"rolls" in their pockets. It was to curb this sinister third groupthat Packard had attempted to organize the county. Failing in thatproject, he issued a call for a "mass meeting. "

The meeting was duly held, and, if it resembled the conference of acommittee more than a popular uprising, that was due mainly to thefact that a careful census taken by the editor of the _Cowboy_revealed that in the whole of Billings County, which included in itslimits at that time a territory the size of Massachusetts, there livedexactly one hundred and twenty-two males and twenty-seven females. There was a certain hesitancy on the part even of the law-abiding toassert too loudly their opposition to the light-triggered elementswhich were "frisking" their horses and cattle. The "mass meeting"voted, in general, that order was preferable to disorder andadjourned, after unanimously electing Packard chief of police (with nopolice to be chief of) and the Marquis de Mores head of the firedepartment (which did not exist). 

"I have always felt there was something I did not know back of thatmeeting, " said Packard afterward. "I think Roosevelt started it, as heand I were agreed the smaller ranches were losing enough cattle andhorses to make the difference between profit and loss. It was aconstant topic of conversation among the recognized law-and-order menand all of us agreed the thieves must be checked. I don't evenremember how the decision came about to hold the meeting. It wasdecided to hold it, however, and I gave the notice wide publicity inthe _Bad Lands Cowboy_. I was never more surprised than whenMerrifield nominated me for chief of police. Merrifield was a partnerwith Roosevelt and the Ferris boys in the Chimney Butte Ranch and Ihave always thought he and Roosevelt had agreed beforehand to nominateme. "

Packard took up his duties, somewhat vague in his mind concerning whatwas expected of him. There was no organization behind him, noexecutive committee to give him instructions. With a large liberality, characteristic of the frontier, the "mass meeting" had left to his owndiscretion the demarcation of his "authority" and the manner of itsassertion. His "authority, " in fact, was a gigantic bluff, but he wasnot one to let so immaterial a detail weaken his nerve. 

The fire department died stillborn; but the police force promptlyasserted itself. Packard had decided to "work on the transients"first, for he could persuade them, better than he could the residents, that he had an organization behind him, with masks and a rope. Fromthe start he made it a point not to mix openly in any "altercation, "where he could avoid it, for the simple reason that the actualfighting was in most cases done by professional "bad men, " and thedeath of either party to the duel, or both, was considered a source ofjubilation rather than of regret. He devoted his attention mainly tothose "floaters" whom he suspected of being in league with theoutlaws, or who, by their recklessness with firearms, made themselvesa public nuisance. He seldom, if ever, made an arrest. He merely drewhis man aside and told him that "it had been decided" that he shouldleave town at once and never again appear in the round-up district ofthe Bad Lands. In no case was his warning disobeyed. On the fewoccasions when it was necessary for him to interfere publicly, therewere always friends of order in the neighborhood to help him seal theexile in a box car and ship him east or west on the next freight. Anumber of hilarious disciples of justice varied this proceeding oneevening by breaking open the car in which one of Packard's prisonerslay confined and tying him to the cowcatcher of a train which had justarrived. Word came back from Glendive at midnight that the prisonerhad reached his destination in safety, though somewhat breathless, owing to the fact that the cowcatcher "had picked up a Texas steer onthe way. "

Packard's activity as chief of police had value in keeping the"floaters" in something resembling order; but it scarcely touched themain problem with which the law-abiding ranchmen had to contend, whichwas the extinction of the horse and cattle thieves. 

To an extraordinary extent these thieves possessed the Bad Lands. Theywere here, there, and everywhere, sinister, intangible shadows, weaving in and out of the bright-colored fabric of frontier life. Theywere in every saloon and in almost every ranch-house. They rode on theround-ups, they sat around the camp-fire with the cowpunchers. Some ofthe most capable ranchmen were in league with them, bankers east andwest along the railroad were hand in glove with them. A man scarcelydared denounce the thieves to his best friend for fear his friendmight be one of them. 

There were countless small bands which operated in western Dakota, eastern Montana, and northwestern Wyoming, each loosely organized as aunit, yet all bound together in the tacit fellowship of outlawry. Themost tangible bond among them was that they all bought each other'sstolen horses, and were all directors of the same "undergroundrailway. " Together they constituted not a band, but a "system, " thathad its tentacles in every horse and cattle "outfit" in the Bad Lands. 

As far as the system had a head at all, that head was a man namedAxelby. Other men stole a horse here or there, but Axelby stole wholeherds of fifty and a hundred at one daring sweep. He was in appearancea typical robber chieftain, a picturesque devil with piercing blackeyes and a genius for organization and leadership. In addition to hisimmediate band, scores of men whom he never saw, and who werescattered over a territory greater than New England, served him withabsolute fidelity. They were most of them saloon-keepers, gamblers, and men who by their prominence in the community would be unsuspected;and there were among them more than a few ranchmen who were not averseto buying horses under the market price. With the aid of these men, Axelby created his smooth-running "underground railway" from the BigHorn Mountains and the Black Hills north through Wyoming, Dakota, andMontana. His agents in the settlements performed the office of spies, keeping him in touch with opportunities to operate on a large scale;and the ranchmen kept open the "underground" route by means of whichhe was able to spirit his great herds of horses across the Canadianline. 

By the spring of 1884, Axelby's fame had reached the East, and eventhe New York _Sun_ gave him a column:

 Mr. Axelby is said to be at the head of a trusty band as fearless and as lawless as himself. The Little Missouri and Powder River districts are the theater of his operations. An Indian is Mr. Axelby's detestation. He kills him at sight if he can. He considers that Indians have no right to own ponies and he takes their ponies whenever he can. Mr. Axelby has repeatedly announced his determination not to be taken alive. The men of the frontier say he bears a charmed life, and the hairbreadth 'scapes of which they have made him the hero are numerous and of the wildest stamp. 

During the preceding February, Axelby and his band had had a clashwith the Federal authorities, which had created an enormous sensationup and down the Little Missouri, but had settled nothing so far as thehorse-thieves were concerned. In the Bad Lands the thieves becamedaily more pestiferous. Two brothers named Smith and two others called"Big Jack" and "Little Jack" conducted the major operations inBillings County. They had their cabin in a coulee west of the Big OxBow, forty miles south of Medora, in the wildest part of the BadLands, and "worked the country" from there north and south. Theyseldom stole from white men, recognizing the advisability of notirritating their neighbors too much, but drove off Indian ponies inherds. Their custom was to steal Sioux horses from one of thereservations, keep them in the Scoria Hills a month or more until alldanger of pursuit was over, and then drive them north over the prairiebetween Belfield and Medora, through the Killdeer Mountains to thenortheastern part of the Territory. There they would steal otherhorses from the Grosventres Indians, and drive them to their cache inthe Scoria Hills whence they could emerge with them at their goodpleasure and sell them at Pierre. There had been other "undergroundrailways, " but this had a charm of its own, for it "carried freight"both ways. Occasionally the thieves succeeded in selling horses to theidentical Indians they had originally robbed. The efficiency of it allwas in its way magnificent. 

Through the record of thievery up and down the river, that spring of1884, the shadow of Jake Maunders slips in and out, making no noiseand leaving no footprints. It was rumored that when a sheriff or aUnited States marshal from somewhere drifted into Medora, Maunderswould ride south in the dead of night to the Big Ox Bow and give thethieves the warning; and ride north again and be back in his own shackbefore dawn. It was rumored, further, that when the thieves had horsesto sell, Maunders had "first pick. " His own nephew was said to be aconfederate of Big Jack. One day that spring, the Jacks and Maunders'snephew, driving a herd of trail-weary horses, stopped for a night atLang's Sage Bottom camp. They told Lincoln Lang that they had boughtthe horses in Wyoming. Maunders sold the herd himself, and the newsthat came from the south that the herd had been stolen made noperceptible ruffle. The ranchmen had enough difficulty preservingtheir own property and were not making any altruistic efforts toprotect the horses of ranchmen two hundred miles away. Maunderscontinued to flourish. From Deadwood came rumors that Joe Morrill, thedeputy marshal, was carrying on a business not dissimilar to thatwhich was making Maunders rich in Medora. 

When even the officers of the law were in league with the thieves orafraid of them, there was little that the individual could do exceptpocket his losses with as good grace as possible and keep his mouthshut. The "system" tolerated no interference with its mechanism. 

Fisher, smarting under the theft of six of the "top" horses from theMarquis de Mores's "outfit" called one of the cowboys one day into hisoffice. His name was Pierce Bolan, and Fisher knew him to be not onlyabsolutely trustworthy, but unusually alert. 

"You're out on the range all the time, " said Fisher. "Can't you giveme a line on the fellows who are getting away with our horses?"

The cowboy hesitated and shook his head. "If I knew, " he answered, "Iwouldn't dare tell you. My toes would be turned up the first time Ishowed up on the range. "

"What in ---- are we going to do?"

"Why, treat the thieves considerate, " said Bolan. "Don't get 'em soreon you. When one of them comes up and wants the loan of a horse, why, let him have it. "

Fisher turned to the foreman of one of the largest "outfits" foradvice and received a similar answer. The reputable stockmen were verymuch in the minority, it seemed, and wise men treated the thieves with"consideration" and called it insurance. 

There were ranchmen, however, who were too high-spirited to toleratethe payment of such tribute in their behalf, and too interested in thefuture of the region as a part of the American commonwealth to bewilling to temporize with outlaws. Roosevelt was one of them, in thevalley of the Little Missouri. Another, across the Montana border inthe valley of the Yellowstone, was Granville Stuart. 

Stuart was a "forty-niner, " who had crossed the continent in aprairie-schooner as a boy and had drifted into Virginia City in thedays of its hot youth. He was a man of iron nerve, and when the timecame for a law-abiding minority to rise against a horde of thieves anddesperadoes, he naturally became one of the leaders. He played animportant part in the extermination of the famous Plummer band ofoutlaws in the early sixties, and was generally regarded as one of themost notable figures in Montana Territory. 

At the meeting of the Montana Stockgrowers' Association, at Miles Cityin April, there had been much discussion of the depredations of thehorse and cattle thieves, which were actually threatening to destroythe cattle industry. The officers of the law had been helpless, orworse, in dealing with the situation, and the majority of thecattlemen at the convention were in favor of raising a small army ofcowboys and "raiding the country. "

Stuart, who was president of the Association, fought the projectalmost single-handed. He pointed out that the "rustlers" were wellorganized and strongly fortified, each cabin, in fact, constituting aminiature fortress. There was not one of them who was not a dead shotand all were armed with the latest model firearms and had an abundanceof ammunition. No "general clean-up" on a large scale could, Stuartcontended, be successfully carried through. The first news of such aproject would put the thieves on their guard, many lives wouldunnecessarily be sacrificed, and the law, in the last analysis, wouldbe on the side of the "rustlers. "

The older stockmen growled and the younger stockmen protested, intimating that Stuart was a coward; but his counsel prevailed. Anumber of them, who "stood in" with the thieves in the hope of thusbuying immunity, carried the report of the meeting to the outlaws. The"rustlers" were jubilant and settled down to what promised to be ayear of undisturbed "operations. "

Stuart himself, however, had long been convinced that drastic actionagainst the thieves must be taken; and had quietly formulated hisplan. When the spring round-up was over, late in June, he called ahalf-dozen representative ranchmen from both sides of theDakota-Montana border together at his ranch, and presented hisproject. It was promptly accepted, and Stuart himself was put incharge of its execution. 

Less than ten men in the whole Northwest knew of the movement that wasgradually taking form under the direction of the patriarchal fightingman from Fergus County; but the Marquis de Mores was one of those men. He told Roosevelt. Stuart's plan, it seems, was to organize the mostsolid and reputable ranchmen in western Montana into a company ofvigilantes similar to the company which had wiped out the Plummer bandtwenty years previous. Groups of indignant citizens who calledthemselves vigilantes had from time to time attempted to conduct whatwere popularly known as "necktie parties, " but they had failed inalmost every case to catch their man, for the reason that thepublicity attending the organization had given the outlaws amplewarning of their peril. It was Stuart's plan to organize in absolutesecrecy, and fall on the horse-thieves like a bolt from the blue. 

The raid was planned for late in July. It was probably during the lastdays of June that Roosevelt heard of it. With him, when the Marquisunfolded the project to him, was a young Englishman named Jameson(brother of another Jameson who was many years later to stir the worldwith a raid of another sort). Roosevelt and young Jameson, who shareda hearty dislike of seeing lawbreakers triumphant, and were neither ofthem averse to a little danger in confounding the public enemy, announced with one accord that they intended to join Stuart'svigilantes. The Marquis had already made up his mind that in so luridan adventure he would not be left out. The three of them took awest-bound train and met Granville Stuart at Glendive. 

But Stuart refused pointblank to accept their services. They wereuntrained for frontier conditions, he contended; they were probablyreckless and doubtlessly uncontrollable; and would get themselveskilled for no reason; above all, they were all three of prominentfamilies. If anything happened to them, or if merely the news werespread abroad that they were taking part in the raid, the attention ofthe whole country would be drawn to an expedition in which the elementof surprise was the first essential for success. 

The three young argonauts pleaded, but the old pioneer was obdurate. He did not want to have them along, and he said so with all thecourtesy that was one of his graces and all the precision of phrasethat a life in the wild country had given him. Roosevelt and theEnglishman saw the justice of the veteran's contentions and acceptedthe situation, but the Marquis was aggrieved. Granville Stuart, meanwhile, having successfully sidetracked the three musketeers, proceeded silently to gather his clansmen. 

VIII

 All day long on the prairies I ride, Not even a dog to trot by my side; My fire I kindle with chips gathered round, My coffee I boil without being ground. 

 I wash in a pool and wipe on a sack; I carry my wardrobe all on my back; For want of an oven I cook bread in a pot, And sleep on the ground for want of a cot. 

 My ceiling is the sky, my floor is the grass, My music is the lowing of the herds as they pass; My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones, My parson is a wolf on his pulpit of bones. 

 _Cowboy song_

Roosevelt's first weeks at the Maltese Cross proved one thing to himbeyond debate; that was, that the cabin seven miles south of Medorawas not the best place in the world to do literary work. The trailsouth led directly through his dooryard, and loquacious cowpunchersstopped at all hours to pass the time of day. It was, no doubt, all"perfectly bully"; but you did not get much writing done, and evenyour correspondence suffered. 

Roosevelt had made up his mind, soon after his arrival early in themonth, to bring Sewall and Dow out from Maine, and on his return fromhis solitary trip over the prairie after antelope, he set out tolocate a site for a ranch, where the two backwoodsmen might hold somecattle and where at the same time he might find the solitude he neededfor his literary work. On one of his exploring expeditions down theriver, he met Howard Eaton riding south to the railroad from his V-EyeRanch at the mouth of the Big Beaver, to receive a train-load ofcattle. He told Eaton the object of his journeying, and Eaton, whoknew the country better possibly than any other man in the Bad Lands, advised him to look at a bottom not more than five miles up the riverfrom his own ranch. Roosevelt rode there promptly. The trail ledalmost due north, again and again crossing the Little Missouri whichwound in wide sigmoid curves, now between forbidding walls ofcrumbling limestone and baked clay, now through green acres ofpasture-land, or silvery miles of level sagebrush. 

The country was singularly beautiful. On his left, as he advanced, grassy meadows sloped to a wide plateau, following the curve of theriver. The valley narrowed. He forded the stream. The trail rosesharply between steep walls of olive and lavender that shut off thesun; it wound through a narrow defile; then over a plateau, whenceblue seas of wild country stretched northward into the haze; thensharply down again into a green bottom, walled on the west by buttesscarred like the face of an old man. He forded the stream once more, swung round a jutting hill, and found the end of the bottom-land in agrove of cottonwoods under the shadow of high buttes. At the edge ofthe river he came upon the interlocked antlers of two elk who had diedin combat. He determined that it was there that his "home-ranch"should stand. 

For three weeks Roosevelt was in the saddle every day from dawn tillnight, riding, often in no company but his own, up and down the river, restless and indefatigable. On one of his solitary rides he stopped atMrs. Maddox's hut to call for the buckskin suit he had ordered of her. She was a woman of terrible vigor, and inspired in Roosevelt a kind ofawe which none of the "bad men" of the region had been able to makehim feel. 

She invited him to dinner. While she was preparing the meal, he sat ina corner of the cabin. He had a habit of carrying a book with himwherever he went and he was reading, altogether absorbed, whensuddenly Mrs. Maddox stumbled over one of his feet. 

"Take that damn foot away!" she cried in tones that meant business. [8]Roosevelt took his foot away, "and all that was attached to it, " asone of his cowboy friends explained subsequently, waiting outsideuntil the call for dinner came. He ate the dinner quickly, wasting nowords, not caring to run any risk of stirring again the fury of Mrs. Maddox. 

 [Footnote 8: "I am inclined to doubt the truth of this story. Mrs. Maddox was a terror only to those who took her wrong or tried to put it over her. Normally she was a very pleasant woman with a good, strong sense of humor. My impression is she took a liking to T. R. That time I took him there to be measured for his suit. If she ever spoke as above, she must have been on the war-path about something else at the time. "--_Lincoln Lang. _]

[Illustration: The Little Missouri just above Elkhorn. ]

It was on another solitary ride, this time in pursuit of strayhorses, --the horses, he found, were always straying, --that he hadan adventure of a more serious and decidedly lurid sort. The horseshad led him a pace through the Bad Lands westward out over theprairie, and night overtook him not far from Mingusville, a primitivesettlement named thus with brilliant ingenuity by its first citizens, a lady by the name of Minnie and her husband by the name of Gus. The"town"--what there was of it--was pleasantly situated on rollingcountry on the west bank of Beaver Creek. Along the east side of thecreek were high, steep, cream-colored buttes, gently rounded andcapped with green, softer in color than the buttes of the Bad Landsand very attractive in spring in their frame of grass and cottonwoodsand cedars. Mingusville consisted of the railroad station, thesection-house, and a story-and-a-half "hotel" with a false front. The"hotel" was a saloon with a loft where you might sleep if you hadcourage. 

Roosevelt stabled his horse in a shed behind the "hotel, " and startedto enter. 

Two shots rang out from the bar-room. 

He hesitated. He had made it a point to avoid centers of disturbancesuch as this, but the night was chilly and there was no place else togo. He entered, with misgivings. 

Inside the room were several men, beside the bartender, all, with oneexception, "wearing the kind of smile, " as Roosevelt said, in tellingof the occasion, "worn by men who are making-believe to like what theydon't like. " The exception was a shabby-looking individual in abroad-brimmed hat who was walking up and down the floor talking andswearing. He had a cocked gun in each hand. A clock on the wall hadtwo holes in its face, which accounted for the shots Roosevelt hadheard. 

It occurred to Roosevelt that the man was not a "bad man" of thereally dangerous, man-killer type; but a would-be "bad man, " a bullywho for the moment was having things all his own way. 

"Four-eyes!" he shouted as he spied the newcomer. 

There was a nervous laugh from the other men who were evidentlysheepherders. Roosevelt joined in the laugh. 

"Four-eyes is going to treat!" shouted the man with the guns. 

There was another laugh. Under cover of it Roosevelt walked quickly toa chair behind the stove and sat down, hoping to escape furthernotice. 

But the bully was not inclined to lose what looked like an opportunityto make capital as a "bad man" at the expense of a harmless "dude" ina fringed buckskin suit. He followed Roosevelt across the room. 

"Four-eyes is going to treat, " he repeated. 

Roosevelt passed the comment off as a joke. But the bully leaned overRoosevelt, swinging his guns, and ordered him, in language suited tothe surroundings, "to set up the drinks for the crowd. "

For a moment Roosevelt sat silent, letting the filthy storm rageround him. It occurred to him in a flash that he was face to face witha crisis vastly more significant to his future than the mere questionwhether or not he should let a drunken bully have his way. If hebacked down, he said to himself, he would, when the news of it spreadabroad, have more explaining to do than he would care to undertake. Itwas altogether a case of "Make good now, or quit!"

The bully roared, "Set up the drinks!"

It struck Roosevelt that the man was foolish to stand so near, withhis heels together. "Well, if I've got to, I've got to, " he said androse to his feet, looking past his tormentor. 

As he rose he struck quick and hard with his right just to one side ofthe point of the jaw, hitting with his left as he straightened out, and then again with his right. 

The bully fired both guns, but the bullets went wide as he fell like atree, striking the corner of the bar with his head. It occurred toRoosevelt that it was not a case in which one could afford to takechances, and he watched, ready to drop with his knees on the man'sribs at the first indication of activity. But the bully was senseless. The sheepherders, now loud in their denunciations, hustled thewould-be desperado into a shed. 

Roosevelt had his dinner in a corner of the dining-room away from thewindows, and he went to bed without a light. But the man in the shedmade no move to recover his shattered prestige. When he came to, hewent to the station, departing on a freight, and was seen no more. 

The news of Roosevelt's encounter in the "rum-hole" in Mingusvillespread as only news can spread in a country of few happenings and muchconversation. It was the kind of story that the Bad Lands liked tohear, and the spectacles and the fringed buckskin suit gave it anadded attraction. "Four-eyes" became, overnight, "Old Four Eyes, "which was another matter. 

"Roosevelt was regarded by the cowboys as a good deal of a joke untilafter the saloon incident, " said Frank Greene, a local official of theNorthern Pacific, many years later. "After that it was different. "

Roosevelt departed for the East on July 1st. On the 4th, the Mandan_Pioneer_ published an editorial about him which expressed, inexuberant Dakota fashion, ideas which may well have been stirring inRoosevelt's own mind. 

 Our friends west of us, at Little Missouri, are now being made happy by the presence among them of that rare bird, a political reformer. By his enemies he is called a dude, an aristocrat, a theorist, an upstart, and the rest, but it would seem, after all, that Mr. Roosevelt has something in him, or he would never have succeeded in stirring up the politicians of the Empire State. Mr. Roosevelt finds, doubtless, the work of a reformer to be a somewhat onerous one, and it is necessary, for his mental and physical health, that he should once and again leave the scene of his political labors and refresh himself with a little ozone, such as is to be found pure and unadulterated in the Bad Lands. Mr. Roosevelt is not one of the fossilized kind of politicians who believes in staying around the musty halls of the Albany capitol all the time. He thinks, perhaps, that the man who lives in those halls, alternating between them and the Delavan House, is likely to be troubled with physical dyspepsia and mental carbuncles. Who knows but that John Kelly might to-day be an honored member of society--might be known outside of New York as a noble Democratic leader--if he had been accustomed to spend some of his time in the great and glorious West? Tammany Hall, instead of being to-day the synonym for all that is brutal and vulgar in politics, might be to-day another name for all that is fresh, and true, ozonic and inspiring in the political arena. If the New York politicians only knew it, they might find it a great advantage to come once or twice a year to West Dakota, to blow the cobwebs from their eyes, and get new ambitions, new aspirations, and new ideas. Mr. Roosevelt, although young, can teach wisdom to the sophisticated machine politicians, who know not the value to an Easterner of a blow among the fresh, fair hills of this fair territory. 

One wonders whether the editor is not, in part, quoting Roosevelt'sown words. No doubt, Roosevelt was beginning already to realize whathe was gaining in the Bad Lands. 

Roosevelt spent three weeks or more in the East; at New York where thepoliticians were after him, at Oyster Bay where he was building a newhouse, and at Chestnut Hill near Boston, which was closely connectedwith the memories of his brief married life. Everywhere the reporterstried to extract from him some expression on the political campaign, but on that subject he was reticent. He issued a statement in Boston, declaring his intention to vote the Republican ticket, but furtherthan that he refused to commit himself. But he talked of the Bad Landsto any one who would listen. 

 I like the West and I like ranching life [he said to a reporter of the New York _Tribune_ who interviewed him at his sister's house a day or two before his return to Dakota]. On my last trip I was just three weeks at the ranch and just twenty-one days, of sixteen hours each, in the saddle, either after cattle, taking part in the "round-up, " or hunting. It would electrify some of my friends who have accused me of representing the kid-gloved element in politics if they could see me galloping over the plains, day in and day out, clad in a buckskin shirt and leather chaparajos, with a big sombrero on my head. For good, healthy exercise I would strongly recommend some of our gilded youth to go West and try a short course of riding bucking ponies, and assist at the branding of a lot of Texas steers. 

There is something charmingly boyish in his enthusiasm over his ownmanly valor and his confidence in its "electrifying" effect. 

Roosevelt wrote to Sewall immediately after his arrival in the East, telling him that he would take him West with him. Toward the end ofJuly, Sewall appeared in New York with his stalwart nephew in tow. Thecontract they entered into with Roosevelt was merely verbal. There wasto be a three-year partnership. If business were prosperous, they wereto have a share in it. If it were not, they were to have wages, whatever happened. 

"What do you think of that, Bill?" asked Roosevelt. 

"Why, " answered Bill in his slow, Maine way, "I think that's aone-sided trade. But if you can stand it, I guess we can. "

That was all there was to the making of the contract. On the 28th thethree of them started westward. 

In the cattle country, meanwhile, things had been happening. Shortlyafter Roosevelt's departure for the East, Granville Stuart hadgathered his clans, and, suddenly and without warning, his bolt fromthe blue had fallen upon the outlaws of Montana. At a cabin here, at adeserted lumber-camp there, where the thieves, singly or in groups, made their headquarters, the masked riders appeared and held theirgrim proceedings. There was no temporizing, and little mercy. Justicewas to be done, and it was done with all the terrible relentlessnessthat always characterizes a free citizen when he takes back, for amoment, the powers he has delegated to a government which in a crisishas proved impotent or unwilling to exercise them. A drumheadcourt-martial might have seemed tedious and technical in comparisonwith the sharp brevity of the trials under the ominous cottonwoods. 

Out of the open country, where "Stuart's vigilantes" were swooping onnest after nest of the thieves, riders came with stories that mightwell have sent shudders down the backs even of innocent men. Thenewspapers were filled with accounts of lifeless bodies left hangingfrom countless cottonwoods in the wake of the raiders, tales ofbattles in which the casualties were by no means all on one side, andsnatches of humor that was terrible against the background of blacktragedy. Some of the stories were false, some were fantasticexaggerations of actual fact sifted through excited imaginations. Those that were bare truth were in all conscience grim enough for themost morbid mind. The yarns flew from mouth to mouth, from ranch toranch. Cowboys were hard to hold to their work. Now that a determinedman had shown the way, everybody wanted to have a part in the lastgreat round-up of the unruly. The excitement throughout the region wasintense. Here and there subsidiary bands were formed to "clean up thestragglers. " Thoughtful men began to have apprehensions that it mightprove more difficult to get the imp of outraged justice back into thebottle than it had been to let him out. 

The raiders skirted the Bad Lands on the north, pushing on east to theMissouri, and for a time Medora's precious collection of desperadoesremained undisturbed. There were rumors that Maunders was on the booksof Stuart's men, but under the wing of the Marquis he was wellprotected, and that time, at least, no raiders came to interrupt hisdivers and always profitable activities. 

Roosevelt reached Medora with Sewall and Dow on July 31st. A reporterof the _Pioneer_ interviewed him while the train was changing enginesat Mandan. 

 Theodore Roosevelt, the New York reformer, was on the west-bound train yesterday, _en route_ to his ranch near Little Missouri [ran the item in the next day's issue]. He was feeling at his best, dressed in the careless style of the country gentleman of leisure, and spoke freely on his pleasant Dakota experience and politics in the East. He purposes spending several weeks on his ranch, after which he will return East. .. . Mr. Roosevelt believes that the young men of our country should assume a spirit of independence in politics. He would rather be forced to the shades of private life with a short and honorable career than be given a life tenure of political prominence as the slave of a party or its masters. 

Roosevelt brought his two backwoodsmen straight to the Maltese Cross. The men from Maine were magnificent specimens of manhood. Sewall, nearing forty, with tremendous shoulders a little stooped as though hewere accustomed to passing through doorways that were too low for him;Dow, twenty-eight or twenty-nine, erect and clear-eyed. They looked onthe fantastic landscape with quiet wonderment. 

"Well, Bill, " remarked Roosevelt that night, "what do you think of thecountry?"

"Why, " answered the backwoodsman, "I like the country well enough. ButI don't believe that it's much of a cattle country. "

"Bill, " said Roosevelt vigorously, "you don't know anything about it. Everybody says that it is. "

Sewall laughed softly. "It's a fact that I don't know anything aboutit, " he said. "I realize that. But it's the way it looks to me, likenot much of a cattle country. "

During Roosevelt's absence in the East, Merrifield and Sylvane hadreturned from Iowa with a thousand head of yearlings and"two-year-olds. " A hundred head of the original herd, which had becomeaccustomed to the country, he had already set apart for the lowerranch, and the day after his arrival he sent the two backwoodsmennorth with them, under the general and vociferous direction of acertain Captain Robins. The next day, in company with a pleasantEnglishman who had accompanied him West, he rode up the river toLang's. 

The ranch of the talkative Scotchman had suffered a joyous changesince Roosevelt's last visit. A week or two previous Gregor Lang'swife had arrived from Ireland with her daughter and younger son, and avisit at Yule, as Lang had called his ranch, was a different thingfrom what it had been when it had been under masculine control. Thenew ranch-house was completed, and though it was not large it wasvastly more homelike than any other cabin on the river with thepossible exception of the Eatons'. It stood in an open flat, facingnorth, with a long butte behind it; and before it, beyond a widesemi-circle of cottonwoods that marked the river's course, low hills, now gray and now green, stretching away to the horizon. It was acuriously Scotch landscape, especially at dusk or in misty weather, which was no doubt a reason why Gregor Lang had chosen it for hishome. 

Mrs. Lang proved to be a woman of evident character and ability. Shewas well along in the forties, but in her stately bearing and themagnificent abundance of her golden hair, that had no strand of grayin it, lay more than a hint of the beauty that was said to have beenhers in her youth. There was wistfulness in the delicate but firmmouth and chin; there was vigor in the broad forehead and thewell-proportioned nose; and humor in the shrewd, quiet eyes set farapart. She belonged to an old Border family, and had lived all herlife amid the almost perfect adjustments of well-to-do British societyof the middle class, where every cog was greased and every wheel wasball-bearing. But she accepted the grating existence of the frontierwith something better than resignation, and set about promptly in awild and alien country to make a new house into a new home. 

While Roosevelt was getting acquainted with the new-comers at Yule, Sewall and Dow were also getting acquainted with many people andthings that were strange to them. They took two days for the ride fromthe Maltese Cross to the site of the new ranch, for the river was highand they were forced to take a roundabout trail over the prairie; thecattle, moreover, could be driven only at a slow pace; but eventwenty-odd miles a day was more than a Maine backwoodsman enjoyed asinitiation in horsemanship. Dow was mounted on an excellent trainedhorse, and being young and supple was able to do his share in spite ofhis discomfort. But the mare that had been allotted to Sewall happenedalso to be a tenderfoot, and they did not play a conspicuous rôle inthe progress of the cattle. 

Captain Robins was not the sort to make allowances when there was workto be done. He was a small, dark man with a half-inch beard almostcompletely covering his face, a "seafaring man" who had got hisexperience with cattle in South America; "a man of many orders" asSewall curtly described him in a letter home. He rode over to whereSewall was endeavoring in a helpless way to make the mare go in ageneral northerly direction. 

Sewall saw him coming, and wondered why he thought it necessary tocome at such extraordinary speed. 

The Captain drew rein sharply at Sewall's side. "Why in hell don't youride in and do something?" he roared. 

Sewall knew exactly why he didn't. He had known it for some time, andhe was nettled with himself, for he had not been accustomed "to take aback seat for any one" when feats that demanded physical strength andskill were to be done. Robins was very close to him, and Sewall'sfirst impulse was to take him by the hair. But it occurred to him thatthe seafaring man was smaller than he, and that thought went out ofhis head. 

"I know I'm not doing anything, " he said at last gruffly. "I don'tknow anything about what I'm trying to do and I think I've got a horseas green as I am. But don't you ever speak to me in such a manner asthat again as long as you live. "

There was a good deal that was impressive about Sewall, his shoulders, his teeth that were like tombstones, his vigorous, brown beard, hiseyes that had a way of blazing. The Captain did not pursue thediscussion. 

"That Sewall is a kind of quick-tempered fellow, " he remarked to Dow. 

"I don't think he is, " said the younger man quietly. 

"He snapped me up. "

"You must have said something to him, for he ain't in the habit ofdoing such things. "

The Captain dropped the subject for the time being. 

Roosevelt, after two days at Lang's, returned to the Maltese Cross andthen rode northward to look after the men from Maine. 

Captain Robins's report was altogether favorable. "You've got two goodmen here, Mr. Roosevelt, " said he. "That Sewall don't calculate tobear anything. I spoke to him the other day, and he snapped me up soshort I did not know what to make of it. But, " he added, "I don'tblame him. I did not speak to him as I ought. "

This was what Bill himself would have called "handsome. " Rooseveltcarried the gruff apology to Sewall, and there was harmony after thatbetween the lumberjack and the seafaring man, punching cattletogether in the Bad Lands. 

The cattle which Captain Robins and his two tenderfeet from Maine haddriven down the river from the Maltese Cross were intended to be thenucleus of the Elkhorn herd. They were young grade short-horns ofEastern origin, less wild than the long-horn Texas steers, but liable, on new ground, to stray off through some of the innumerable couleesstretching back from the river, and be lost in the open prairie. Theseafaring man determined, therefore, that they should be"close-herded" every night and "bedded down" on the level bottom wherethe cabin stood which was their temporary ranch-house. So each dusk, Roosevelt and his men drove the cattle down from the side valleys, andeach night, in two-hour "tricks" all night long, one or the other ofthem rode slowly and quietly round and round the herd, heading off allthat tried to stray. This was not altogether a simple business, forthere was danger of stampede in making the slightest unusual noise. Now and then they would call to the cattle softly as they rode, orsing to them until the steers had all lain down close together. 

[Illustration: Elkhorn Bottom. The ranch-house was at the river's edgedirectly in the center of the picture. ]

It was while Roosevelt was working at Elkhorn that he received a callfrom Howard Eaton, who was his neighbor there as well as at theMaltese Cross, since his ranch at the mouth of Big Beaver Creek wasonly five miles down the Little Missouri from the place whereRoosevelt had "staked his claim. " Eaton brought Chris McGee, hispartner, with him. Roosevelt had heard of McGee, not altogetherfavorably, for McGee was the Republican "boss" of Pittsburgh in dayswhen "bosses" were in flower. 

"Are you going to stay out here and make ranching a business?" askedEaton. 

"No, " Roosevelt answered. "For the present I am out here because Icannot get up any enthusiasm for the Republican candidate, and itseems to me that punching cattle is the best way to avoidcampaigning. "

Eaton asked McGee on the way home how Roosevelt stood in the East. "Roosevelt is a nice fellow, " remarked McGee, "but he's a damned foolin politics. "

Roosevelt remained with Robins and the men from Maine for three days, varying his life in the saddle with a day on foot after grouse whenthe larder ran low. It was all joyous sport, which was lifted for amoment into the plane of adventure by a communication from the Marquisde Mores. 

That gentleman wrote Roosevelt a letter informing him that he himselfclaimed the range on which Roosevelt had established himself. 

Roosevelt's answer was brief and definite. He had found nothing butdead sheep on the range, he wrote, and he did not think that theywould hold it. 

There the matter rested. 

"You'd better be on the lookout, " Roosevelt remarked to Sewall andDow, as he was making ready to return to the Maltese Cross. "There'sjust a chance there may be trouble. "

"I cal'late we can look out for ourselves, " announced Bill with agleam in his eye. 

IX

 Young Dutch Van Zander, drunkard to the skin, Flung wide the door and let the world come in-- The world, with daybreak on a thousand buttes! "Say, is this heaven, Bill--or is it gin?"

 _Bad Lands Rubáiyat_

Roosevelt returned to the upper ranch on August 11th. 

 Everything so far has gone along beautifully [he wrote to his sister on the following day]. I had great fun in bringing my two backwoods babies out here. Their absolute astonishment and delight at everything they saw, and their really very shrewd, and yet wonderfully simple remarks were a perpetual delight to me. 

 I found the cattle all here and looking well; I have now got some sixteen hundred head on the river. I mounted Sewall and Dow on a couple of ponies (where they looked like the pictures of discomfort, Sewall remarking that his only previous experience in the equestrian line was when he "rode logs"), and started them at once off down the river with a hundred head of cattle, under the lead of one of my friends out here, a grumpy old sea captain, who has had a rather diversified life, trying his hand as sailor, buffalo hunter, butcher, apothecary (_mirabile dictu_), and cowboy. Sewall tried to spur his horse which began kicking and rolled over with him into a wash-out. 

Sewall, meanwhile, was also writing letters "to the folks back East, "and the opinions he expressed about the Bad Lands were plain andunvarnished. 

 It is a dirty country and very dirty people on an average [he wrote his brother Samuel in Island Falls], but I think it is healthy. The soil is sand or clay, all dust or all mud. The river is the meanest apology for a frog-pond that I ever saw. It is a queer country, you would like to see it, but you would not like to live here long. The hills are mostly of clay, the sides of some very steep and barren of all vegetation. You would think cattle would starve there, but all the cattle that have wintered here are fat now and they say here that cattle brought from any other part will improve in size and quality. Theodore thinks I will have more than $3000. 00 in three years if nothing happens. He is going to put on a lot of cattle next year. 

 This is a good place for a man with plenty of money to make more, but if I had enough money to start here I never would come, think the country ought to have been left to the annimils that have laid their bones here. 

Roosevelt had, ever since the Chicago convention, planned to go on anextensive hunting trip, partly to take his mind from the politicalcampaign, from which, in his judgment, the course of events hadeliminated him, and partly to put himself out of reach of importunatepoliticians in various parts of the country, who were endeavoring tomake him commit himself in favor of the Republican candidate in a waythat would make his pre-convention utterances appear insincere andabsurd. The tug of politics was strong. He loved "the game" and hehated to be out of a good fight. To safeguard himself, therefore, hedetermined to hide himself in the recesses of the Big Horn Mountainsin Wyoming. 

 In a day or two I start out [he wrote on August 12th to his friend Henry Cabot Lodge, who had suffered defeat at his side at the convention] with two hunters, six riding-ponies, and a canvas-topped "prairie schooner" for the Bighorn Mountains. You would be amused to see me, in my broad sombrero hat, fringed and beaded buckskin shirt, horsehide chaparajos or riding-trousers, and cowhide boots, with braided bridle and silver spurs. I have always liked horse and rifle, and being, like yourself, "ein echter Amerikaner, " prefer that description of sport which needs a buckskin shirt to that whose votaries adopt the red coat. A buffalo is nobler game than an anise-seed bag, the Anglomaniacs to the contrary notwithstanding. 

He did not start on the day he had planned, for the reason that thesix riding-ponies which he needed were not to be had for love or moneyin the whole length and breadth of the Bad Lands. He sent Sylvane withanother man south to Spearfish in the Black Hills to buy a "string" ofhorses. The other man was Jack Reuter, otherwise known as "DutchWannigan. " For "Wannigan, " like his fellow "desperado, " FrankO'Donald, had returned long since to the valley of the Little Missouriand taken up again the activities which the Marquis had rudelyinterrupted. But, being a simple-hearted creature, he had sold no cropof hay to the Marquis "in stubble" for a thousand dollars, like hiscraftier associate. He had merely "gone to work. " The fact that ithappened to be Roosevelt for whom he went to work had something to do, no doubt, with the subsequent relations between Roosevelt and theMarquis. 

Various forces for which the Marquis himself could claim noresponsibility had, meanwhile, been conspiring with him to "boom" hisnew town. The glowing and distinctly exaggerated accounts of farmingconditions in the Northwest, sent broadcast by the railroad companies, had started a wave of immigration westward which the laments of thedisappointed seemed to have no power to check. "City-boomers, " withtheir tales of amazing fortunes made overnight, lured men to a scoreof different "towns" along the Northern Pacific that were nothing buttwo ruts and a section-house. From the south rolled a tide of anothersort. The grazing-lands of Texas were becoming over-stocked, and upthe broad cattle-trail came swearing cowboys in broad sombreros, driving herds of long-horned cattle into the new grazing-country. Altogether, it was an active season for the saloon-keepers of Medora. 

The Marquis was having endless trouble with the plans for hisstage-line and was keeping Packard on tenterhooks. Packard twiddledhis thumbs, and the Marquis, plagued by the citizens of the BlackHills whom he had promised the stage- and freight-line monthsprevious, made threats one day and rosy promises the next. It was themiddle of August before Packard received directions to go ahead. 

Roosevelt did not see much of the genial editor of the _Cowboy_ duringthose August days while he was waiting for Sylvane and "DutchWannigan" to return from Spearfish with the ponies, for Packard, knowing that every hour was precious, was rushing frantically to andfro, buying lumber and feed, pegging out the sites of hisstage-stations, his eating-houses, his barns and his corrals, andsuperintending the constructing crews at the dozen or more stops alongthe route. 

Roosevelt, meanwhile, was obviously restless and seemed to find peaceof mind only in almost continuous action. After two or three days atthe Maltese Cross, he was back at Elkhorn again, forty miles away, andthe next day he was once more on his travels, riding south. Sewallwent with him, for he wanted the backwoodsman to accompany him on thetrip to the Big Horn Mountains. Dow remained with the seafaring man, looking crestfallen and unhappy. 

During the days that he was waiting for Sylvane to return, Roosevelttouched Medora and its feverish life no more than absolute necessitydemanded, greeting his acquaintances in friendly fashion, but tendingstrictly to business. It seems, however, that he had already made adeep impression on his neighbors up and down the river. The territorywas shortly to be admitted to statehood and there were voicesdemanding that Theodore Roosevelt be Dakota's first representative inCongress. 

 In commenting upon the rumor that Theodore Roosevelt had come to Dakota for the purpose of going to Congress [said the Bismarck _Weekly Tribune_ in an editorial on August 8th], the Mandan _Pioneer_ takes occasion to remark that young Roosevelt's record as a public man is above reproach and that he is "a vigorous young Republican of the new school. " Such favorable comment from a Mandan paper tends to substantiate the rumor that the young political Hercules has already got the West Missouri section solid. 

"If he concludes to run, " remarked the _Pioneer_, "he will give ourpoliticians a complete turning over. "

What sirens were singing to Roosevelt of political honors in the newWestern country, and to what extent he listened to them, are questionsto which neither his correspondence nor the newspapers of the timeprovide an answer. It is not unreasonable to believe that thepossibility of becoming a political power in the Northwest alluredhim. His political position in the East was, at the moment, hopeless. Before the convention, he had antagonized the "regular" Republicans byhis leadership of the Independents in New York, which had resulted inthe complete defeat of the "organization" in the struggle over the"Big Four" at Utica; after the convention, he had antagonized theIndependents by refusing to "bolt the ticket. " He consequently had nopolitical standing, either within the party, or without. TheIndependents wept tears over him, denouncing him as a traitor; and the"regulars, " even while they were calling for his assistance in thecampaign, were whetting their knives to dirk him in the back. 

If the temptation ever came to him to cut what remained of hispolitical ties in the East and start afresh in Dakota, no evidence ofit has yet appeared. A convention of the Republicans of BillingsCounty was held in the hall over Bill Williams's new saloon in Medoraon August 16th. Roosevelt did not attend it. Sylvane and "Wannigan"had returned from Spearfish and Roosevelt was trying out one of thenew ponies at a round-up in the Big Ox Bow thirty miles to the south. 

 We have been delayed nearly a week by being forced to get some extra ponies [he wrote his sister Anna on the 17th]. However, I was rather glad of it, as I wished to look thoroughly through the cattle before going. To-morrow morning early we start out. Merrifield and I go on horseback, each taking a spare pony; which will be led behind the wagon, a light "prairie schooner" drawn by two stout horses, and driven by an old French Canadian. I wear a sombrero, silk neckerchief, fringed buckskin shirt, sealskin chaparajos or riding-trousers; alligator-hide boots; and with my pearl-hilted revolver and beautifully finished Winchester rifle, I shall feel able to face anything. 

There is no question that Roosevelt's costume fascinated him. It was, in fact, gorgeous beyond description. 

 How long I will be gone I cannot say; we will go in all nearly a thousand miles. If game is plenty and my success is good, I may return in six weeks; more probably I shall be out a couple of months, and if game is so scarce that we have to travel very far to get it, or if our horses give out or run away, or we get caught by the snow, we may be out very much longer--till toward Christmas; though I will try to be back to vote. 

 Yesterday I rode seventy-two miles between dawn and darkness; I have a superb roan pony, or rather horse; he looks well with his beautifully carved saddle, plaited bridle, and silver inlaid bit, and seems to be absolutely tireless. 

 I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me. The grassy, scantily wooded bottoms through which the winding river flows are bounded by bare, jagged buttes; their fantastic shapes and sharp, steep edges throw the most curious shadows, under the cloudless, glaring sky; and at evening I love to sit out in front of the hut and see their hard, gray outlines gradually grow soft and purple as the flaming sunset by degrees softens and dies away; while my days I spend generally alone, riding through the lonely rolling prairie and broken lands. 

If, on those solitary rides, Roosevelt gave much thought to politics, it was doubtless not on any immediate benefit for himself on which hismind dwelt. Sewall said, long afterward, that "Roosevelt was alwaysthinkin' of makin' the world better, instead of worse, " and Merrifieldremembered that even in those early days the "Eastern tenderfoot" wasdreaming of the Presidency. It was a wholesome region to dream in. Narrow notions could not live in the gusty air of the prairies, andthe Bad Lands were not conducive to sentimentalism. 

X

 The pine spoke, but the word he said was "Silence"; The aspen sang, but silence was her theme. The wind was silence, restless; and the voices Of the bright forest-creatures were as silence Made vocal in the topsy-turvy of dream. 

 _Paradise Found_

Roosevelt started for the Big Horn Mountains on August 18th, butSewall, after all, did not go with him. Almost with tears, he beggedoff. "I'd always dreamed of hunting through that Big Horn country, " hesaid long afterward. "I had picked that out as a happy hunting groundfor years and years, and I never wanted to go anywhere so much as Iwanted to go along with Theodore on that trip. " But the memory of thelonely look in Will Dow's face overcame the soft-hearted backwoodsmanat the last minute. He pointed out to Roosevelt that one man could notwell handle the logs for the new ranch-house and suggested that he beallowed to rejoin Will Dow. 

Early on the morning of the 18th, Roosevelt set his caravan in motionfor the long journey. For a hunting companion he had Merrifield andfor teamster and cook he had a French Canadian named Norman Lebo, who, as Roosevelt subsequently remarked, to Lebo's indignation (for heprided himself on his scholarship), "possessed a most extraordinarystock of miscellaneous mis-information upon every conceivablesubject. " He was a short, stocky, bearded man, a born wanderer, whohad left his family once for a week's hunting trip and remained awaythree years, returning at last only to depart again, after a week, forfurther Odyssean wanderings. "If I had the money, " he had a way ofsaying, "no two nights would ever see me in the same bed. " It wasrumored that before Mrs. Lebo had permitted her errant spouse to goout of her sight, she had secured pledges from Roosevelt guaranteeingher three years' subsistence, in case the _wanderlust_ should oncemore seize upon her protector and provider. 

Roosevelt rode ahead of the caravan, spending the first night with theLangs, who were always friendly and hospitable and full of good talk, and rejoining Merrifield and "the outfit" on the Keogh trail a fewmiles westward next morning. Slowly and laboriously the "prairieschooner" lumbered along the uneven route. The weather was sultry, andas they crossed the high divide which separated the Little Missouribasin from the valley of the Little Beaver they saw ahead of them thetowering portents of storm. The northwest was already black, and in aspace of time that seemed incredibly brief the masses of cloud boiledup 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 thesecond from the left, seated; to right of him is A. C. Huidekoper, whose H. T. Horse-ranch was famous; beside him is Hell-Roaring BillJones; James Harmon is behind Huidekoper; at the right of the group(standing) is Schuyler Lebo; at the left, standing beside the Indianis Charles Mason, famous, above all, for his nickname which (with noirreverent intent) was "Whistling Jesus. "]

 Against the dark background of the mass [Roosevelt wrote, describing it later] could be seen pillars and clouds of gray mist, whirled hither and thither by the wind, and sheets of level rain driven before it. The edges of the wings tossed to and fro, and the wind shrieked and moaned as it swept over the prairie. It was a storm of unusual intensity; the prairie fowl rose in flocks from before it, scudding with spread wings toward the thickest cover, and the herds of antelope ran across the plain like race-horses to gather in the hollows and behind the low ridges. 

 We spurred hard to get out of the open, riding with loose reins for the creek. The center of the storm swept by behind us, fairly across our track, and we only got a wipe from the tail of it. Yet this itself we could not have faced in the open. The first gust caught us a few hundred yards from the creek, almost taking us from the saddle, and driving the rain and hail in stinging level sheets against us. We galloped to the edge of a deep wash-out, scrambled into it at the risk of our necks, and huddled up with our horses underneath the windward bank. Here we remained pretty well sheltered until the storm was over. Although it was August, the air became very cold. The wagon was fairly caught, and would have been blown over if the top had been on; the driver and horses escaped without injury, pressing under the leeward side, the storm coming so level that they did not need a roof to protect them from the hail. Where the center of the whirlwind struck, it did great damage, sheets of hailstones as large as pigeons' eggs striking the earth with the velocity of bullets; next day the hailstones could have been gathered up by the bushel from the heaps that lay in the bottom of the gullies and ravines. 

They made camp that night at the edge of the creek whose banks hadgiven them what little shelter there was on the plateau where thestorm had struck them. All night the rain continued in a drizzlepunctuated at intervals by sharp showers. Next morning the weather wasno better, and after a morning's struggle with the wagon along theslippery trail of gumbo mud, they made what would under othercircumstances have been a "dry camp. " They caught the rain in theirslickers and made their coffee of it, and spent another more or lessuncomfortable night coiling themselves over and around acracker-barrel which seemed to take up the whole interior of thewagon. 

The weather cleared at last, and they pushed on southwestward, betweenBox Elder Creek and Powder River. It was dreary country through whichLebo and his prairie schooner made their slow and creaking way, andRoosevelt and Merrifield, to whom the pace was torture, varied themonotony with hunting expeditions on one-side or the other of theparallel ruts that were the Keogh trail. It was on one of these tripsthat Roosevelt learned a lesson which he remembered. 

They had seen a flock of prairie chickens and Roosevelt had startedoff with his shot-gun to bring in a meal of them. Suddenly Merrifieldcalled to him. Roosevelt took no heed. 

"Don't you shoot!" cried Merrifield. 

Roosevelt, with his eyes on the chickens, proceeded on his wayundeterred. Suddenly, a little beyond where he had seen the prairiefowl go to covert, a mountain lion sprang out of the brush and boundedaway. Roosevelt ran for his rifle, but he was too late. The lion wasgone. 

Merrifield's eyes were blazing and his remarks were not dissimilar. "Now, whenever I hold up my hand, " he concluded, "you stop still whereyou are. Understand?"

Roosevelt, who would have knocked his ranch-partner down withearnestness and conviction if he had thought Merrifield was in thewrong, meekly bore the hunter's wrath, knowing that Merrifield was inthe right; and thereafter on the expedition obeyed orders with acompleteness that occasionally had its comic aspects. But Merrifieldhad no more complaints to make. 

They plodded on, day after day, seeing no human being. When at lastthey did come upon a lonely rider, Roosevelt instantly pressed himinto service as a mail carrier, and wrote two letters. 

The first was to his sister Anna. 

 I am writing this on an upturned water-keg, by our canvas-covered wagon, while the men are making tea, and the solemn old ponies are grazing round about me. I am going to trust it to the tender mercies of a stray cowboy whom we have just met, and who may or may not post it when he gets to "Powderville, " a delectable log hamlet some seventy miles north of us. 

 We left the Little Missouri a week ago, and have been traveling steadily some twenty or thirty miles a day ever since, through a desolate, barren-looking and yet picturesque country, part of the time rolling prairie and part of the time broken, jagged Bad Lands. We have fared sumptuously, as I have shot a number of prairie chickens, sage hens and ducks, and a couple of fine bucks--besides missing several of the latter that I ought to have killed. 

 Every morning we get up at dawn, and start off by six o'clock or thereabouts, Merrifield and I riding off among the hills or ravines after game, while the battered "prairie schooner, " with the two spare ponies led behind, is driven slowly along by old Lebo, who is a perfect character. He is a weazened, wiry old fellow, very garrulous, brought up on the frontier, and a man who is never put out or disconcerted by any possible combination of accidents. Of course we have had the usual incidents of prairie travel happen to us. One day we rode through a driving rainstorm, at one time developing into a regular hurricane of hail and wind, which nearly upset the wagon, drove the ponies almost frantic, and forced us to huddle into a gully for protection. The rain lasted all night and we all slept in the wagon, pretty wet and not very comfortable. Another time a sharp gale of wind or rain struck us in the middle of the night, as we were lying out in the open (we have no tent), and we shivered under our wet blankets till morning. We go into camp a little before sunset, tethering two or three of the horses, and letting the others range. One night we camped in a most beautiful natural park; it was a large, grassy hill, studded thickly with small, pine-crowned chalk buttes, with very steep sides, worn into the most outlandish and fantastic shapes. All that night the wolves kept up a weird concert around our camp--they are most harmless beasts. 

The second letter was to his friend Lodge, who was in the midst of astiff fight to hold his seat in Congress. 

 You must pardon the paper and general appearance of this letter, as I am writing out in camp, a hundred miles or so from any house; and indeed, whether this letter is, or is not, ever delivered depends partly on Providence, and partly on the good-will of an equally inscrutable personage, either a cowboy or a horse-thief, whom we have just met, and who has volunteered to post it--my men are watching him with anything but friendly eyes, as they think he is going to try to steal our ponies. (To guard against this possibility he is to sleep between my foreman and myself--delectable bedfellow he'll prove, doubtless. )

 I have no particular excuse for writing, beyond the fact that I would give a good deal to have a talk with you over political matters, just now. I heartily enjoy this life, with its perfect freedom, for I am very fond of hunting, and there are few sensations I prefer to that of galloping over these rolling, limitless prairies, rifle in hand, or winding my way among the barren, fantastic and grimly picturesque deserts of the so-called Bad Lands; and yet I cannot help wishing I could be battling along with you, and I cannot regret enough the unfortunate turn in political affairs that has practically debarred me from taking any part in the fray. I have received fifty different requests to speak in various places--among others, to open the campaign in Vermont and Minnesota. I am glad I am not at home; I get so angry with the "mugwumps, " and get to have such scorn and contempt for them, that I know I would soon be betrayed into taking some step against them, much more decided than I really ought to take. 

The hunting trips which Roosevelt and Merrifield made on this side orthe other of the trail had their charm, and their perils also. Therewas one excursion, while the wagon was crawling up the Clear Fork ofthe Powder River, which for several reasons remained memorable. 

The party was out of food, for the country they had been traversingwas not favorable for game, and Roosevelt and Merrifield started forthone afternoon, with hope goaded by necessity, to replenish the larder. 

Where the hilly country joined the river bottom, it broke off intosteep bluffs, presenting an ascent before which even a bronco, itseemed, had his hesitations. Roosevelt and his companion rode into awash-out, and then, dismounting, led their ponies along a clay ledgefrom which they turned off and went straight up an almostperpendicular sandy bluff. As Merrifield, who was in the lead, turnedoff the ledge, his horse, plunging in his attempt to clamber up thesteep bluff, overbalanced himself, and for a second stood erect on hishind legs trying to recover his equilibrium. As Roosevelt, who wasdirectly beneath him, made a frantic leap with his horse to one side, Merrifield's pony rolled over backwards, turned two completesomersaults and landed with a crash at the bottom of the wash-out, feet uppermost. They did not dare to hope that the horse would not be"done for, " but he proved on investigation to be very much alive. Without aid he struggled to his feet, looking about in a rathershame-faced fashion, apparently none the worse for his fall. Withvigorous pulling, they drew Roosevelt's pony to the top, and by thesame method, augmented with coaxing and abuse, they brought his fellowto his side at last, and proceeded on their excursion. 

Late in the afternoon they came on three blacktail deer. Roosevelttook a running shot at two hundred yards and missed, took another andmissed again, though this time he managed to turn the animals in theirflight. They disappeared round the shoulder of a bluff, and Roosevelt, suspecting that they would reappear when they had recovered from theirterror, elevated his sights to four hundred yards and waited. It wasnot long before one of the three stepped out. Roosevelt raised hisrifle. The shot, at that distance, was almost impossible, but therewas zest in the trying. Suddenly another buck stepped out and walkedslowly toward the first. Roosevelt waited until the heads were in lineand fired. Over went both bucks. Roosevelt paced off the distance. Itwas just four hundred and thirty-one long paces. 

It was while they were ascending the Clear Fork of the Powder thatthey discovered a band of Indians camped a short distance from theplace where they themselves had halted for the night. 

"I'm going over to see those Indians, " remarked Merrifield afterdinner that evening. 

"What do you want to go over there for?" asked Roosevelt. 

"Out in this country, " responded the hunter dryly, "you always want toknow who your neighbors are. "

They rode over together. The Indians were Cheyennes. Experience hadtaught Merrifield that nothing was so conducive to peaceful relationswith a red neighbor as to prove to him that you could beat him at hisown game. He consequently suggested a shooting-match. The Indiansagreed. To Roosevelt's astonishment they proved to be very bad shots, and not only Merrifield, but Roosevelt himself, completely outclassedthem in the competition. The Indians were noticeably impressed. Merrifield and Roosevelt rode back to their camp conscious that so faras those particular Indians were concerned no anxiety need disturbtheir slumbers. 

"Indians, " remarked Merrifield later, "are the best judges of humannature in the world. When an Indian finds out that you are a goodshot, he will leave you absolutely alone to go and come as you like. Indians are just like white men. They are not going to start somethingwhen they know you can out-shoot them. "

For three weeks they traveled through desolation before they came atlast to the goal of their journey. At the foot of the first steeprise, on the banks of Crazy Woman Creek, a few miles south of the armypost at Buffalo, they left the wagon, and following an old Indiantrail started into the mountains, driving their pack-ponies beforethem. 

It was pleasant, after three burning weeks of treeless prairie, toclimb into the shadowy greenness of the mountains. All about them wasthe music of running water, where clear brooks made their way throughdeep gorges and under interlacing boughs. Groves of great pines rosefrom grassy meadows and fringed the glades that lay here and therelike quiet parks in the midst of the wilderness. 

The hunters pitched their camp at last in a green valley beside aboisterous mountain brook. The weather was clear, with thin icecoursing the dark waters of the mountain tarns, and now and againslight snowfalls that made the forest gleam and glisten in themoonlight like fairyland. Through the frosty air they could hear thevibrant, musical notes of the bull elk far off, calling to the cows orchallenging one another. 

No country could have been better adapted to still hunting than thegreat, pine-clad mountains, studded with open glades. Roosevelt lovedthe thrill of the chase, but he loved no less the companionship of themajestic trees and the shy wild creatures which sprang across his pathor ran with incredible swiftness along the overhanging boughs. Movingon noiseless moccasins he caught alluring glimpses of the inner lifeof the mountains. 

The days passed very pleasantly in the crystal air and vibrantsolitude of their mountain hunting grounds. The fare that old Leboprovided was excellent, and to the three men, who had for weeks beenaccustomed to make small fires from dried brush or from sagebrushroots laboriously dug out of the ground, it was a treat to sit atnight before the roaring pine-logs. 

"We've come to a land at last, " remarked the quaint old teamster withsatisfaction, "where the wood grows on trees. "

They shot several elk promptly, but the grizzlies they were aftereluded them. At last, after a week Merrifield, riding into camp onedusk, with a shout announced that he had come upon grizzly-bear signssome ten miles away. They shifted camp at once. 

That afternoon, on a crag overlooking a wild ravine, Roosevelt shotanother great bull elk. To Merrifield it seemed as though the elkmight constitute a day's satisfactory achievement. But Roosevelt wasindefatigable. "Now, " he said with gusto, contemplating themagnificent antlers, "we'll go out to-night and get a bear. "

But that night they found nothing. Returning next day with Merrifieldfor the carcass of the elk however, they found that a grizzly had beenfeeding on it. They crouched in hiding for the bear's return. Nightfell, owls began to hoot dismally from the tops of the tall trees, anda lynx wailed from the depths of the woods, but the bear did not come. 

Early next morning they were again at the elk carcass. The bear hadevidently eaten his fill during the night. His tracks were clear, andthey followed them noiselessly over the yielding carpet of moss andpine-needles, to an elk-trail leading into a tangled thicket of youngspruces. 

Suddenly Merrifield sank on one knee, turning half round, his faceaflame with excitement. Roosevelt strode silently past him, his gun"at the ready. "

There, not ten steps off, was the great bear slowly rising from hisbed among the young spruces. He had heard the hunters and rearedhimself on his haunches. Seeing them, he dropped again on all-fours, and the shaggy hair on his neck and shoulders bristled as he turnedtoward them. 

Roosevelt aimed fairly between the small, glittering eyes, and fired. 

 Doubtless my face was pretty white [Roosevelt wrote "Bamie" a week later, ] but the blue barrel was as steady as a rock as I glanced along it until I could see the top of the bead fairly between his two sinister-looking eyes; as I pulled the trigger I jumped aside out of the smoke, to be ready if he charged, but it was needless, for the great brute was struggling in his death agony, and as you will see when I bring home his skin, the bullet hole was as exactly between his eyes as if I had measured the distance with a carpenter's rule. 

At last, one cool morning, when the branches of the evergreens wereladen with the feathery snow that had fallen overnight, the huntersstruck camp, and in single file, with the pack-ponies laden with thetrophies of the hunt, moved down through the woods and across thecanyons to the edge of the great table-land, then slowly down thesteep slope to its foot, where they found the canvas-topped wagon. Next day they set out on the three-hundred-mile journey home to theMaltese Cross. 

 For once I have made a very successful hunting trip [Roosevelt wrote "Bamie" from Fort McKinney. ] I have just come out of the mountains and will start at once for the Little Missouri, which I expect to reach in a fortnight, and a week afterwards will be on my way home. Merrifield killed two bears and three elk; he has been an invaluable guide for game, and of course the real credit for the bag rests with him, for he found most of the animals. But I really shot well this time. Merrifield, who is a perfectly fearless and reckless man, has no more regard for a grizzly bear than he has for a jack-rabbit; the last one he killed, he wished to merely break his leg with the first shot "so as to see what he'd do. " I had not at all this feeling, and fully realized that we were hunting dangerous game; still I never made steadier shooting than at the grizzlies. I had grand sport with the elk, too, and the woods fairly rang with my shouting when I brought down my first lordly bull, with great branching antlers; but after I had begun bear-killing, other sport seemed tame. 

 So I have had good sport; and enough excitement and fatigue to prevent overmuch thought; and, moreover, I have at last been able to sleep well at night. But unless I was bear-hunting all the time I am afraid I should soon get as restless with this life as with the life at home. 

XI

 The rattlesnake bites you, the scorpion stings, The mosquito delights you with buzzing wings; The sand-burrs prevail, and so do the ants, And those who sit down need half-soles on their pants. 

 _Cowboy song_

The day that Roosevelt started south on his journey to the mountains, Sewall returned north down the river to rejoin his nephew. Will Dowwas watching the cattle on the plateau a few miles south of ElkhornBottom, near the mouth of the defile which the cowboys called ShipkaPass. 

"You never looked so good to me, " he said to Sewall that night, "asyou did when I saw your head coming up the Shipka Pass. "

They worked together among the cattle for another two or three weeks. They were on the best of terms with Captain Robins by this time, forthere was much to like and much to respect in the gruff, dark littleseafaring man, who had suffered shipwreck in more ways than one, andwas out on the plains because of a marriage that had gone on therocks. He was an excellent man with the horses, and good company abouta camp-fire, for somewhere he had picked up an education and waswell-informed. He gave the two tenderfeet a good training in therudiments of "cattle-punching, " sending first one and then the otheroff to distant round-ups to test their abilities among strangers. Sewall proved unadaptable, for he was rather old to learn new tricksso far removed from the activities that were familiar to him; but Dowbecame a "cowhand" overnight. 

Experience was not greatly mollifying Sewall's opinion of the regionin which his lot had been cast. 

 The sun when it shines clear [he wrote his brother Sam after he had been in the Bad Lands six weeks] strikes the bare sides of the Buttes and comes down on the treeless bottoms hot enough to make a Rattlesnake pant. If you can get in the shade there is most always a breeze. The grand trouble is you can't get in the shade. There's no shade to get into and the great sandy Desert is cool compared with some of the gulches, but as you ride it is not quite so bad. The Ponys when they are up to some trick are lively and smart, all other times they are tired, are very tame and look very meek and gentle. But just let one of them get the start of you in any way and you are left. Am glad to say mine has never really got the start yet. We have had a number of differences and controverseys, but my arguments have always prevailed so far. 

About the middle of September, the two backwoodsmen moved down toElkhorn Bottom, leaving Robins in charge of the cattle. Dow went awayon a round-up and Sewall undertook to put in livable shape a dugoutthat stood on the river-bank some thirty or forty yards from the placewhich Roosevelt had, on a previous visit, selected as the site for theranch-house which Sewall and Dow were to build. The shack had belongedto a hunter who had left the country, and was not sumptuous in itsfittings. 

[Illustration: Roosevelt's brands. 

 CHIMNEY BUTTE RANCH. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Proprietor. FERRIS & MERRIFIELD, Managers. 

 P. O. Address, Little Missouri, D. T. Range, Little Missouri, 8 miles south of railroad. 

 [brand drawing] as in cut on left hip and right side, both or either, and down cut dewlap. 

 Horse brand, [brand drawing] on left hip. 

 ELKHORN RANCH. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Proprietor. SEAWALL & DOW, Managers. 

 P. O. Address, Little Missouri, D. T. Range, Little Missouri, twenty-five miles north of railroad. 

 as in cut, [brand drawing] on left side, on right, [brand drawing] or the reverse. 

 Horse brand, [brand drawing] on right or left shoulder. ]

Dow returned from the round-up with interesting news. The Marquis, itseemed, had by no means resigned his claim to the territory on whichRoosevelt had established "squatter's rights. " Dow overheard one ofthe Marquis's men confiding to another that "there'd be some dead menround that Elkhorn shack some day. "

Sewall received the news with calm satisfaction. "Well, " he drawled, "if there's going to be any dead men hereabouts, I cal'late we can fixit so it won't be us. "

Sewall and Dow began cutting timber for the house in a thick grove ofcottonwoods two or three hundred yards from the river, keeping aweather eye open for trouble. A day or two after Dow's return from theround-up, one of the Marquis's men rode up to them where they wereworking. 

"There's a vigilance committee around, I hear, " he remarked casually. "You haven't seen anything of 'em yet hereabouts, have you? I hearthey're considerin' makin' a call on you folks. "

The men from Maine said to each other that the thing began to look"smoky. " They consulted Captain Robins, who agreed that "smoky" wasthe word, and they carried rifles after that when they went to cuttimber. 

For they knew very well that the hint which the Marquis's man hadlightly thrown out was no idle attempt at intimidation based onnothing but the hope that the Easterners were timid. The activities ofGranville Stuart's raiders had stimulated the formation of othervigilance committees, inspired in part by less lofty motives thanthose which impelled the president of the Montana Stockgrowers'Association and his friends. On the border between Dakota and Montanaa company of rough characters who called themselves vigilantes beganto make themselves the topic of excited conversation. They were saidto be after horse-thieves, but it became noticeable that theiractivities seemed to be directed mainly against the small ranchers onthe edge of the Bad Lands. It was rumored that certain large ranchmenwere backing them in the hope of driving the "nesters" out of thecountry. 

 The cowmen here are opposed, not only to the Indians, but also to white settlers [wrote the Western correspondent of the New York _Sun_]. They want the land these white and red settlers are taking up. Vast tracts--uncultivated ranges, not settlements--are what they desire. The small holder--the man with a little bunch of cattle--is not wanted. They freeze him out. Somehow he loses cattle, or they are killed by parties unknown. 

Sewall and Dow had a right to keep their guns near them while theywere at work in the grove on Elkhorn Bottom. 

Meanwhile, the endeavors of Granville Stuart's vigilantes were havingtheir results. The precipitous methods of the "stranglers, " as theywere grimly called, began to give the most hardened "the creeps. " Whothe "stranglers" themselves were, nobody seemed to know. It wasrumored, on the one hand, that they included the biggest ranch-ownersin the Northwest; on the other hand, it was stated that they werebands of lawless Texans driven out of the Panhandle and hired by theranchmen at thirty dollars a month "to clean up the country. " Whoeverthey were, they moved swiftly and acted without hesitation. Thenewspapers said little about them, partly because they knew little, partly because there was a general tacit understanding that the wholething, though necessary, was a disagreeable business, and the lesssaid of it the better. 

The truth seems to be that behind the whole movement to rid easternMontana and western Dakota of the horse-thieves was a looseorganization of cattlemen of which Granville Stuart and his friendswere the directing heads. What funds were needed they provided. Theydesignated, moreover, certain responsible men in the differentround-up districts, to whom subordinate bands of the "stranglers"reported from time to time for orders. Each subordinate band operatedindependently of the others, and the leader in one district knewnothing as a rule of the operations of the other bands. He told the"stranglers" what men to "get, " and that was all; and a day or twolater a man here and a man there would be found dangling from acottonwood. 

In certain cases, Packard, who successfully combined the functions oflaw officer and news-gatherer, knew beforehand what men were to behanged. On one occasion he was informed that two notorious characterswere to be done away with on the following Thursday. The operations ofthe stranglers were as a rule terrifyingly punctual, and as Thursdaywas the day on which the _Cowboy_ went to press, he announced in it, with an awful punctuality of his own, the sudden demise of the thievesin question. 

He carried the papers to the depot to put them on the afternoon trainbound for the west, for the _Cowboy_ was popular with the passengersand he disposed of an edition of seven or eight hundred weekly withthem in excess of his regular edition. As he was about to step on thetrain, two men stepped down. They were the horse-thieves whose deathhe had too confidently announced. 

He stared at them, shocked to the marrow, feeling as though he hadseen ghosts. Would they stay in Medora, or would they go on to wherefrontier justice was awaiting them? Would they see the announcement inthe _Cowboy_? He remembered that they could not read. 

Fascinated, he watched them. The train started. The two men jumpedaboard. 

That night they were hanged. 

Exactly what relation the vigilance committee which was seeking todrive the "nesters" out of western Montana bore to Granville Stuart'sorganization, is difficult to determine. They had probably originallybeen one of the subordinate bands, who were "feeling their oats, " and, under the pretense of "cleaning up the country, " were cleaning uppersonal scores. The captain of the band was a man called "FloppingBill, " a distinctly shady character, and the band itself was made upof irresponsible creatures who welcomed the opportunity to do, in thecause of righteousness, a number of things for which under ordinarycircumstances they would have been promptly hanged. Their first act asa body was to engage a French Canadian named Louis La Pache as guide. La Pache was himself awaiting trial at Miles City for horse-stealing, but there is no indication in the records that he was chosen becausehe was ready to turn State's evidence. He was merely the type thatFlopping Bill's guardians of law and order would naturally choose. 

The raiders began their activities near the mouth of Beaver Creek, notten miles from the spot where Sewall and Dow (with their rifles athand) were hewing timber for the new house. Two cowpunchers hadrecently started a ranch there. They were generally considered honest, but the vigilantes had marked them for destruction, and descended uponthe ranch ready to hang any one in sight. They found only a hired man, an Englishman, for the ranchmen had got wind of the raid and fled; andspent their enthusiasm for order in "allowing the Englishman to feelthe sensation of a lariat round his neck, " as the record runs, releasing him on his promise to leave the country forever. Thereuponthey nailed a paper, signed with skull and cross-bones, on the door ofthe cabin ordering the ranchmen "to vacate"; and proceeded to otherpastures. 

They stopped at a half dozen ranches, terrorizing and burning, butcatching no horse-thieves. It is impossible through the obscurity thatshrouds the grim events of that autumn to determine to what extentthey were honestly in pursuit of lawbreakers or were merelyendeavoring, at the behest of some of the great cattle-owners, todrive the small stockmen out of the country. Their motives werepossibly mixed. The small ranchers were notoriously not always whatthey seemed. Most of the horse-thieves posed as "nesters, " hiding inunderground stables by day the horses they stole by night. Eachregistered his own brand and sometimes more than one; but the brandswere carefully contrived. If you intended, for instance, to prey onthe great herds of the "Long X outfit, " thus [X brand], you calledyour brand "Four Diamonds, " marking it thus [diamond brand]. Aquick fire and a running iron did the trick. It was all very simpleand very profitable and if you were caught there was always a CertainPerson (to whom you were accustomed to give an accounting), and beyondhim a vague but powerful Somebody Else to stand between you and thelaw. There would be no trial, or, if there were a trial, there wouldbe no witnesses, or, if there were witnesses, there would be a lenientjudge and a skeptical jury. The methods of Flopping Bill's party wereno doubt reprehensible, but in attacking some of the little "nesters"the raiders came close to the heart of many troubles. 

But indiscriminate terrorizing by any one in any cause was not to thetaste of the ranchmen up and down the Little Missouri who happened tobe law-abiding. The raiders were starting prairie fires, moreover, with the purpose evidently of destroying the pasture of the smallstockmen, and were in consequence vitally affecting the interests ofevery man who owned cattle anywhere in the valley. That these acts ofvandalism were the work of a body from another Territory, invading theBad Lands for purposes of reform, did not add greatly to theirpopularity. The ranchmen set about to organize a vigilance committeeof their own to repel the invaders, if necessary, by force. 

Whether the raiders got wind of this purpose is not known, but theyevidently decided that they had overplayed their hand, for theysuddenly veered in their course and troubled the Bad Lands no more. But before they went they dropped a bomb which did more than manyconflagrations to carry out their ostensible mission as discouragersof evil-doing. 

It happened that not far from Elkhorn Bottom the vigilantes came uponPierce Bolan, who, it will be remembered, had some time previousdiscoursed to Fisher on the merits of the "considerate treatment" inrelations with horse-thieves. He was himself as honest as daylight, but, as ill-luck would have it, the raiders found him afoot, and, assuming that he was about to steal a horse, called on him to confess. He declared that he had nothing to confess. The raiders thereuponthrew a rope around his neck and drew him up in such a way that hisfeet just touched the ground. The victim continued to proclaim hisinnocence and the vigilantes finally released him, but not until hewas unconscious. When he came to, the raiders were gone, but nearby hefound a paper possibly dropped not altogether inadvertently. It borethe names of fifteen men along the Little Missouri whom GranvilleStuart's committee had marked for punishment. 

What Bolan did with the list, to whom he showed the list, in what wayhe reached the men whose names were on the list--all that is lost tohistory. All that we know is that there was a great scattering duringthe succeeding days, and certain men who were thought most reputablediscovered suddenly that they had pressing business in California orNew York. 

"I never saw a full list of the names on that paper, " said Fisheryears afterward, "and knew nothing of what was going on until two ofthem came to me about the matter. They found that I was reallyignorant and then asked what I would do if in their place. I advisedhiding out for a while until matters had cooled off, which they did. "

Who the men were whose names were on that list is a secret which thosewho held it never revealed and inquisitive minds along the LittleMissouri could never definitely solve. Rumor suggested this man andthat whose ways had been devious, but only one name was ever mentionedwith certainty. That name was Maunders. No one seemed to questionthat if any one was going to be hanged, Maunders was the most likelycandidate. 

That gentleman, meanwhile, was fully aware that he had been marked forslaughter, but he kept his head, and, trusting no doubt to theprotection of the Marquis, calmly remained in Medora, refusing byflight to present his enemies with evidence of an uneasy conscience. To his friends he declared that Fisher alone was responsible forhaving his name placed on the list, and breathed dire threats againstthe manager of the Marquis's Refrigerator Company. 

Fisher was not greatly disturbed by the rumors that reached him ofMaunders's determination to kill him at the first opportunity. He evenwent hunting alone with the outwardly affable "bad man. "

Some of the "boys" thought he was taking unnecessary risks, and toldhim so. "You're taking a big chance in going out alone with Maunders. He's got it in for you. "

Fisher smiled. "Perhaps you haven't noticed, " he said, "that I alwaysmake certain that one or the other of you fellows sees us leave. Maunders would break his neck to see me get back safely. "

Unquestionably, Maunders had an almost over-developed bump of caution. He left Fisher unharmed and turned his attention to the twobackwoodsmen from Maine who were holding down the most desirable claimnorth of Medora for an Eastern tenderfoot. 

One Sunday morning late in September Sewall was alone in the dugoutat the river-bank. Dow was off on a stroll and Sewall was writing hisweekly letter home, when he suddenly heard hoof-beats punctuated withshots. He went to the door. Six rough-looking characters on horsebackwere outside with smoking rifles in their hands. He knew only one ofthem, but he was evidently the leader. It was Maunders. Sewall took inthe situation and invited them all inside. 

The men had been drinking, and, suspecting that they would be hungry, Sewall offered them food. Dow was an excellent cook and in the ashesof the hearth was a pot of baked beans, intended for their own middaymeal. Sewall, keeping carefully within reach of one or the other ofhis weapons which hung on the wall, set the pot before the evil-facedgunmen. 

Maunders, who was slightly drunk, ate ravenously and directly began tosing the praises of the beans. Sewall filled his plate, and filled itagain. 

"I thought I would do everything I could to make them comfortable, " heremarked, telling about it later, "and then if they cooked up anyracket we should have to see what the end would be. I knew that ifthey were well filled, it would have a tendency to make themgood-natured, and besides that it puts a man in rather an awkwardposition, when he's got well treated, to start a rumpus. "

Sewall watched the men unostentatiously, but with an eagle eye. He hadmade up his mind that if there were to be any dead men thereaboutsMaunders was to be the first. "He being the leader I thought I wouldmake sure of him whatever happened to me. "

He noted, not without satisfaction, that the men were looking aroundthe cabin, regarding the weapons with attention. He showed Maundersabout. The gunman agreed without enthusiasm that they had "got thingsfixed up in very fine shape, " and departed. He treated Sewall mostaffably thereafter, but the backwoodsmen were made aware in one wayand another that the old mischief-maker had not yet given up the ideaof driving Theodore Roosevelt and his "outfit" off the claim atElkhorn Bottom. 

XII

 It was underneath the stars, the little peeking stars, That we lay and dreamed of Eden in the hills: We were neither sad nor gay, but just wondering, while we lay, What a mighty lot of space creation fills. 

 Our fire was just a spark; dot of red against the dark, And around the fire an awful lot of night. The purple, changing air was as quiet as a prayer, And the moon came up and froze the mountains white. 

 Henry Herbert KNIBBS

[Illustration: Fantastic formation at Medicine Buttes. ]

[Illustration: Medicine Buttes. ]

The "boss" of Elkhorn Ranch, meanwhile, oblivious of the heat which hewas generating in the Marquis's Prime Minister, was taking his slowcourse northeastward across Wyoming to the Bad Lands. It was long andweary traveling across the desolate reaches of burnt prairie. Thehorses began to droop. At last, in some heavy sand-hills east of theLittle Beaver, one of the team pulling the heavily laden wagon playedout completely, and they had to put the toughest of the saddle poniesin his place. Night was coming on fast as they crossed the final ridgeand came in sight of as singular a bit of country as any of them hadever seen. Scattered over a space not more than three quarters of amile square were countless isolated buttes of sandstone, varying inheight from fifteen to fifty feet. Some of them rose as sharp peaks orridges or as connected chains, but the greater number by far weretopped with diminutive table-lands, some thirty feet across, someseventy, some two hundred. The sides were perpendicular, and werecut and channeled by the weather into most curious caves and columnsand battlements and spires. Here and there ledges ran along the facesof the cliffs and eerie protrusions jutted out from the corners. Gravepine-trees rose loftily among the strange creations of water and windset in a desert of snow-white sand. It was a beautiful and fantasticplace and they made their camp there. 

The moon was full and the night clear. In an angle of a cliff theybuilt a roaring pine-log fire whose flames, leaping up the gray wall, made wild sport of the bold corners and strange-looking escarpments ofthe rock. Beyond the circle that the firelight brought luridly tolife, the buttes in the moonlight had their own still magic. Againstthe shining silver of the cliffs the pines showed dark and somber, andwhen the branches stirred, the bright light danced on the groundmaking it appear like a sheet of molten metal. 

It was like a country seen in a dream. 

The next morning all was changed. A wild gale was blowing and rainbeat about them in level sheets. A wet fog came and went and gaveplace at last to a steady rain, as the gale gave place to a hurricane. They spent a miserable day and night shifting from shelter to shelterwith the shifting wind; another day and another night. Theirprovisions were almost gone, the fire refused to burn in the fiercedownpour, the horses drifted far off before the storm. .. . 

"Fortunately, " remarked Roosevelt later, "we had all learned that, nomatter how bad things were, grumbling and bad temper can always bedepended upon to make them worse, and so bore our ill-fortune, if notwith stoical indifference, at least in perfect quiet. "

The third day dawned crisp and clear, and once more the wagon lumberedon. They made camp that night some forty miles southwest of Lang's. They were still three days from home, three days of crawling voyagingbeside the fagged team. The country was monotonous, moreover, withoutmuch game. 

"I think I'd like to ride in and wake the boys up for breakfast, "remarked Merrifield. 

"Good!" exclaimed Roosevelt. "I'll do it with you. "

Merrifield argued the matter. Roosevelt had been in the saddle all dayand it was eighty miles to the Maltese Cross. 

"I'm going with you. I want to wind up this trip myself, " saidRoosevelt, and there the argument ended. 

At nine o'clock they saddled their tough little ponies, and rode offout of the circle of firelight. The October air was cool in theirfaces as they loped steadily mile after mile over the moonlit prairie. 

Roosevelt later described that memorable ride. 

 The hoof-beats of our horses rang out in steady rhythm through the silence of the night, otherwise unbroken save now and then by the wailing cry of a coyote. The rolling plains stretched out on all sides of us, shimmering in the clear moonlight; and occasionally a band of spectral-looking antelope swept silently away from before our path. Once we went by a drove of Texan cattle, who stared wildly at the intruders; as we passed they charged down by us, the ground rumbling beneath their tread, while their long horns knocked against each other with a sound like the clattering of a multitude of castanets. We could see clearly enough to keep our general course over the trackless plain, steering by the stars where the prairie was perfectly level and without landmarks; and our ride was timed well, for as we galloped down into the valley of the Little Missouri the sky above the line of the level bluffs in our front was crimson with the glow of the unrisen sun. 

Roosevelt rode down to Elkhorn a day or two after his return to theMaltese Cross, and found Sewall and Dow busy cutting the timber forthe new house, which was to stand in the shade of a row of cottonwoodtrees overlooking the broad, shallow bed of the Little Missouri. Theywere both mighty men with the axe. Roosevelt worked with them for afew days. He himself was no amateur, but he could not compete with thestalwart backwoodsmen. 

One evening he overheard Captain Robins ask Dow what the day's cut hadbeen. "Well, Bill cut down fifty-three, " answered Dow. "I cutforty-nine, and the boss, " he added dryly, not realizing thatRoosevelt was within hearing--"the boss he beavered down seventeen. "

Roosevelt remembered the tree-stumps he had seen gnawed down bybeavers, and grinned. 

Roosevelt found that the men from Maine were adapting themselvesadmirably to their strange surroundings. Dow was already an excellentcowhand. Sewalls abilities ran in other directions. 

 We are hewing away at the stuff for the house [Sewall wrote his brother on October 19th]. It is to be 60 ft. Long and 30 wide, the walls 9 ft. High, so you can see it is quite a job to hew it out on three sides, but we have plenty of time. Theodore wants us to ride and explore one day out of each week and we have to go to town after our mail once a week, so we don't work more than half the time. It is a good job and a big one, but we have lots of time between this and spring. 

Meanwhile, he stubbornly insisted that the country was not adapted tocattle. 

 I think I already see a good many drawbacks to this country [he wrote]. The Stock business is a new business in the Bad Lands and I can't find as anybody has made anything at it, yet _they all expect to_. I think they have all lost as yet. Talked the other day with one of the biggest Stock men here. He is hired by the month to boss. He said nobody knew whether there was anything in it or not, yet. He had been here three years and sometimes thought there was not much in it, said it was very expensive and a great many outs to it and I believe he told the truth. Out about town they blow it up, want to get everybody at it they can. We shall see in time. Can tell better in the spring after we see how they come in with their cattle. 

The truth was, Bill knew the ways of cattle, for he had run cattle inthe open in Maine under climatic conditions not dissimilar to those ofthe Dakota country. His experience had taught him that when a cow isallowed to have one calf after another without special feeding, she ismore than likely to die after the third calf. He knew also that when acow calves in cold weather, she is likely to freeze her udder and beruined, and lose the calf besides. 

"Those cows will either have to be fed, " he said to Roosevelt, "orthey'll die. "

Roosevelt took Sewall's pessimism with a grain of salt. "No onehereabouts seems to think there's any danger of that sort, " he said. "I think, Bill, you're wrong. "

"I hope I am, " said Bill; and there the matter dropped. 

It was while Roosevelt was working at Elkhorn that further rumors oftrouble came from the party of the Marquis. Maunders insisted that hehad a prior claim to the shack in which Sewall and Dow were living andall the land that lay around it, and demanded five hundred dollars forhis rights. Roosevelt had from the first scouted the claim, forMaunders had a way of claiming any shack which a hunter desertedanywhere. Vague threats which Maunders was making filled the air, butdid not greatly disturb Roosevelt. Sewall and Dow, however, had hearda rumor which sounded authentic and might require attention. Maundershad said that he was going to shoot Roosevelt at the next opportunity. They passed the news on to "the boss. "

This was decidedly interesting. Maunders was known as a good shot andwas well protected by the Marquis. 

Roosevelt promptly saddled his horse and rode back up the river. Maunders's shack stood on the west bank a few hundred yards from thePyramid Park Hotel. Roosevelt knocked on the door. Maunders opened it. 

"Maunders, " said Roosevelt sharply, "I understand that you havethreatened to kill me on sight. I have come over to see when you wantto begin the killing and to let you know that, if you have anything tosay against me, now is the time for you to say it. "

Maunders looked unhappy. After a brief conversation it appeared thatMaunders did not after all want to shoot him. He had been "misquoted, "he said. They parted, understanding one another perfectly. 

Roosevelt left Medora on October 7th, bound for New York. He haddecided, after all, not to remain aloof from the political campaign. He deeply distrusted the Democratic Party, on the one hand, and he wasenraged at the nominations of the Republican Party, on the other; butthe "Mugwumps, " those Republicans who, with a self-conscioushigh-mindedness which irritated him almost beyond words, weresupporting the Democratic nominee, he absolutely despised. Besides, itwas not in him to be neutral in any fight. He admitted that freely. During the final weeks of the campaign he made numerous speeches inNew York and elsewhere which were not neutral in the least. 

By leaving Medora on the 7th of October he missed a memorableoccasion, for on the following day Packard at last opened hisstage-line. The ex-baseball player had met and surmounted an array ofobstacles that would have daunted anybody but a youngster on theWestern frontier. He had completed his building operations by the endof September, and by the first of October he had distributed hishostlers, his eating-house keepers, his helpers and his "middle-route"drivers, among the sixteen relay-stations that lined the wheel-trackswhich the Marquis was pleased to call the "highway" to the BlackHills. The horses which he had purchased in a dozen different placesin the course of the summer were not such as to allay the trepidationof timid travelers. They had none of them been broken to harnessbefore Packard's agents had found them and broken them in their owncasual and none too gentle fashion. Packard would have preferred tohave horses which had become accustomed to the restraining hand ofman, but "harness-broke" horses where rare in that country. Besides, they were expensive, and, with the money coming from the Marquis onlyin little sums, long-delayed, Packard that summer was huntingbargains. As it was, Baron von Hoffman, who was a business man ofvision and ability, was none too pleased with the mounting expenses ofhis son-in-law's new venture. 

"How many horses have you bought?" he asked; Packard one day rathersharply. 

"A hundred and sixty-six. "

"How many are you using on the stage-line?"

"A hundred and sixty. "

"What are you doing with the other six?"

"They're out on the line. "

"Humph!" grunted the Baron in despair. "Eating their heads off!"

What the Baron said to the Marquis is lost to history. The family inthe new house across the river from Medora had plenty of dignity andpride. Whatever disagreements they had they kept securely within theirown walls, and there was nothing but a growing querulousness in thevoice of the man who held the purse-strings to reveal to the worldthat Baron von Hoffman was beginning to think he was laying away hismoney in a hole that had no bottom. Something of that feeling seems tohave been in the Marquis's own mind, for in the interviews he gave tothe newspapers the words "I won't be bled" recur. 

On the first of October, Packard was ready for the "dress rehearsal"of his stage-line. That performance partook of more than the usualquantity of hazard connected with such occasions. At every station, for instance, some or all of the six horses had to be roped, thrown, and blindfolded before they would let themselves be harnessed. Toadjust the harness was itself a ticklish undertaking and had to bedone with minute regard for sensitive nerves, for if any part of itstruck a horse except with the pressure of its own weight, the devilwas loose again, and anything might happen. But even when the harnesswas finally on the refractory backs, the work was not half done. Stillblindfolded, the horses had to be driven, pulled, pushed, and hauledby main force to their appointed places in front of the coach. Noiselessly, one at a time, the tugs were attached to the single-tree, and carefully, as though they were dynamite, the reins were handed tothe driver. At the Moreau Station, two thirds of the way to Deadwood, all six horses, it happened were practically unbroken broncos. Thedriver was on his box with Packard at his side, as they prepared tostart, and at the head of each horse stood one of the station-hands. 

"Ready?" asked the man at the head of the near leader. 

"All set, " answered the other helpers. 

"Let 'er go!" called the driver. 

The helpers jerked the blinds from the horses' eyes. The broncosjumped into their collars as a unit. As a unit, however, they surgedback, as they became suddenly conscious of the horror that theydreaded most--restraint. The off leader made a wild swerve to theright, backing toward the coach, and dragging the near leader and thenear swing-horse from their feet. The off leader, unable to forgeahead, made a wild leap for the off swing horse, and fairly crushedhim to earth with his feet, himself tripping on the harness androlling at random in the welter, his snapping hoofs flashing in everydirection. The wheel team, in the meantime, was doing what Packardlater described as "a vaudeville turn of its own. " The near wheelerwas bucking as though there were no other horse within a hundredmiles; the off wheeler had broken his single-tree and was facing thecoach, delivering kicks at the mêlée behind him with whole-heartedabandon and rigid impartiality. 

"It was exactly the kind of situation, " Packard remarked later, "thatGeorge Myers would have called 'a gol-darned panorama. '"

But the horses were not to have matters altogether their own way, forthe helpers were experienced "horse-wranglers. " By main strength theypulled the off leader to his place and blindfolded him, delegating oneof their number to sit on his head until the snarl might be untangled. The process was repeated with the other horses. The damage proved tobe negligible. A few small harness straps had snapped, and asingle-tree was broken. A second trial resulted no better than thefirst. After the half-crazy animals had been a second timedisentangled and a third time harnessed, quivering, to the coach, thedriver had his way with them. The horses jumped forward into a wildrun, thrashing the heavy coach about as a small boy might be thrashedabout as the tail in "crack the whip. " It was a wild ride, but theyreached Spearfish with no bones broken. 

[Illustration: Poster of the Marquis de Mores's deadwood stage-line. ]

"Our entrance into Deadwood was spectacular, " said Packard later, "andended in an invitation ride to Lead City with Mayor Seth Bullock atthe head of the local dignitaries, riding in state inside thecoach. "

On the 8th of October, Packard offered the dubious joys of hisstage-line for the first time to the public; and began to see a faintprospect of return on his rather extravagant investment of energy andtime. But his satisfaction died stillborn. The Marquis's sanguinetemperament had once more proved the undoing of what might have been aprofitable venture. The mail contract, which the easy-going Frenchmanhad thought that he had secured, proved illusory. Packard, who hadbeen glad to leave that part of the business to his principal, discovered, as soon as he began to inquire for the mail-bags, thatwhat his principal had actually secured from the Postmaster-Generalwas not a contract at all, but merely a chance to bid when the annualoffers for star routes came up for bidding the following May. It was abody blow to the putative owner of a stage-line. 

Long after the last of his Deadwood coaches had been rattled tokindlings in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Packard told the lastchapter of his connection with the Medora and Black Hills Forwardingand Transportation Company. 

"No mail contract; hardly a month of earnings before winter, whenthere was no chance of paying operating expenses; responsible for thepay-roll, but not on it; with a private pay-roll and expenses equal toor greater than my private income; with all my cash savings gone inthe preliminary expenses of putting on the line, and finally with nochance, under my contract, of getting a cent from the stage-linebefore that nebulous time when it had paid for itself. The Marquissoon returned and I told him I could not consider myself bound by thecontract. The delay in providing funds I had condoned by staying withthe proposition, but a mail contract which was essential in helping topay expenses was not even a possibility for seven or more months inthe future. I stayed until another man was hired and left my dutieswith a grunt of relief. "[9]

 [Footnote 9: It was Packard's stage-line which brought Scipio le Moyne (in Owen Wister's novel) from the Black Hills to Medora to become the substitute cook of the Virginian's mutinous "outfit. " The cook whom the Virginian kicked off the train at Medora, because he was too anxious to buy a bottle of whiskey, is said to have been a man named Macdonald. He remained in the Bad Lands as cook for one of the ranches, but he was such an inveterate drinker that "Nitch" Kendley was forced to take drastic measures. Finding him unconscious one day, just outside of Medora, he tied him hand and foot to the sagebrush. The cook struggled twelve hours in the broiling sun before he could free himself. Tradition has it that he did not touch another drop of liquor for three years. ]

For Packard the failure of his venture was not a serious matter. The_Cowboy_ was flourishing and there was enough in all conscience tokeep him occupied in his duties as Chief of Police. But for theMarquis it was bad business. He had, as it was, few enough honest menat his side. 

XIII

 Oh, we're up in the morning ere breaking of day, The chuck-wagon's busy, the flapjacks in play; The herd is astir o'er hillside and vale, With the night riders rounding them into the trail. Oh, come take up your cinches, come shake out your reins; Come, wake your old bronco and break for the plains; Come, roust out your steers from the long chaparral, For the outfit is off to the railroad corral. 

 _The Railroad Corral_

Roosevelt returned to the Bad Lands on the 16th of November and wasgreeted with enthusiasm by Merrifield and Sylvane. The next day hestarted for the new ranch. He had intended to get under way by noon, but Sylvane and Merrifield wanted to drive a small beef herd, whichthey were shipping to Chicago, to the shipping corrals near theCantonment, and it was mid-afternoon before he was able to put spursto his smart little cowpony and start on the long ride to Elkhorn. Theday was bitterly cold, with the mercury well down toward zero, and thepony, fresh and impatient, went along at a good rate. Roosevelt hadnot gone many miles before he became conscious that darkness wasfalling. The trail followed along the bottom for a half-dozen milesand then turned off into the bad lands, leading up and down throughthe ravines and over the ridge crests of a rough and broken country. He crossed a wide plateau where the wind blew savagely, sweeping thepowdery snow into his face, then dipped again into the valley wherethe trail led along the bottoms between the rows of high bluffs, continually crossing and recrossing the river. The ice was too thin tobear the horse, for the cold had come suddenly and had not yet frozenit solid, and again and again, as the pony cautiously advanced, thewhite surface would suddenly break and let horse and rider down intothe chilling water. 

Roosevelt had made up his mind that he could under no circumstancesreach the new ranch that night and had determined to spend the nightwith Robins, the seafaring man, whose hut was three or four milesnearer. But the sun set while he was still several miles from hisgoal, and the darkness, which had been closing round him where he rodein the narrow valley, crept over the tops of the high bluffs and shutout from his vision everything but a dim track in the snow faintlyilluminated by the stars. Roosevelt hurried his pony. Clouds weregathering overhead, and soon, Roosevelt knew, even the light that thestars gave would be withdrawn. The night was very cold and the silencewas profound. A light snow rendered even the hoof-beats of his horsemuffled and indistinct, and the only sound that came out of the blackworld about him was the long-drawn, melancholy howling of a wolf. 

Captain Robins's shack stood in the midst of a large clump ofcottonwoods thickly grown up with underbrush. It was hard enough tofind in the day-time, but in the darkness of that wintry night itproved tantalizingly elusive. There was no light in it to guide him, which depressed him. 

He found the cabin at last, but it was empty and chill. He lit a fireand hunted about among the stores of the old seafaring man forsomething of which to make supper. The place was stripped bare. Hewent down to the river with an axe and a pail and brought up somewater; in his pocket he had a paper of tea. It was not an altogethersatisfying supper for a tired and hungry man. 

He was out with his rifle at break of day. Outside the hut the prairiefowl were crowing and calling to one another in the tall trees, evidently attracted by the thick growth of choke-cherries and wildplums. As the dawn deepened, the sharp-tails began to fly down fromtheir roosts to the berry bushes. Up among the bare limbs of thetrees, sharply outlined against the sky, they offered as good a targetas any hungry man might ask. He shot off the necks of five insuccession, and it was not long before two of the birds, plucked andcleaned, were split open and roasting before the fire. 

He found that Sewall and Dow had cut all the timber for the house, andwere beginning work on the walls. It was a roomy place they werebuilding, a palace as houses went in the Bad Lands. Roosevelt workedwith them for two days. Both men were excellent company, Dow adelightful spinner of yarns, witty and imaginative, Sewall full ofhorse sense and quiet philosophizing. Roosevelt himself was muchdepressed. His virtual elimination from politics, together with thetragic breaking-up of his home life, had left him for the momentaimless and without ambition. There is a wistful note in a letter hewrote, that week to Lodge. "The statesman (?) of the past has beenmerged, alas, I fear for good, in the cowboy of the present. " He wasnot in the habit of talking of himself or of asking others to sharehis negations; but there was something avuncular about Sewall thatimpelled confidences. He told the backwoodsman that he did not carewhat became of himself; he had nothing to live for, he said. Sewall"went for him bow-legged, " as he himself described it in later years. 

"You ought not to allow yourself to feel that way, " he insisted. "Youhave your child to live for. "

"Her aunt can take care of her a good deal better than I can, "Roosevelt responded. "She never would know anything about me, anyway. She would be just as well off without me. "

"You won't always feel that way, " said Sewall. "You will get over thisafter a while. I know how such things are; but time heals them over. You won't always feel as you do now, and you won't always be willingto stay here and drive cattle, because, when you get to feelingdifferently, you will want to get back among your friends where youcan do more and be more benefit to the world than you can drivingcattle. If you can't think of anything else to do, you can go home andstart a reform. You would make a good reformer. You always want tomake things better instead of worse. "

Roosevelt laughed at that, and said no more concerning the uselessnessof his existence. An amusing angle of the whole matter was that"starting a reform" was actually in the back of his head at the time. 

The reform in question was fundamental. It concerned the creation ofan organization, ostensibly, in the absence of constituted government, for the purpose of making and enforcing certain sorely needed laws forthe regulation of the cattle industry; but actually with the higheraim in view of furnishing a rallying point for the scattered forces oflaw and order. Montana had such an organization in the Montana LiveStock Association and more than one ranchman with large interests inthe valley of the Little Missouri had appealed to that body for help. But the Montana Association found that it had no authority in Dakota. Roosevelt determined, therefore, to form a separate organization. 

The need unquestionably was great. To an unusual extent the cattleindustry depended upon coöperation. Each ranchman "claimed" a certainrange, but no mark showed the boundaries of that range and no fenceheld the cattle and horses within it. On every "claim" the brands oftwenty different herds might have been found. No ranchman by himself, or with the aid only of his own employees, would ever have been ableto collect his widely scattered property. It was only by thecoöperative effort known as "the round-up" that it was possible onceor twice a year for every man to gather his own. The very persistenceof the range as a feeding-ground and the vitality and very life of thecattle depended upon the honest coöperation of the stock-owners. Ifone man over-stocked his range, it was not only his cattle whichsuffered, but in an equal measure the cattle of every other ranchmanalong the river. 

Regulating this industry, which depended so largely on a self-interestlooking beyond the immediate gain, was a body of tradition broughtfrom the cattle ranges of the South, but no code of regulations. Therewere certain unwritten laws which you were supposed to obey; but ifyou were personally formidable and your "outfit" was impressive, therewas nothing in heaven or earth to force you to obey them. It wascomparatively simple, moreover, to conduct a private round-up and shipto Chicago cattle whose brands were not your own. If ever an industryneeded "regulation" for the benefit of the honest men engaged in it, it was the cattle industry in Dakota in 1884. 

But the need of a law of the range which the stockmen would respect, because it was to their own interests to respect it, was only a phaseof a greater need for the presence in that wild and sparsely settledcountry of some sort of authority which men would recognize and acceptbecause it was an outgrowth of the life of which they were a part. Sheriffs and marshals were imposed from without, and an independentperson might have argued that in a territory under a Federal governor, they constituted government without the consent of the governed. Sucha person would look with entirely different eyes on a body createdfrom among the men with whom he was in daily association. 

Medora was blest with a deputy United States Marshal, and much gooddid law and order derive from his presence. He happened to be the sameJoe Morrill who had gained notoriety the preceding winter in theStoneville fight, and who had long been suspected, by law-abiding folkbetween Medora and the Black Hills, of being "in cahoots" witheverything that was sinister in the region. He had for years beenstationed at Deadwood for the purpose mainly of running down desertingsoldiers, and one of the rumors that followed him to Medora was to theeffect that he had made himself the confidant of deserters only tobetray them for thirty dollars a head. The figure was unfortunate. Itstuck in the memory with its echoes of Judas. 

The law-abiding element did not receive any noticeable support fromJoe Morrill. He was a "gun-toting" swashbuckler, not of the "bad man"type at all, but, as Packard pointed out, altogether too noisy indenouncing the wicked when they were not present and too effusive ingreeting them when they were. He gravitated naturally toward Maundersand Bill Williams and Jess Hogue, and if law and order derived anybenefits from that association, history has neglected to record them. Thievery went on as before. 

Roosevelt, no doubt, realized that the hope of the righteous lay notin Joe Morrill or in any other individual whom the Federal authoritiesmight impose on the Bad Lands, but only in an organization which wasthe expression of a real desire for coöperation. He set about promptlyto form such an organization. 

After two days of house-building at Elkhorn, Roosevelt, who wasevidently restless, was again under way, riding south through asnowstorm all day to the Maltese Cross, bringing Sewall and Dow withhim. 

 It was late at night when we reached Merrifield's [he wrote "Bamie" on November 23d], and the thermometer was twenty degrees below zero. As you may imagine, my fur coat and buffalo bag have come in very handily. 

 I am now trying to get up a stockman's association, and in a day or two, unless the weather is too bad, I shall start up the river with Sewall to see about it. 

At one ranch after another, Roosevelt, riding south through the bitingcold with his philosophic backwoodsman, stopped during the week thatfollowed, to persuade fifteen or twenty stockmen along the valley ofthe Little Missouri of the benefits of coöperation. It was an arduousjourney, taking him well south of Lang's; but it was evidentlysuccessful. 

 Theodore Roosevelt, who used to be a great reformer in the New York Legislature, but who is now a cowboy, pure and simple [remarked the Bismarck _Weekly Tribune_ in an editorial on December 12th], calls a meeting of the stockmen of the West Dakota region to meet at Medora, December 19th, to discuss topics of interest, become better acquainted, and provide for a more efficient organization. Mr. Roosevelt likes the West. 

Winter now settled down on the Bad Lands in earnest. There was littlesnow, but the cold was fierce in its intensity. By day, the plains andbuttes were dazzling to the eye under the clear weather; by night, thetrees cracked and groaned from the strain of the biting frost. Eventhe stars seemed to snap and glitter. The river lay fixed in itsshining bed of glistening white, "like a huge bent bar of blue steel. "Wolves and lynxes traveled up and down it at night as though it were ahighway. 

Winter was the ranchman's "slack season"; but Roosevelt found, nevertheless, that there was work to be done even at that time of yearto test a man's fiber. Activities, which in the ordinary Easternwinter would have been merely the casual incidents of the day's work, took on some of the character of Arctic exploration in a country wherethe thermometer had a way of going fifty degrees below zero, and fortwo weeks on end never rose above a point of ten below. It was notalways altogether pleasant to be out of doors; but wood had to bechopped, and coal had to be brought in by the wagon-load. Roosevelthad a mine on his own ranch some three or four miles south of ChimneyButte. It was a vein of soft lignite laid bare in the side of a claybluff by the corrosive action of the water, carving, through thecenturies, the bed of the Little Missouri. He and his men brought thecoal in the ranch-wagon over the frozen bed of the river. The wheelsof the wagon creaked and sang in the bitter cold, as they groundthrough the powdery snow. 

The cattle, moreover, had to be carefully watched, for many of themwere slow in learning to "rustle for themselves, " as the phrase went. A part of every day at least was spent in the saddle by one or theother or all of the men who constituted the Chimney Butte outfit. Inspite of their great fur coats and caps and gauntlets, in spite ofheavy underclothing and flannel-lined boots, it was not often that oneor the other of them, returning from a ride, did not have a touch ofthe frost somewhere about him. When the wind was at his back, Roosevelt found it was not bad to gallop along through the whiteweather, but when he had to face it, riding over a plain or a plateau, it was a different matter, for the blast cut through him like a keenknife, and the thickest furs seemed only so much paper. The cattlewere obviously unhappy, standing humped up under the bushes, exceptfor an hour or two at midday when they ventured out to feed. A veryweak animal they would bring into the cow-shed and feed with hay; butthey did this only in cases of the direst necessity, as such an animalhad then to be fed for the rest of the winter, and the quantity ofhay was limited. As long as the cattle could be held within the narrowstrip of Bad Lands, they were safe enough, for the deep ravinesafforded them ample refuge from the icy gales. But if by any accidenta herd was caught by a blizzard on the open prairie, it might driftbefore it a hundred miles. 

Soon after Roosevelt's return from the East, he had sent SylvaneFerris to Spearfish to purchase some horses for the ranch. About thefirst week in December his genial foreman returned, bringing fifty-twohead. They were wild, unbroken "cayuses, " and had to be broken thenand there. Day after day, in the icy cold, Roosevelt labored with themen in the corral over the refractory animals making up in patiencewhat he lacked in physical address. 

Bill Sewall, who with Dow was on hand to drive a number of the poniesnorth to Elkhorn Ranch, did not feel under the same compulsion as "theboss" to risk his neck in the subjugation of the frantic animals. WillDow had become an excellent horseman, but Sewall had come to theconclusion that you could not teach an old dog new tricks, and refusedto be bulldozed into attempting what he knew he could not accomplish. There was something impressive in the firmness with which he refusedto allow the cowboys to make him look foolish. 

The night the horses arrived, Sewall overheard a number of the cowboysremark that they would get the men from Maine "on those wild horsesand have some fun with them. " "I was forewarned, " said Sewall, yearsafter, telling about it, "and so I was forearmed. "

One of the men came up to Sewall, and with malice aforethought led thesubject to Sewall's participation in the breaking of the horses. 

"I am not going to ride any of those horses, " said Sewall. 

"You will have to, " said the cowboy. 

"I don't know so much about that. "

"If you don't, " remarked the cowboy, "you will have the contempt ofeverybody. "

"That won't affect me very much, " Sewall answered quietly. "If I wereyounger, it might, but it won't now. "

"Oh, well, " said the other lightly, "you will have to ride them. "

"No, " remarked Sewall, "I didn't come out here to make a fool ofmyself trying to do what I know I can't do. I don't want to be poundedon the frozen ground. "

The cowboy made a sharp reply, but Sewall, feeling his blood rise tohis head, became only more firm in refusing to be bulldozed. 

"I suppose you fellows can ride broncos, " he said, "but you cannotride me, and if you get on, your feet will drag. "

There the conversation ended. The next morning Sewall heard the cowboyremark, not too pleasantly, "I suppose it is no use to saddle any badones for Sewall, for he said he wouldn't ride them. "

Sewall paid no attention to the thrust. The whole affair had a comicconclusion, for it happened that, quite by accident, Sewall, inattempting to pick out a gentle horse, picked one who ultimatelyproved to be one of the worst in the herd. For all the time thatSewall was on his back, he acted like a model of the virtues. It wasonly when Dow subsequently mounted him that he began to reveal histrue character, bucking Dow within an inch of his life. The cowboy, however, made no more efforts at intimidation. 

To Roosevelt--to whom difficulty and peril were always a challenge, and pain itself was a visitant to be wrestled with and never releaseduntil a blessing had been wrung from the mysterious lips--thehardships and exertions of those wintry day were a source of boyishdelight. It partook of the nature of adventure to rise at five (threehours ahead of the sun) and ride under the starlight to bring in thesaddle-band; and it gave a sense of quiet satisfaction to manly pridelater to crowd around the fire where the cowboys were stamping andbeating their numbed hands together and know that you had borneyourself as well as they. After a day of bronco-busting in the corral, or of riding hour after hour, head on into the driven snow-dust, therewas a sense of real achievement when night fell, and a consciousnessof strength. The cabin was small, but it was storm-proof and homelike, and the men with whom Roosevelt shared it were brave and true andfull of humor and good yarns. They played checkers and chess and"casino" and "Old Sledge" through the long evenings, and readeverything in type that came under their hands. Roosevelt was not theonly one, it seemed, who enjoyed solid literature. 

 Did I tell you about my cowboys reading and in large part comprehending, your "Studies in Literature"? [Roosevelt wrote to Lodge]. My foreman handed the book back to me to-day, after reading the "Puritan Pepys, " remarking meditatively, and with, certainly, very great justice, that early Puritanism "must have been darned rough on the kids. " He evidently sympathized keenly with the feelings of the poor little "examples of original sin. "

Roosevelt spent all his time at the Maltese Cross and went to Medoraonly for his mail. The quiet of winter had descended upon the wildlittle town. The abattoir was closed for the season, the butchers (whodid their part in enlivening the neighborhood) had gone East, thesquad of carpenters was silent. There was nothing for anybody to doexcept to drink, which the citizens of Medora did to the satisfactionof even the saloon-keepers. 

Roosevelt had planned all the autumn to go on a hunting trip withMerrifield after mountain sheep, but his departure had been delayed bySylvane's return with the horses, and the need for all hands in the"outfit" in the arduous undertaking of preparing their free spiritsfor the obligations of civilization. It was well toward the middle ofDecember before they were able to make a start. Roosevelt sent GeorgeMyers ahead with the buckboard and himself followed on horseback withMerrifield. It was a savage piece of country through which theircourse took them. 

 There were tracts of varying size [Roosevelt wrote later describing that trip], each covered with a tangled mass of chains and peaks, the buttes in places reaching a height that would in the East entitle them to be called mountains. Every such tract was riven in all directions by deep chasms and narrow ravines, whose sides sometimes rolled off in gentle slopes, but far more often rose as sheer cliffs, with narrow ledges along their fronts. A sparse growth of grass covered certain portions of these lands, and on some of the steep hillsides, or in the canyons, were scanty groves of coniferous evergreens, so stunted by the thin soil and bleak weather that many of them were bushes rather than trees. Most of the peaks and ridges, and many of the valleys, were entirely bare of vegetation, and these had been cut by wind and water into the strangest and most fantastic shapes. Indeed, it is difficult, in looking at such formations, to get rid of the feeling that their curiously twisted and contorted forms are due to some vast volcanic upheavals or other subterranean forces; yet they are merely caused by the action of the various weathering forces of the dry climate on the different strata of sandstones, clays, and marls. Isolated columns shoot up into the air, bearing on their summits flat rocks like tables; square buttes tower high above surrounding depressions, which are so cut up by twisting gullies and low ridges as to be almost impassable; shelving masses of sandstone jut out over the sides of the cliffs; some of the ridges, with perfectly perpendicular sides, are so worn away that they stand up like gigantic knife-blades; and gulches, wash-outs, and canyons dig out the sides of each butte, while between them are thrust out long spurs, with sharp, ragged tops. 

They hunted through the broken country on foot. Up the slippery, ice-covered buttes they climbed, working their way across the faces ofthe cliffs or cautiously groping along narrow ledges, peering long andcarefully over every crest. But they found no sheep. The cold wasintense and they were glad when, at sunset, they reached the cabin, which was to be their headquarters. George Myers had already arrived. 

It was a bitter night, and through the chinks of the crazy old hut itinvaded their shelter, defying any fire which they could build. 

By the time the first streak of dawn had dimmed the brilliancy of thestars, the hunters were under way. Their horses had proved a botherthe day before, and they were afoot, striding briskly through thebitter cold to where the great bulk of Middle Butte loomed against thesunrise. They hunted carefully through the outlying foothills andtoiled laboriously up the steep sides to the level top. It was adifficult piece of mountaineering, for the edges of the cliffs hadbecome round and slippery with the ice, and it was no easy task tomove up and along them, clutching the gun in one hand and graspingeach little projection with the other. That day again they found nosheep. 

Hour by hour the cold grew more intense. All signs indicated ablizzard. 

The air was thick and hazy as Roosevelt and Merrifield early nextmorning reached the distant hills where they intended that day to maketheir hunt. Off in the northwest a towering mass of grayish-whiteclouds hung, threatening trouble. The region was, if anything, evenwilder and more difficult than the country they had hunted through onthe two previous days. The ice made the footing perilous, and in thecold thin air every quick burst they made up a steep hill caused themto pant for breath. But they were not unrewarded. Crawling cautiouslyover a sharp ledge they came suddenly upon two mountain rams not ahundred yards away. Roosevelt dropped on his knee, raising his rifle. At the report, the largest of the rams staggered and pitched forward, but recovered himself and disappeared over another ridge. The huntersjumped and slid down into a ravine, clambering up the opposite side asfast as their lungs and the slippery ice would let them. They had notfar to go. Two hundred yards beyond the ridge they found their quarry, dead. They took the head for a trophy. 

It was still early in the day, and Roosevelt and Merrifield made uptheir minds to push for home. The lowering sky was already overcast bya mass of leaden-gray clouds; they had no time to lose. They hurriedback to the cabin, packed up their bedding and provisions, and startednorthward. Roosevelt rode ahead with Merrifield, not sparing thehorses; but before they had reached the ranch-house the storm hadburst, and a furious blizzard was blowing in their teeth as theygalloped along the last mile of the river bottom. 

George Myers celebrated the successful conclusion of the hunt in hisown fashion. In one of his unaccountable culinary lapses, he baked thebeans that night in rosin. With the first mouthful Roosevelt droppedhis knife and fork and made for the door. 

"George, " he remarked as he returned to the table with his eye fixedon the offender, "I can eat green biscuits and most of your otherinfernal concoctions, but I am hanged if I can eat rosined beans. "

He did not eat them, but he did not let the memory of them die either, to George's deep chagrin. 

 I have just returned from a three days' trip in the Bad Lands after mountain sheep [Roosevelt wrote to "Bamie" on December 14th], and after tramping over the most awful country that can be imagined, I finally shot one ram with a fine head. I have now killed every kind of plains game. 

 I have to stay here till after next Friday to attend a meeting of the Little Missouri Stockmen; on Saturday, December 20th, I start home and shall be in New York the evening of December 23d. I have just had fifty-two horses brought in by Ferris, and Sewall and Dow started down the river with their share yesterday. The latter have lost two horses; I am afraid they have been stolen. 

The meeting of the stockmen was held in Medora on the day appointed, and it is notable that it was Roosevelt who called it to order and whodirected its deliberations. He was one of the youngest of the dozenstockmen present, and in the ways of cattle no doubt one of the leastexperienced. Most of the men he greeted that day had probably beendiscussing the problems he was undertaking to solve long before hehimself had ever heard of the Bad Lands. It was Roosevelt'sdistinction that having observed the problems he determined to solvethem, and having made this determination he sought a solution in theprinciples and methods of democratic government. The stockmen hadconfidence in him. He was direct, he was fearless; he was a goodtalker, sure of his ground, and, in the language of the Bad Lands, "hedidn't take backwater from any one. " He was self-reliant and he mindedhis own business; he was honest and he had no axe to grind. Theranchmen no doubt felt that in view of these qualities you mightforget a man's youth and forgive his spectacles. They evidently didboth, for, after adopting a resolution that it was the sense of themeeting "that an Association of the Stockmen along the Little Missouriand its tributaries be forthwith formed, " they promptly electedTheodore Roosevelt chairman of it. 

Lurid tales have been told of what went on at that meeting. There is adramatic story of Joe Morrill's sudden appearance, backed by a scoreof ruffians; of defiance and counter-defiance; of revolvers and "bloodon the moonlight"; and of a corrupt deputy marshal cowering with ashenface before the awful denunciations of a bespectacled "tenderfoot";but unhappily, the authenticity of the story is dubious. The meeting, so far as the cold eye of the historian can discern, was dramatic onlyin its implications and no more exciting than a sewing-circle. TheMarquis de Mores was present; so also was Gregor Lang, his mostmerciless critic; but whatever drama was inherent in that situationremained beneath the surface. By-laws were adopted, the Marquis wasappointed "as a Committee of One to work with the committee appointedby the Eastern Montana Live Stock Association in the endeavor toprocure legislation from the Territorial Legislature of Dakotafavorable to the interests of the cattlemen"; and the meeting wasover. It was all most amiable and commonplace. There was no oratoryand no defiance of anybody. What had been accomplished, however, wasthat, in the absence of organized government, the conservativeelements in the county had formed an offensive and defensive leaguefor mutual protection, as the by-laws ran, "against frauds andswindlers, and to prevent the stealing, taking, and driving away ofhorned cattle, sheep, horses, and other stock from the rightful ownersthereof. "

It meant the beginning of the end of lawlessness in the Bad Lands. 

XIV

 I'll never come North again. My home is the sunny South, Where it's never mo' than forty below An' the beans don't freeze in your mouth; An' the snow ain't like white smoke, An' the ground ain't like white iron; An' the wind don't stray from Baffin's Bay To join you on retirin'. 

 From _Medora Nights_

Roosevelt arrived in New York a day or two before Christmas with thetrophies of his hunt about him and his hunting costume in his "grip. "He settled down at his sister's house, at 422 Madison Avenue, wherehis little girl Alice was living, and, with his characteristic energyin utilizing every experience to the full, promptly began work on aseries of hunting sketches which should combine the thrill ofadventure with the precise observation of scientific natural history. It is worth noting that, in order to provide a frontispiece for hiswork, he solemnly dressed himself up in the buckskin shirt and therest of the elaborate costume he had described with such obviousdelight to his sister; and had himself photographed. There issomething hilariously funny in the visible records of thatperformance. The imitation grass, not quite concealing the rugbeneath, the painted background, the theatrical (slightly patched)rocks against which the cowboy leans gazing dreamily across animaginary prairie, the pose of the hunter with rifle ready and fingeron the trigger, grimly facing dangerous game which is not there--allreveal a boyish delight in play-acting. For once his sense of humorwas in abeyance, but posterity is the richer for this glimpse of thesolemn boy in the heart of a powerful man. 

[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt (1884). ]

Winter closed over the Bad Lands, bringing Arctic hardships. Even BillSewall, who had been born and bred in the Maine woods, declared thathe had never known such cold. There was a theory, fostered by the realestate agents, that you did not feel the cold which the thermometerregistered; and the Marquis, who never missed an opportunity to "boom"his new town in the newspapers, insisted stoutly not only that hehabitually "walked and rode about comfortably without an overcoat";but also that he "felt the cold much more severely in New York, and inWashington even. " Other landowners maintained the same delusion, andit was considered almost treason to speak of the tragedies of thecold. The fact remained, however, that a snowfall, which elsewheremight scarcely make good sleighing, in the Bad Lands became a foe tohuman life of inconceivable fury. For with it generally came a wind sofierce that the stoutest wayfarer could make no progress against it. The small, dry flakes, driven vertically before it, cut the flesh likea razor, blinding the vision and stifling the breath and shutting outthe world with an impenetrable icy curtain. A half-hour after thestorm had broken, the traveler, lost in it, might wonder whether therewere one foot of snow or five, and whether the greater part of itwere on the ground or whirling about him in the air. With the snowcame extreme cold that pierced the thickest garments. 

The horses, running free on the range, seemed to feel the coldcomparatively little, eating the snow for water, and pawing through itto the stem-cured prairie-grass for food. But the cattle sufferedintensely, especially the Southern stock which had not yet learnt thatthey must eat their way through the snow to the sustenance beneath. They stood huddled together at every wind-break, and in the firstbiting storm of the new year even sought the shelter of the towns, taking possession of the streets. The cows, curiously enough, seemedto bear the hardship better than the bulls. The male, left to his ownresources, had a tendency to "give up" and creep into the brush anddie, while the females, reduced to skin and bones, struggled on, gnawing at the frozen stumps of sagebrush, battling to the last. 

Western newspapers, "booming" the cattle business, insisted that everyblizzard was followed by a warm wind known as a "chinook" whichbrought a prompt return of comfort and sleekness to the most unhappysteer; but wise men knew better. For the cattle, seeking a livelihoodon the snowy, wind-swept wastes, the winter was one long-protractedmisery. 

It was in fact not an unalloyed delight for human beings, especiallyfor those whose business it was to guard the cattle. The hardest andthe bitterest work was what was called "line riding. " The ranchmencared little if their cattle grazed westward toward the Yellowstone;it was a different matter, however, if they drifted east and southeastto the granger country and the Sioux Reservation, where there wereflat, bare plains which offered neither food nor shelter, and wherethieves were many and difficult to apprehend. Along the line where thebroken ground of the Bad Lands met the prairie east of the LittleMissouri, the ranchmen, therefore, established a series of camps, fromeach of which two cowboys, starting in opposite directions, patrolledthe invisible line halfway to the adjoining camps. 

Bill Sewall gazed out over the bleak country with a homesick andapprehensive heart. 

 As for our coming back [he wrote his brother in January], you need not worry about that. As soon as I serve out my time and my sentence expires I shall return. Am having a good time and enjoy myself, should anywhere if I knew I could not do any better and was obliged to, but this is just about like being transported to Siberia, just about as cold, barren and desolate and most as far out of the way. It was hotter here last summer than it ever was at home and it has been colder here this winter than it ever was at home, 50 and 65 below all one week. Don't see how the cattle live at all and there is lots of them dieing. You can find them all around where they lay nights in the bushes. The poor ones will all go, I guess. They say they will die worse in the spring. The fat strong ones will get through, I guess. Don't know that any of our hundred have died yet, but I don't believe this is a good country to raise cattle in. 

 Am afraid Theodore will not make so much as he has been led to think he would. There are lots of bleeders here, but we mean to fend them off from him as well as we can. 

Roosevelt spent the coldest months in New York, working steadily onhis new book which was to be called "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. " Onthe 8th of March he wrote Lodge, "I have just sent my last roll ofmanuscript to the printers"; adding, "in a fortnight I shall go outWest. " But he postponed his departure, held possibly by the lure ofthe hunting-field; for on the 29th he rode with the Meadowbrook houndsand was "in at the death. " It was presumably in the first days ofApril that he arrived at Medora. If tradition may be trusted, he camein all the glory of what were known as "store clothes. " The Pittsburgh_Despatch_, which sent out a reporter to the train to interview him ashe passed through that city, westward-bound, refers to "the highexpanse of white linen which enclosed his neck to the ears, " whichsounds like a slight exaggeration. Tradition does insist, however, that he wore a derby hat when he arrived, which was considered highlyventuresome. Derby hats as a rule were knocked off on sight and thenbombarded with six-shooters beyond recognition. Roosevelt informed hisfellow citizens early in his career as a cowpuncher that he intendedto wear any hat he pleased. Evidently it was deemed expedient tosuspend the rule in his case, for he was not molested. 

After a brief sojourn at the Maltese Cross, Roosevelt made his waynorth to Elkhorn Ranch. The house was nearing completion. It was aone-story log structure, with a covered porch on the side facing theriver; a spacious house of many rooms divided by a corridor runningstraight through from north to south. Roosevelt's bedroom, on thesoutheast corner, adjoined a large room containing a fireplace, whichwas to be Roosevelt's study by day and the general living-room bynight. The fireplace, which had been built by an itinerant Swedishmason whom Sewall looked upon with disapproval as a dollar-chaser, hadbeen designed under the influence of a Dakota winter and was enormous. Will Dow, who was somewhat of a blacksmith, had made a pair ofandirons out of a steel rail, which he had discovered floating downthe river loosely attached to a beam of yellow pine. [10]

 [Footnote 10: The andirons are still doing service at the ranch of Howard Eaton and his brothers in Wolf, Wyoming. ]

The cattle, Roosevelt found, were looking well. "Bill, " he said toSewall, remembering the backwoodsman's pessimism, "you were mistakenabout those cows. Cows and calves are all looking fine. "

But Sewall was not to be convinced. "You wait until next spring, " heanswered, "and see how they look. "

Roosevelt was himself physically in rather bad shape, suffering fromthat affliction which has, by common consent, been deemed of all ofJob's troubles the one hardest to bear with equanimity. DouglasRobinson wrote Sewall telling him that Theodore's sisters were worriedabout him and asking him for news of Roosevelt's health. Rooseveltheard of the request and was indignant, "flaring up, " as Sewalldescribed it. 

"They had no business to write to you, " he exclaimed. "They shouldhave written to me. "

"I guess, " remarked Sewall quietly, "they knew you wouldn't writeabout how you were getting on. You'd just say you were all right. "

Roosevelt fumed and said no more about it. But the crisp air of theBad Lands gradually put all questions of his health out of mind. Allday long he lived in the open. He was not an enthusiast over thehammer or the axe, and, while Sewall and Dow were completing the houseand building the corrals and the stables a hundred yards or morewestward, he renewed his acquaintance with the bizarre but fascinatingcountry. The horses which the men from Maine had missed the previousautumn, and which Roosevelt had feared had been stolen, had beenreported "running wild" forty or fifty miles to the west. Sewall andDow had made one or two trips after them without success, for theanimals had come to enjoy their liberty and proved elusive. Rooseveltdetermined to find them and bring them back. He went on three solitaryexpeditions, but they proved barren of result. Incidentally, however, they furnished him experiences which were worth many horses. 

On one of these expeditions night overtook him not far fromMingusville. That hot little community, under the inspiration of aFrenchman named Pierre Wibaux, was rapidly becoming an importantcattle center. As a shipping point it had, by the close of 1884, already attained notable proportions on the freight records of theNorthern Pacific. Medora, in all its glory, could not compete with it, for the cattle trails through the Bad Lands were difficult, and spacewas lacking on the small bottoms near the railroad to hold herds ofany size preparatory to shipping. About Mingusville all creationstretched undulating to the hazy horizon. The great southern cattlecompanies which had recently established themselves on the northernrange, Simpson's "Hash-Knife" brand, Towers and Gudgell's O. X. Ranch, and the Berry, Boyce Company's "Three-Seven outfit, " all drove theircattle along the Beaver to Mingusville, and even Merrifield andSylvane preferred shipping their stock from there to driving it to themore accessible, but also more congested, yards at Medora. 

Civilization had not kept pace with commerce in the development of theprairie "town. " It was a lurid little place. Medora, in comparison toit, might have appeared almost sober and New-Englandish. It had no"steady" residents save a half-dozen railroad employees, the landlordof the terrible hotel south of the tracks, where Roosevelt had had hisencounter with the drunken bully, and a certain Mrs. Nolan and herdaughters, who kept an eminently respectable boarding-house on theopposite side of the railroad; but its "floating population" waslarge. Every herd driven into the shipping-yards from one of the greatranches in the upper Little Missouri country brought with it a dozenor more parched cowboys hungering and thirsting for excitement as nosaint ever hungered and thirsted for righteousness; and celebrationshad a way of lasting for days. The men were Texans, most of them, extraordinary riders, born to the saddle, but reckless, given to heavydrinking, and utterly wild and irresponsible when drunk. It was theirparticular delight to make life hideous for the station agent and thetelegraph operator. For some weeks Mingusville, it was said, had a newtelegraph operator every night. About ten o'clock the cowboys, celebrating at the "hotel, " would drift over to the board shack whichwas the railroad station, and "shoot it full of holes. " They had noparticular reason for doing this; they had no grudge against eitherthe railroad or the particular operator who happened to be in charge. They were children, and it was fun to hear the bullets pop, andexcruciating fun to see the operator run out of the shack with a yelland go scampering off into the darkness. One operator entered intonegotiations with the enemy. Recognizing their perfect right to shootup the station if they wanted to, he merely stipulated that they allowhim to send off the night's dispatches before they began. This requestseemed to the cowboys altogether reasonable. They waited until theoperator said that his work was done. Then, as he faded away in thedarkness, the night's bombardment began. 

Into this tempestuous little "town, " Roosevelt rode one day as nightwas falling. No doubt because Mrs. Nolan's beds were filled, he wasforced to take a room at the nefarious hotel where he had chastisedthe bully a year previous. Possibly to prevent the recurrence of thatexperience, he retired early to the small room with one bed which hadbeen assigned him and sat until late reading the book he had broughtalong in his saddle-pocket. 

The house was quiet and every one was asleep, when a cowboy arrivedfrom God knows whence, yelling and shooting as he came gallopingthrough the darkness. He was evidently very drunk. He thumped loudlyon the door, and after some delay the host opened it. The strangershowed no appreciation; on the contrary, he seized the hotel-keeper, half in play, it seemed, and half in enmity, jammed the mouth of hissix-shooter against his stomach and began to dance about the room withhim. 

In the room above, Roosevelt heard the host's agonized appeals. "Jim, don't! Don't, Jim! It'll go off! Jim, it'll go off!"

Jim's response was not reassuring. "Yes, damn you, it'll go off! I'lllearn you! Who in hell cares if it does go off! Oh, I'll learn you!"

But the gun, after all, did not go off. The cowboy subsided, thenburst into vociferous demands for a bed. A minute later Rooseveltheard steps in the hall, followed by a knock at his door. Rooseveltopened it. 

"I'm sorry, " said the host, "but there's a man I'll have to put inwith you for the night. "

"You're not as sorry as I am, " Roosevelt answered coolly, "and I'm notgoing to have him come in here. "

The host was full of apologies. "He's drunk and he's on the shoot, " hesaid unhappily, "and he's got to come in. "

This appeal was not of a character to weaken Roosevelt's resolution. "I'm going to lock my door, " he remarked firmly, "and put out mylight. And I'll shoot anybody who tries to break in. "

The host departed. Roosevelt never knew where the unwelcome guest waslodged that night; but he himself was left undisturbed. 

On another occasion that spring, when Roosevelt was out on the prairiehunting the lost horses, he was overtaken by darkness. Mingusville wasthe only place within thirty miles or more that offered a chance of anight's lodging, and he again rode there, knocking at the door of Mrs. Nolan's boarding-house late in the evening. Mrs. Nolan, who greetedhim, was a tough, wiry Irishwoman of the type of Mrs. Maddox, with afighting jaw and a look in her eye that had been known to be as potentas a "six-shooter" in clearing a room of undesirable occupants. Shedisciplined her husband (who evidently needed it) and brought up herdaughters with a calm good sense that won them and her the respect ofthe roughest of the cowpunchers who came under her roof. 

Roosevelt, having stabled his horse in an empty out-building, askedfor a bed. Mrs. Nolan answered that he could have the last one thatwas left, since there was only one other man in it. 

He accepted the dubious privilege and was shown to a room containingtwo double beds. One contained two men fast asleep, the other only oneman, also asleep. He recognized his bedfellow. It was "Three-Seven"Bill Jones, an excellent cowman belonging to the "Three-Seven outfit"who had recently acquired fame by playfully holding up the OverlandExpress in order to make the conductor dance. He put his trousers, boots, shaps, and gun down beside the bed, and turned in. 

He was awakened an hour or two later by a crash as the door was rudelyflung open. A lantern was flashed in his face, and, as he came to fullconsciousness, he found himself, in the light of a dingy lantern, staring into the mouth of a "six-shooter. "

Another man said to the lantern-bearer, "It ain't him. " The nextmoment his bedfellow was "covered" with two "guns. " "Now, Bill, " saida gruff voice, "don't make a fuss, but come along quiet. "

"All right, don't sweat yourself, " responded Bill. "I'm not thinkingof making a fuss. "

"That's right, " was the answer, "we're your friends. We don't want tohurt you; we just want you to come along. You know why. "

Bill pulled on his trousers and boots and walked out with them. 

All the while there had been no sound from the other bed. Now a matchwas scratched and a candle was lit, and one of the men looked roundthe room. 

"I wonder why they took Bill, " Roosevelt remarked. 

There was no answer, and Roosevelt, not knowing that there was what helater termed an "alkali etiquette in such matters, " repeated thequestion. "I wonder why they took Bill. "

"Well, " said the man with the candle, dryly, "I reckon they wantedhim, " and blew out the candle. That night there was no moreconversation; but Roosevelt's education had again been extended. 

XV

 When did we long for the sheltered gloom Of the older game with its cautious odds? Gloried we always in sun and room, Spending our strength like the younger gods. By the wild, sweet ardor that ran in us, By the pain that tested the man in us, By the shadowy springs and the glaring sand, You were our true-love, young, young land. 

 Badger CLARK

Spring came to the Bad Lands in fits and numerous false starts, firstthe "chinook, " uncovering the butte-tops between dawn and dusk, thenthe rushing of many waters, the flooding of low bottom-lands, theagony of a world of gumbo, and, after a dozen boreal setbacks, theawakening of green things and the return of a temperature fit forhuman beings to live in. Snow buntings came in March, flockingfamiliarly round the cow-shed at the Maltese Cross, now chittering onthe ridge-pole, now hovering in the air with quivering wings, warblingtheir loud, merry song. Before the snow was off the ground, the grousecocks could be heard uttering their hollow booming. At the break ofmorning, their deep, resonant calls came from far and near through theclear air like the vibrant sound of some wind instrument. Now andagain, at dawn or in the early evening, Roosevelt would stop andlisten for many minutes to the weird, strange music, or steal upon thecocks where they were gathered holding their dancing rings, and watchthem posturing and strutting about as they paced through their minuet. 

The opening of the ground--and it was occasionally not unlike theopening of a trap-door--brought work in plenty to Roosevelt and hisfriends at the Maltese Cross. The glades about the water-holes wherethe cattle congregated became bogs that seemed to have no bottom. Cattle sank in them and perished unless a saving rope was thrown intime about their horns and a gasping pony pulled them clear. Theponies themselves became mired and had to be rescued. It was a periodof wallowing for everything on four feet or on two. The mud stuck likeplaster. [11]

 [Footnote 11: "I never was bothered by gumbo in the Bad Lands. There wasn't a sufficient proportion of clay in the soil. But out on the prairie, oh, my martyred Aunt Jane's black and white striped cat!"--_A. T. Packard. _]

Travel of every sort was hazardous during early spring, for no oneever knew when the ground would open and engulf him. Ten thousandwash-outs, a dozen feet deep or thirty, ran "bank-high" with swirling, merciless waters, and the Little Missouri, which was a shallow tricklein August, was a torrent in April. There were no bridges. If youwanted to get to the other side, you swam your horse across, hopingfor the best. 

At Medora it was customary, when the Little Missouri was high, to rideto the western side on the narrow footpath between the tracks on thetrestle; and after the Marquis built a dam nearby for the purpose ofsecuring ice of the necessary thickness for use in his refrigeratingplant, a venturesome spirit now and then guided his horse across itsslippery surface. It happened one day early in April that Fisher wasat the river's edge, with a number of men, collecting certain toolsand lumber which had been used in the cutting and hauling of the ice, when Roosevelt, riding Manitou, drew up, with the evident intention ofmaking his way over the river on the dam. The dam, however, haddisappeared. The ice had broken up, far up the river, and large cakeswere floating past, accumulating at the bend below the town andraising the water level well above the top of the Marquis's dam. Theriver was what Joe Ferris had a way of calling "swimmin' deep for agiraffe. "

"Where does the dam start?" asked Roosevelt. 

"You surely won't try to cross on the dam, " exclaimed Fisher, "whenyou can go and cross on the trestle the way the others do?"

"If Manitou gets his feet on that dam, " Roosevelt replied, "he'll keepthem there and we can make it finely. "

"Well, it's more than likely, " said Fisher, "that there's not much ofthe dam left. "

"It doesn't matter, anyway. Manitou's a good swimmer and we're goingacross. "

Fisher, with grave misgivings, indicated where the dam began. Roosevelt turned his horse into the river; Manitou did not hesitate. 

Fisher shouted, hoping to attract the attention of some cowboy on thefarther bank who might stand ready with a rope to rescue theventuresome rider. There was no response. 

On the steps of the store, however, which he had inherited from theunstable Johnny Nelson, Joe Ferris was watching the amazingperformance. He saw a rider coming from the direction of the MalteseCross, and it seemed to him that the rider looked like Roosevelt. Anxiously he watched him pick his way out on the submerged dam. 

Manitou, meanwhile, was living up to his reputation. Fearlessly, yetwith infinite caution, he kept his course along the unseen path. Suddenly the watchers on the east bank and the west saw horse andrider disappear, swallowed up by the brown waters. An instant laterthey came in sight again. Roosevelt flung himself from his horse "onthe downstream side, " and with one hand on the horn of the saddlefended off the larger blocks of ice from before his faithful horse. 

Fisher said to himself that if Manitou drifted even a little with thestream, Roosevelt would never get ashore. The next landing was a miledown the river, and that might be blocked by the ice. 

The horse struck bottom at the extreme lower edge of the ford andstruggled up the bank. Roosevelt had not even lost his glasses. Helaughed and waved his hand to Fisher, mounted and rode to Joe's store. Having just risked his life in the wildest sort of adventure, it wasentirely characteristic of him that he should exercise the caution ofputting on a pair of dry socks. 

Joe received him with mingled devotion and amazement. "Landsake, man!"he cried, "weren't you afraid?"

"I was riding Manitou, " Roosevelt responded quietly. "Just, " exclaimedJoe later, "as though Manitou was a steam engine. " He bought a newpair of socks, put them on, and proceeded on his journey. 

Fisher saw him shortly after and accused him of being reckless. 

"I suppose it might be considered reckless, " Roosevelt admitted. "Butit was lots of fun. "

Roosevelt spent his time alternately at the two ranches, writingsomewhat and correcting the proofs of his new book, but spending mostof his time in the saddle. The headquarters of his cattle business wasat the Maltese Cross where Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield were incommand. Elkhorn was, for the time being, merely a refuge and ahunting-lodge where Sewall and Dow "ran" a few hundred cattle underthe general direction of the more experienced men of the other"outfit. "

 * * * * *

[Illustration: Elkhorn ranch buildings from the river. Photograph byTheodore Roosevelt. ]

At the Maltese Cross there were now a half-dozen hands, Sylvane and"our friend with the beaver-slide, " as Merrifield, who was bald, wasknown; George Myers, warm-hearted and honest as the day; Jack Reuter, known as "Wannigan, " with his stupendous memory and his Teutonicappetite; and at intervals "old man" Thompson who was a teamster, anda huge being named Hank Bennett. Roosevelt liked them allimmensely. They possessed to an extraordinary degree the qualities ofmanhood which he deemed fundamental, --courage, integrity, hardiness, self-reliance, --combining with those qualities a warmth, a humor, anda humanness that opened his understanding to many things. He had comein contact before with men whose opportunities in life had been lessthan his, and who in the eyes of the world belonged to that great massof "common people" of whom Lincoln said that "the Lord surely lovedthem since he made so many of them. " But he had never lived with them, day in, day out, slept with them, eaten out of the same dish withthem. The men of the cattle country, he found, as daily companions, wore well. 

They called him "Mr. Roosevelt, " not "Theodore" nor "Teddy. " For, though he was comrade and friend to all, he was also the "boss, " andthey showed him the respect his position and his instinctiveleadership merited. More than once a man who attempted to be undulyfamiliar with Roosevelt found himself swiftly and effectivelysquelched. He himself entered with enthusiasm into the work ofadministration. He regarded the ranch as a most promising businessventure, and felt assured that, with ordinary luck, he should make hislivelihood from it. On every side he received support for thisassurance. The oldest cattleman as well as the youngest joined in thechorus that there never had been such a country for turning cattleinto dollars. In the Territorial Governor's Report for 1885, Packardis quoted, waxing lyric about it:

 Bunch and buffalo-grass cover almost every inch of the ground. The raw sides of buttes are the only places where splendid grazing cannot be found. On many of the buttes, however, the grass grows clear to the summit, the slopes being the favorite pasture-lands of the cattle. Generally no hay need be cut, as the grass cures standing, and keeps the cattle in as good condition all winter as if they were stall-fed. The only reason for putting up hay is to avoid a scarcity of feed in case of heavy snow. This very seldom happens, however, as very little snow falls in the Bad Lands. A curious fact with cattle is that the ones that have been here a year or two, and know how to rustle, will turn away from a stack of hay, paw away the snow from the grass, and feed on that exclusively. Even in the dead of winter a meadow has a very perceptible tinge of green. 

A realist might have remarked that very little snow fell in the BadLands mainly because the wind would not let it. The _Cowboy_ editor'sexultant optimism has an aspect of terrible irony in the light of thetragedy that was even then building itself out of the over-confidenceof a hundred enthusiasts. 

Bill Sewall and Will Dow alone remained skeptical. 

 Perhaps we are wrong [Sewall wrote his brother], but we think it is too cold and barren for a good cattle country. Nobody has made anything at it yet. _All expect to. _ Guess it's very much like going into the woods in fall. All are happy, _but the drive is not in yet_. When it does get in, am afraid there will be a shortness somewhere. The men that furnish the money are not many of them here themselves and the fellows that run the business and are supposed to know, all look for a very prosperous future, consider the troubles and discouragements, losses, etc. , _temporary_. They are like us--_getting good and sure pay_. 

Roosevelt recognized the possibility of great losses; but he wouldhave been less than human if in that youthful atmosphere of gorgeousexpectation he had not seen the possibilities of failure less vividlythan the possibilities of success. Sylvane and Merrifield wereconfident that they were about to make their everlasting fortunes;George Myers invested every cent of his savings in cattle, "throwingthem in, " as the phrase went, with the herd of the Maltese Cross. Intheir first year the Maltese Cross "outfit" had branded well over ahundred calves; the losses, in what had been a severe winter, had beenslight. It was a season of bright hopes. Late in April, Roosevelt sentMerrifield to Minnesota with Sewall and Dow and a check for twelvethousand five hundred dollars to purchase as many more head of stockas the money would buy. 

Roosevelt, meanwhile, was proving himself as capable as a ranchman ashe was courageous as an investor. The men who worked with him notedwith satisfaction that he learned quickly and worked hard; that he wasnaturally progressive; that he cared little for money, and yet wasthrifty; that, although conferring in all matters affecting the stockwith Sylvane and Merrifield, and deferring to their experience even attimes against his own judgment, he was very much the leader. He wasnever "bossy, " they noted, but he was insistent on discipline, onregularity of habits, on prompt obedience, on absolute integrity. 

He was riding over the range one day with one of his ablestcowpunchers, when they came upon a "maverick, " a two-year-old steer, which had never been branded. They lassoed him promptly and built afire to heat the branding-irons. 

It was the rule of the cattlemen that a "maverick" belonged to theranchman on whose range it was found. This particular steer, therefore, belonged, not to Roosevelt, but to Gregor Lang, who"claimed" the land over which Roosevelt and his cowboy were riding. The Texan started to apply the red-hot iron. 

"It is Lang's brand--a thistle, " said Roosevelt. 

"That's all right, boss, " answered the cowboy. "I know my business. "

"Hold on!" Roosevelt exclaimed an instant later, "you are putting onmy brand. "

"That's all right. I always put on the boss's brand. "

"Drop that iron, " said Roosevelt quietly, "and go to the ranch and getyour time. I don't need you any longer. "

The cowpuncher was amazed. "Say, what have I done? Didn't I put onyour brand?"

"A man who will steal _for_ me will steal _from_ me. You're fired. "

The man rode away. A day or so later the story was all over the BadLands. 

Roosevelt was scarcely more tolerant of ineffectiveness than he was ofdishonesty. When a man was sent to do a piece of work, he was expectedto do it promptly and thoroughly. He brooked no slack work and he hadno ear for what were known as "hard-luck stories. " He gave his orders, knowing why he gave them; and expected results. If, on the other hand, a man "did his turn" without complaint or default, Roosevelt showedhimself eager and prompt to reward him. 

His companions saw these things, and other things. They saw that "theboss" was quick-tempered and impatient of restraint; but they saw alsothat in times of stress the hot-headed boy seemed instantly to growinto a cautious and level-headed man, dependable in hardship and coolin the face of danger. He was, as one of them put it, "courageouswithout recklessness, firm without being stubborn, resolute withoutbeing obstinate. There was no element of the spectacular in hismake-up, but an honest naturalness that won him friends instantly. "

"Roosevelt out in Dakota was full of life and spirit, alwayspleasant, " said Bill Sewall in after years. "He was hot-tempered andquick, but he kept his temper in good control. As a rule, when he hadanything to say, he'd spit it out. His temper would show itself in thefirst flash in some exclamation. In connection with Roosevelt I alwaysthink of that verse in the Bible, 'He that ruleth his spirit isgreater than he that taketh a city. '"

"He struck me like a sort of rough-an'-ready, all-aroundfrontiersman, " said "Dutch Wannigan. " "Wasn't a bit stuck up--just thesame as one of the rest of us. "

Joe Ferris, who frankly adored Roosevelt, declared to a crowd at hisstore one day, "I wouldn't be surprised if Roosevelt would bePresident. "

His hearers scoffed at him. "That fool Joe Ferris, " remarked one ofthem at his own ranch that night, "says that Roosevelt will bePresident some day. "

But Joe held his ground. [12]

 [Footnote 12: Joe Ferris was made aware of this scornful reference to his judgment through a cowboy, Carl Hollenberg, who overheard it, and sixteen years later came into Joe's store one September day shouting, "That fool, Joe Ferris, says that Roosevelt will be President some day!" The point was that Roosevelt had that week succeeded McKinley in the White House. ]

The neighbors up and down the river were warm-hearted and friendly. Mrs. Roberts had decided that she wanted a home of her own, and hadpersuaded her husband to build her a cabin some three miles north ofthe Maltese Cross, where a long green slope met a huge semi-circle ofgray buttes. The cabin was primitive, being built of logs stuck, stockade-fashion, in the ground, and the roof was only dirt until Mrs. Roberts planted sunflowers there and made it a garden; but for Mrs. Roberts, with her flock of babies, it was "home, " and for many acowboy, passing the time of day with the genial Irishwoman, it was thenearest approach to "home" that he knew from one year's end toanother. 

Shortly after Mrs. Roberts had moved to her new house, Roosevelt andMerrifield paid her a call. Mrs. Roberts, who had the only milch cowin the Bad Lands, had been churning, and offered Roosevelt a glass ofbuttermilk. He drank it with an appreciation worthy of a rareoccasion. But as he rode off again, he turned to Merrifield with histeeth set. 

"Heavens, Merrifield!" he exclaimed, "don't you ever do that again!"

Merrifield was amazed. "Do what?"

"Put me in a position where I have to drink buttermilk. I loathe thestuff!"

"But why did you drink it?"

"She brought it out!" he exclaimed, "And it would have hurt herfeelings if I hadn't. But look out! I don't want to have to do itagain!"

Mrs. Roberts spared him thenceforward, and there was nothing, therefore, to spoil for Roosevelt the merriment of the Irishwoman'stalk and the stimulus of her determination and courage. There werefrequent occasions consequently when "the boys from the Maltese Cross"foregathered in the Roberts cabin, and other occasions, notablySundays (when Sylvane and Merrifield and George Myers had picked uppartners in Medora) when they all called for "Lady Roberts" aschaperon and rode up the valley together. They used to take peculiardelight in descending upon Mrs. Cummins and making her miserable. 

It was not difficult to make that poor lady unhappy. She had a fixednotion of what life should be for people who were "nice" and"refined, " and her days were a succession of regrets at theshortcomings of her neighbors. She was in many ways an admirablewoman, but she seemed incapable of extending the conception ofgentility which a little Pennsylvania town had given her, and shenever caught a gleam of the real meaning of the life of which she wasa part. She wanted everything in the Bad Lands exactly as she had hadit at home. "Well, " as Mrs. Roberts subsequently remarked, "she hadone time of it, I'm telling you, in those old rough days. "

Mrs. Cummins was not the only neighbor who furnished amusement duringthose spring days of 1885 to the boys at the Maltese Cross. TheEatons' "dude ranch" had developed in a totally unexpected direction. From being a headquarters for Easterners who wanted to hunt in a wildcountry, it had become a kind of refuge to which wealthy anddistracted parents sent such of their offspring as were over-addictedto strong drink. Why any parent should send a son to the Bad Landswith the idea of putting him out of reach of temptation is beyondcomprehension. The Eatons did their part nobly and withheldintoxicating drinks from their guests, but Bill Williams and the dozenor more other saloon-keepers in Medora were under no compulsion tofollow their example. The "dudes" regularly came "back from town" withall they could carry without and within; and the cowboys round aboutswore solemnly that you couldn't put your hand in the crotch of anytree within a hundred yards of the Eatons' ranch-house without comingupon a bottle concealed by a dude being cured of "the drink. "

The neighbors who were most remote from Roosevelt in point of spacecontinued to be closest in point of intimacy. The Langs were now wellestablished and Roosevelt missed no opportunity to visit with them foran hour or a day, thinking nothing apparently of the eighty-mile ridethere and back in comparison with the prospect of an evening in goodcompany. The Langs were, in fact, excellent company. They knew booksand they knew also the graces of cultivated society. To visit withthem was to live for an hour or two in the quietude of an Old Worldhome, with all the Old World's refinements and the added tang ofbizarre surroundings; and even to one who was exuberantly glad to be acowboy, this had its moments of comfort after weeks of the roughfrontier existence. Cultivated Englishmen were constantly appearing atthe Langs', sent over by their fathers, for reasons sometimesmysterious, to stay for a week or a year. Some of them proved very badcowboys, but all of them were delightful conversationalists. Theirefforts to enter into the life of the Bad Lands were not alwayssuccessful, and Hell-Roaring Bill Jones on one notable occasion, whenthe son of a Scotch baronet undertook to criticize him for misconduct, expressed his opinion of the scions of British aristocracy thatdrifted into Medora, in terms that hovered and poised and struck likebirds of prey. Lincoln Lang, who was present, described Bill Jones'sdiscourse as "outside the pale of the worst I have ever heard utteredby human mouth, " which meant something in that particular place. ButBill Jones was an Irishman, and he was not naturally tolerant ofidiosyncrasies of speech and manner. Roosevelt, on the whole, likedthe "younger sons, " and they in turn regarded him with a kind of awe. He was of their own class, and yet there was something in him whichstretched beyond the barriers which confined them, into regions wherethey were lost and bewildered, but he was completely at home. 

They all had delightful evenings together at Yule, with charades andpunning contests, and music on the piano which Lincoln Lang hadbrought out through the gumbo against all the protests of nature. Mrs. Lang was an admirable cook and a liberal and hospitable hostess, whichwas an added reason for riding eighty miles. 

To the Scotch family, exiled far up the Little Missouri, Roosevelt'svisits were notable events. "We enjoyed having him, " said Lincoln Langlong afterward, "more than anything else in the world. "

[Illustration: Mrs. Lang. ]

[Illustration: Gregor Lang. ]

To Gregor Lang, Roosevelt's visits brought an opportunity for anargument with an opponent worthy of his steel. The Scotchman's alertintelligence pined sometimes, in those intellectually desolatewastes, for exercise in the keen give-and-take of debate. The averagecowboy was not noted for his conversational powers, and Gregor Langclutched avidly at every possibility of talk. It was said of him thathe loved a good argument so much that it did not always make muchdifference to him which side of the argument he took. On one occasionhe was spending the night at the Eatons', when the father of the four"Eaton boys" was visiting his sons. "Old man" Eaton was a Republican;Lang was a Democrat. They began arguing at supper, and they argued allnight long. To Eaton, his Republicanism was a religion (as it was tomany in those middle eighties), and he wrestled with the error inLang's soul as a saint wrestles with a devil. As the day dawned, Gregor Lang gave an exclamation of satisfaction. "It's been a finetalk we've had, Mistur-r Eaton, " he cried. "Now suppose you tak' myside and I tak' yours?" What Eaton said thereupon has not beenrecorded; but Gregor Lang went home happy. 

With all his love for forensics as such, Lang had solid convictions. They were a Democrat's, and in consequence many of them were notRoosevelt's. Roosevelt attacked them with energy and Lang defendedthem with skill. Roosevelt, who loved rocking-chairs, had a way ofrocking all over the room in his excitement. The debates were long, but always friendly; and neither party ever admitted defeat. The bestthat Gregor Lang would say was, "Well, Mr. Roosevelt, when you ar-rePr-resident of the United States, you may r-run the gover-rnment theway you mind to. " He did admit in the bosom of his family, however, that Roosevelt made "the best ar-rgument for the other side" he hadever heard. 

Lang's love of an argument, which to unfriendly ears might havesounded like contentiousness, did not serve to make the excellentScotchman popular with his neighbors. He had a habit, moreover, ofsaying exactly what he thought, regardless of whom he might hit. Hewas not politic at all. He had, in fact, come to America and to Dakotatoo late in life altogether to adapt a mind, steeped in the mannersand customs of the Old World, to the new conditions of a country inalmost every way alien to his own. He was dogmatic in his theories ofpopular government and a little stubborn in his conviction that therewas nothing which the uneducated range-rider of the Bad Lands couldteach a thinking man like him. But his courage was fine. Against theprotests of his Southern neighbors, he insisted on treating a negrocowboy in his outfit as on complete equality with his white employees;and bore the storm of criticism with equanimity. Such a spirit wasbound to appeal to Roosevelt. 

At the Maltese Cross there was a steady stream of callers. One ofthem, a hawk-eyed, hawk-nosed cowpuncher named "Nitch" Kendley, whowas one of the first settlers in the region, arrived one day whenRoosevelt was alone. 

"Come on in, " said Roosevelt, "and we'll have some dinner. I can'tbake biscuits, but I can cook meat. If you can make the biscuits, goahead, and I will see what I can do for the rest of the dinner. "

So "Nitch" made the biscuits and put them in the oven, and Rooseveltcut what was left of a saddle of venison and put it in a pan to fry. Then the two cooks went outdoors, for the cabin was small, and theweather was hot. 

Roosevelt began to talk, whereupon "Nitch, " who had ideas of his own, began to talk also with a fluency which was not customary, for he wasnaturally a taciturn man. They both forgot the dinner. "Nitch" neverknew how long they talked. 

They were brought back to the world of facts by a smell of burning. The cabin was filled with smoke, and "you could not, " as "Nitch"subsequently remarked, "have told your wife from your mother-in-lawthree feet away. " On investigation it proved that "Nitch's" biscuitsand Roosevelt's meat were burnt to cinders. 

Merrifield and Sylvane were out after deer, and Roosevelt and hiscompanion waited all afternoon in vain for the two men to return. Atlast, toward evening, Roosevelt made some coffee, which, as "Nitch"remarked, "took the rough spots off the biscuits. "

"If we'd talked less, " reflected "Nitch, " "we'd have had more dinner. "

Roosevelt laughed. He did not seem to mind the loss of a meal. "Nitch"was quite positive that he was well repaid. They went on talking asbefore. 

XVI

 He went so high above the earth, Lights from Jerusalem shone. Right thar we parted company, And he came down alone. I hit terra firma, The buckskin's heels struck free, And brought a bunch of stars along To dance in front of me. 

 _Cowboy song_

Early in May, Roosevelt's men returned from Fergus Falls with athousand head of cattle. In a letter to his brother, Sewall describeswhat he terms the "Cattle Torture, " in which he had been engaged. "Itwill perhaps interest you, " he adds. "It certainly must have beeninteresting to the cattle. "

 The cattle were driven in from the country [Sewall writes] and put in a yard. This was divided in the middle by a fence and on one side was a narrow lane where you could drive six or eight Cattle at a time. This narrowed so when you got to the fence in the middle only one could pass by the post, and beyond the post there was a strong gate which swang off from the side fence at the top so to leave it wide enough to go through. Well, they would rush them into the shoot and when they came to the gate would let it swing off at the top. The animal would make a rush but it was so narrow at the bottom it would bother his feet and there was a rope went from the top of the gate over his back to a lever on the outside of the yard. While he was trying to get through, the fellow on the lever would catch him with the gate and then the frying began. 

 They had two good big fires and about four irons in each and they would put an iron on each side. One is a Triangle about four inches on a side, the other an Elkhorn about six inches long with two prongs. It smelt around there as if Coolage was burning Parkman, [13] or was it Webster? I remember hearing father read about the smell of meat burning when I was a boy, and I kept thinking of that and Indians burning Prisoners at the stake. Well, we burnt them all in less than a day and a half and then hustled them into the cars. 

 [Footnote 13: A celebrated murder case in Boston. ]

 They of course did not get much to eat for two or three days before they started. Then we put from 50 to 57 yearlings in a carr and from 32 to 37 two year olds and started. The poor cattle would lay down, then of course as many as could stand on them would do so. The ones that got down would stay there till they were completely trod under and smothered unless you made them get up. So I would go in and shove and crowd and get them off of the down ones, then I would seize a tail and the man with me would punch from outside with a pole with a brad in it. This would invigorate the annimal as he used the pole with great energy, and with my help they would get up. 

 I did not dislike the work though it was very warm and the cattle were rather slippery to hold on to after they had been down, but it was lively and exciting climbing from one carr to the other when they were going, especially in the night. We went to see them every time they stopped and some times we did not have time before we started. Then we would have to go from one to the other while they were going, and after we had got through run back over the tops of the cars. 

 Ours were all alive when we got to Medora. How they ever lived through, I don't see. John Bean would liked to have bought me by the cord, and if he had been around Medora, think I could have sold myself for dressing. 

Roosevelt met them at Medora and set out with them to drive the cattlenorth to Elkhorn Ranch. It was customary to drive cattle along theriver bottom, but there had been a series of freshets that springwhich had turned the Little Missouri into a raging torrent and itsbottom into a mass of treacherous quicksands. The river valley wouldconsequently have been dangerous even for mature stock. For the youngcattle the dangers of the crossings were too great even for a none tooprudent man to hazard. Accordingly Roosevelt decided to drive theanimals down along the divide west of Medora between the LittleMissouri and the Beaver. 

Owing to a variety of causes, the preparations for the trip had beeninadequate. He had only five men to help him; Sewall and Dow and Roweand two others. Of these, only one was a cowpuncher of experience. Roosevelt placed him in charge. It was not long, however, before hediscovered that this man, who was a first-rate cowhand, was whollyincapable of acting as head. Cattle and cowpunchers, chuck-wagon andsaddle-band, in some fashion which nobody could explain became sosnarled up with each other that, after disentangling the situation, hewas forced to relegate his expert to the ranks and take commandhimself. 

His course lay, for the most part, through the Bad Lands, whichenormously increased the difficulty of driving the cattle. A herdalways travels strung out in lines, and a thousand head thus goingalmost in single file had a way of stretching out an appreciabledistance, with the strong, speedy animals in the van and the weak andsluggish ones inevitably in the rear. Roosevelt put two of his men atthe head of the column, two more at the back, and himself with anotherman rode constantly up and down the flanks. In the tangled mass ofrugged hills and winding defiles through which the trail led, it wasno easy task for six men to keep the cattle from breaking off indifferent directions or prevent the strong beasts that formed thevanguard from entirely outstripping the laggards. The sparesaddle-ponies also made trouble, for several of them were practicallyunbroken. 

Slowly and with infinite difficulty they drove the herd northward. Toadd to their troubles, the weather went through "a gamut of changes, "as Roosevelt wrote subsequently, "with that extraordinary andinconsequential rapidity which characterizes atmospheric variations onthe plains. " The second day out, there was a light snow falling allday, with a wind blowing so furiously that early in the afternoon theywere obliged to drive the cattle down into a sheltered valley to keepthem overnight. The cold was so intense that even in the sun the waterfroze at noon. Forty-eight hours afterwards it was the heat that wascausing them to suffer. 

The inland trail which they were following had its disadvantages, forwater for the stock was scarce there, and the third day, afterwatering the cattle at noon, Roosevelt and his men drove them alongthe very backbone of the divide through barren and forbiddingcountry. Night came on while they were still many miles from thestring of deep pools which held the nearest water. The cattle werethirsty and restless, and in the first watch, which Roosevelt sharedwith one of his cowboys, when the long northern spring dusk had givenway at last to complete darkness, the thirsty animals of one accordrose to their feet and made a break for liberty. Roosevelt knew thatthe only hope of saving his herd from hopeless dispersion over ahundred hills lay in keeping the cattle close together at the verystart. He rode along at their side as they charged, as he had neverridden in his life before. In the darkness he could see only dimly theshadowy outline of the herd, as with whip and spur he ran his ponyalong its edge, turning back the beasts at one point barely in time towheel and keep them in at another. The ground was cut up by numerousgullies, and more than once Roosevelt's horse turned a completesomersault with his rider. Why he was not killed a half-dozen timesover is a mystery. He was dripping with sweat, and his pony wasquivering like a quaking aspen when, after more than an hour of themost violent exertion, he and his companion finally succeeded inquieting the herd. 

 I have had hard work and a good deal of fun since I came out [Roosevelt wrote to Lodge on the fifteenth of May]. To-morrow I start for the round-up; and I have just come in from taking a thousand head of cattle up on the trail. The weather was very bad and I had my hands full, working night and day, and being able to take off my clothes but once during the week I was out. 

 The river has been very high recently, and I have had on two or three occasions to swim my horse across it; a new experience to me. Otherwise I have done little that is exciting in the way of horsemanship; as you know I am no horseman, and I cannot ride an unbroken horse with any comfort. The other day I lunched with the Marquis de Mores, a French cavalry officer; he has hunted all through France, but he told me he never saw in Europe such stiff jumping as we have on the Meadowbrook hunt. 

Whether he was or was not a horseman is a question on which there isauthority which clashes with Roosevelt's. A year's experience withbroncos had taught him much, and though Sylvane remained indisputablythe crack rider of the Maltese Cross outfit, Roosevelt more than heldhis own. "He was not a purty rider, " as one of his cowpunching friendsexpressed it, "but a hell of a good rider. "

Roosevelt was a firm believer in "gentling" rather than "breaking"horses. He had no sentimental illusions concerning the character ofthe animals with which he was dealing, but he never ceased his effortsto make a friend instead of a suspicious servant of a horse. Most ofRoosevelt's horses became reasonably domesticated, but there was onethat resisted all Roosevelt's friendly advances. He was generallyregarded as a fiend incarnate. "The Devil" was his name. 

"The trouble with training the Devil, " said Packard, who was presentat the Maltese Cross one day when Roosevelt was undertaking to ridehim, "was that he was a wild four-year-old when first ridden and thisfirst contest was a victory for the horse. If the rider had won, Devilmight have become a good saddle horse. But when the horse wins thefirst contest, one can look for a fight every time he is saddled. Thechances favor his becoming a spoiled horse. I happened to arrive atthe Chimney Butte Ranch one day just as the horse-herd was beingdriven into the corral. Devil knew he was due for a riding-lesson. Itwas positively uncanny to see him dodge the rope. On several occasionshe stopped dead in his tracks and threw his head down between hisfront legs; the loop sliding harmlessly off his front quarters, wherenot even an ear projected. But Devil couldn't watch two ropes at once, and Roosevelt 'snared' him from the corral fence while Merrifield waswhirling his rope for the throw. Instantly Devil stopped and meeklyfollowed Roosevelt to the snubbing-post, where he was tied up for aperiod of 'gentling. ' The ordinary procedure was to throw such a horseand have one man sit on his head while another bound a handkerchiefover his eyes. He was then allowed to get on his feet and often madelittle resistance while the saddle and bridle were being adjusted. Therider then mounted and the fireworks began as soon as he jerked thehandkerchief from the horse's eyes. 

"Devil had gone through this procedure so often that he knew it byheart. He had, however, not become accustomed to being 'gentled'instead of 'busted. ' As Roosevelt walked toward him, the horse's fearof man overcame his dread of the rope, and he surged back until thenoose was strangling him. 

"It was half an hour before he allowed Roosevelt to put a hand on hisneck. All this was preliminary to an attempt to blindfolding Devilwithout throwing, and at last it was accomplished. He then submittedto being saddled and bridled, though he shrank from every touch asthough it were a hot iron. The handkerchief was then taken from hiseyes, and he began bucking the empty saddle like a spoiled horse ofthe worst type. Every one took a seat on top of the corral fence toawait the time when he had strangled and tired himself to astandstill. Several times he threw himself heavily by tripping on therope or by tightening it suddenly. And at last he gave it up, standingwith legs braced, with heaving flanks and gasping breath. 

"Roosevelt walked toward him with a pail of water and the first realsign that 'gentling' was better than 'busting' was when the wild-eyedDevil took a swallow; the first time in his life he had accepted afavor from the hand of man. It was too dangerous to attempt riding inthe corral, and Devil was led out to some bottom-land which was fairlylevel; the end of the rope around the horn of Merrifield's saddle andSylvane Ferris on another saddle horse ready to urge Devil into a runas soon as Roosevelt had mounted. A vain attempt at mounting was made, and finally Devil had to be blindfolded. Then came the mounting, and, almost instantly with the lifting of the blindfold, Roosevelt wassprawling in the sagebrush. Somewhat scratched he was, and his teethglittered in the way which required a look at his eyes to tell whetherit was a part of a smile or a look of deadly determination. Itrequired no second glance to know that Devil was going to be ridden orRoosevelt was going to be hurt. There was no disgrace in being thrown. It was done in the same way that Devil had unhorsed other men whomRoosevelt would have been first to call better riders than himself. There was a sudden arching of the back which jolted the rider at leastsix inches from the saddle, then a whirling jump which completed ahalf-turn, and a landing, stiff-legged, on the fore feet while thehind hoofs kicked high in the air. In his six-inch descent the riderwas met with the saddle or the flanks of the horse and catapulted intospace. The only way to 'stay with the leather' was to get the horse torunning instead of making this first jump. 

"About every other jump we could see twelve acres of bottom-landbetween Roosevelt and the saddle, but now the rider stayed with theanimal a little longer than before. Four times that beast threw him, but the fifth time Roosevelt maneuvered him into a stretch ofquicksand in the Little Missouri River. This piece of strategy savedthe day, made Roosevelt a winner, and broke the record of the Devil, for if there is any basis of operations fatal to fancy bucking it isquicksand. After a while Roosevelt turned the bronco around, broughthim out on dry land, and rode him until he was as meek as a rabbit. "

The round-up that spring gave Roosevelt an opportunity to put hishorsemanship to the severest test there was. 

 Theodore Roosevelt is now at Medora [the Mandan _Pioneer_ reported on May 22d], and has been there for some time past. He is preparing his outfit for the round-up, and will take an active part in the business itself. 

Roosevelt had, in fact, determined to work with the round-up as anordinary cowpuncher, and shortly after the middle of May he startedwith his "outfit" south to the appointed meeting-place west of themouth of Box Elder Creek in southeastern Montana. With him were allthe regular cowboys of the Maltese Cross, besides a half-dozen other"riders, " and Walter Watterson, a sandy-haired and faithful being whodrove Tony and Dandy, the wheel team, and Thunder and Lightning, theleaders, hitched to the rumbling "chuck-wagon. " Watterson was also thecook, and in both capacities was unexcelled. Each cowpuncher attachedto the "outfit, " or to "the wagon" as it was called on the round-up, had his own "string" of ten or a dozen ponies, thrown together into asingle herd which was in charge of the "horse-wranglers, " one for thenight and one for the morning, customarily the youngest (and mostabused) cowboys on the ranch. 

Roosevelt's "string" was not such as to make him look forward to theround-up with easy assurance. He had not felt that he had a right, even as "the boss, " to pick the best horses for himself out of thesaddle band of the Maltese Cross. With Sylvane, Merrifield, Myers, andhimself choosing in succession, like boys picking teams for "one ol'cat, " "the boss" having first choice on each round, he took what Fateand his own imperfect judgment gave him. At the conclusion of the"picking, " he found that, of the nine horses he had chosen, four werebroncos, broken only in the sense that each had once or twice beensaddled. One of them, he discovered promptly, could not possibly bebridled or saddled single-handed; it was very difficult to get on himand very difficult to get off; he was exceedingly nervous, moreover, if his rider moved his hands or feet; "but he had, " Rooseveltdeclared, "no bad tricks, " which, in view of his other qualities, musthave been a real comfort. The second allowed himself to be tamed andwas soon quiet. The third, on the other hand, turned out to be one ofthe worst buckers Roosevelt possessed; and the fourth had a habitwhich was even worse, for he would balk and throw himself overbackward. It struck Roosevelt that there was something about thisrefractory animal's disposition, to say nothing of his Roman nose, which greatly reminded him of the eminent Democrat, General BenButler, and "Ben Butler" became that bronco's name. Roosevelt hadoccasion to remember it. 

[Illustration: The Maltese Cross "outfit". ]

[Illustration: The Maltese Cross "chuck-wagon". The man on horsebackis Sylvane Ferris; the man loading the wagon is Walter Watterson, Roosevelt's teamster and cook. ]

The encampment where the round-up was to begin furnished a scene ofbustle and turmoil. From here and there the heavy four-horse wagonsone after another jolted in, the "horse-wranglers" rushing madly toand fro in the endeavor to keep the different saddle bands frommingling. Single riders, in groups of two or three, appeared, eachdriving his "string. " The wagons found their places, the teamstersunharnessed the horses and unpacked the "cook outfit, " the foremansought out the round-up captain, the "riders" sought out theirfriends. Here there was larking, there there was horse-racing, elsewhere there was "a circus with a pitchin' bronc', " and foot-racesand wrestling-matches. A round-up always had more than a little of thecharacter of a county fair. For though the work was hard, andpractically continuous for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, itwas full of excitement. The cowboys regarded it largely as sport, andthe five weeks they spent at it very much of a holiday. [14]

 [Footnote 14: _Roosevelt: Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. _

 "Am inclined to think that this assertion of Mr. Roosevelt's would be open to criticism on the part of the real old-time cowpunchers. Much depended upon the weather, of course, but in a general way most of them regarded the work as anything but a picnic. Usually, it came closer to being 'Hell, ' before we got through with it, as was the case on that particular round-up in 1885, when Mr. Roosevelt was along. Rained much of the time, and upon one occasion kept at it for a week on end. Tied the whole outfit up for several days at one point and I recall we had to wring the water out of our blankets every night before retiring. The boys liked to work on general round-ups, hard and all as they were, mainly because it brought them into contact with the boys from other ranges, so that they had a chance to renew old acquaintances. Generally the boys were all inclined to be a little wild at the start, or until cooled down by a few days of hard work. After that things got into a steady groove, eighteen hours per day in the saddle being nothing unusual. 

 "At the start, the round-up bore many of the aspects of a county fair, just as Mr. Roosevelt states, and unless the trip proved to be unusually hard there was always more or less horse-play in the air. "--_Lincoln Lang. _]

Roosevelt reported to the captain of the round-up, a man namedOsterhaut, saying that he expected to be treated as a common cowhandand wanted to be shown no favors; and the captain took him at hisword. He promptly justified his existence. He did not pretend to be agood roper, and his poor eyesight forbade any attempt to "cut" thecattle that bore his brand out of the milling herd; but he "wrestledcalves" with the best of them; he rode "the long circle"; he guardedthe day-herd and the night-herd and did the odd (and often perilous)jobs of the cowpuncher with the same cool unconcern that characterizedthe professional cowboy. 

"Three-Seven" Bill Jones was on the round-up as foreman of the"Three-Seven Ranch. " ("There, " as Howard Eaton remarked withenthusiasm, "was a cowboy for your whiskers!") He was a large, grave, taciturn man, capable of almost incredible feats of physicalendurance. Dantz overheard him, one day, discussing Roosevelt. 

"That four-eyed maverick, " remarked "Three-Seven" Bill, "has sand inhis craw a-plenty. "

 As with all other forms of work [Roosevelt wrote years after], so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders and ropers, who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the circles a cow or a calf would get into some thick patch of bulberry bush and refuse to come out; or when it was getting late we would pass some bad lands that would probably not contain cattle, but might; or a steer would turn fighting mad, or a calf grow tired and want to lie down. If in such a case the man steadily persists in doing the unattractive thing, and after two hours of exasperation and harassment does finally get the cow out, and keep her out, of the bulberry bushes, and drives her to the wagon, or finds some animals that have been passed by in the fourth or fifth patch of bad lands he hunts through, or gets the calf up on his saddle and takes it in anyhow, the foreman soon grows to treat him as having his uses and as being an asset of worth in the round-up, even though neither a fancy roper nor a fancy rider. [15]

 [Footnote 15: _Autobiography. _]

It was an active life, [16] and Roosevelt had no opportunity tocomplain of restlessness. Breakfast came at three and dinner at eightor nine or ten in the morning, at the conclusion sometimes of fiftymiles of breakneck riding. From ten to one, while the experts were"cutting out the cows, " Roosevelt was "on day-herd, " as the phrasewent, riding slowly round and round the herd, turning back into itany cattle that attempted to escape. In the afternoon he would "ridecircle" again, over the hills; and at night, from ten to twelve, hewould again be on guard, riding round the cattle, humming some eerielullaby. It was always the same song that he sang, but what the wordswere or the melody is a secret that belongs to the wind. 

 [Footnote 16: Roosevelt gives an admirable description of a round-up in his _Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail_. ]

 When utterly tired, it was hard to have to get up for one's trick at night-herd [Roosevelt wrote in his "Autobiography"]. Nevertheless on ordinary nights the two hours round the cattle in the still darkness were pleasant. The loneliness, under the vast empty sky, and the silence in which the breathing of the cattle sounded loud, and the alert readiness to meet any emergency which might suddenly arise out of the formless night, all combined to give one a sense of subdued interest. 

As he lay on the ground near by, after his watch, he liked to listento the wild and not unmusical calls of the cowboys as they rode roundthe half-slumbering steers. There was something magical in the strangesound of it under the stars. Now and then a song would float throughthe clear air. 

 "The days that I was hard up, I never shall forget. The days that I was hard up-- I may be well off yet. In days when I was hard up, And wanted wood and fire, I used to tie my shoes up With little bits of wire. "

It was a favorite song with the night-herders. 

One night, early in the round-up, Roosevelt failed satisfactorily toidentify the direction in which he was to go in order to reach thenight-herd. It was a pitch-dark night, and he wandered about in it forhours on end, finding the cattle at last only when the sun rose. Hewas greeted with withering scorn by the injured cowpuncher who hadbeen obliged to stand double guard because Roosevelt had failed torelieve him. 

Sixteen hours of work left little time for social diversions, but evenwhen they were full of sleep the cowboys would draw up around thecamp-fire, to smoke and sing and "swap yarns" for an hour. There wereonly three musical instruments in the length and breadth of the BadLands, the Langs' piano, a violin which "Fiddling Joe" played at thedances over Bill Williams's saloon, and Howard Eaton's banjo. Thebanjo traveled in state in the mess-wagon of the "Custer Trail, " andhour on hour, about the camp-fire on the round-up, Eaton would play tothe dreamy delight of the weary men. The leading spirit of thoseevenings was Bill Dantz, who knew a hundred songs by heart, and couldspin an actual happening into a yarn so thrilling and so elaborate inevery detail that no one could tell precisely where the foundation offact ended and the Arabian dome and minaret of iridescent fancy began. 

Roosevelt found the cowboys excellent companions. They were apicturesque crew with their broad felt hats, their flannel shirts ofvarious colors, overlaid with an enamel of dust and perspiration, baked by the Dakota sun, their bright silk handkerchiefs knottedround the neck, their woolly "shaps, " their great silver spurs, theirloosely hanging cartridge-belts, their ominous revolvers. Rooseveltwas struck by the rough courtesy with which the men treated eachother. There was very little quarreling or fighting, due, Rooseveltsuspected, to the fact that all the men were armed; for, it seemed, that when a quarrel was likely to end fatally, men rather hesitatedabout embarking upon it. The moral tone of the round-up camp seemed toRoosevelt rather high. There was a real regard for truthfulness, afirm insistence on the sanctity of promises, and utter contempt formeanness and cowardice and dishonesty and hypocrisy and thedisposition to shirk. The cowpuncher was a potential cattle-owner andgood citizen, and if he went wild on occasion it was largely becausehe was so exuberantly young. In years he was generally a boy, oftenunder twenty. But he did the work of a man, and he did it withsingular conscientiousness and the spirit less of an employee than ofa member of an order bound by vows, unspoken but accepted. He obeyedorders without hesitation, though it were to mount a bucking bronco or"head off" a stampede. He worked without complaint in a smother ofdust and cattle fumes at temperatures ranging as high as 136 degrees;or, snow-blinded and frozen, he "rode line" for hours on end when thethermometer was fifty or more below zero. He was in constant peril ofhis life from the horns of milling cattle or the antics of a "mean"horse. Roosevelt was immensely drawn to the sinewy, hardy, andself-reliant adventurers; and they in turn liked him. 

Life in the camps was boisterous and the language beggareddescription. 

"With some of these fellows around here, " Dr. Stickney, the Bad Lands'surgeon, once remarked, "profanity ceases to be a habit and becomes anart. "

"That's right, " assented Sylvane. "Some strangers will get the hang ofit, but others never do. There was 'Deacon' Cummins, for instance. He'd say such a thing as 'damned calf. ' You could tell he didn't knowanything about it. "

The practical jokes, moreover, which the cowboys played on each otherwere not such as to make life easy for the timid. "The boys played allkinds of tricks, " remarked Merrifield long after; "sometimes they'dstick things under the horses' tails and play tricks of that kind an'there'd be a lot of hilarity to see the fellow get h'isted into theair; but they never bothered Mr. Roosevelt. He commanded everybody'srespect. "

They did play one joke on him, however, but it did not turn out at allas they expected. 

Roosevelt's hunting proclivities were well known, for he never missedan opportunity, even on the round-up, to wander up some of thecountless coulees with a rifle on his shoulder after deer, or to rideaway over the prairies after antelope; and the cowpunchers decidedthat it would be rather good fun to send him on a wild-goose chase. Sothey told him with great seriousness of a dozen antelope they had seenfive or six miles back, suggesting that he had better go and get one. 

He "bit, " as they knew he would, and, in spite of the fact that he hadhad a hard day on the round-up, saddled a horse and rode off in thedirection which they had indicated. The cowboys speculated as to thelanguage he would use when he came back. 

He was gone several hours, and he had two antelope across hissaddle-bow when he rode back into camp. 

"I found them all right, " he cried, "just a quarter-mile from whereyou said. "

There was a shout from the cowboys. By general consent the joke wasdeclared as not to be on the "four-eyed tenderfoot. "

Most of the men sooner or later accepted Roosevelt as an equal, inspite of his toothbrush and his habit of shaving; but there was oneman, a surly Texan, who insisted on "picking on" Roosevelt as a dude. Roosevelt laughed. But the man continued, in season and out of season, to make him the butt of his gibes. 

It occurred to the object of all this attention that the Texan wasevidently under the impression that the "dude" was also a coward. Roosevelt decided that, for the sake of general harmony, thatimpression had better be corrected at once. 

One evening, when the man was being particularly offensive, Rooseveltstrode up to him. 

"You're talking like an ass!" he said sharply. "Put up or shut up!Fight now, or be friends!"

The Texan stared, his shoulder dropped a little, and he shifted hisfeet. "I didn't mean no harm, " he said. "Make it friends. "

They made it friends. 

XVII

 At a round-up on the Gily, One sweet mornin' long ago, Ten of us was throwed right freely By a hawse from Idaho. And we thought he'd go a-beggin' For a man to break his pride, Till, a-hitchin' up one leggin', Boastful Bill cut loose and cried--

 "_I'm an on'ry proposition for to hurt; I fulfill my earthly mission with a quirt; I kin ride the highest liver 'Tween the Gulf and Powder River, And I'll break this thing as easy as I'd flirt. _"

 So Bill climbed the Northern Fury, And they mangled up the air, Till a native of Missouri Would have owned his brag was fair. Though the plunges kep' him reelin' And the wind it flapped his shirt, Loud above the hawse's squealin' We could hear our friend assert--

 "_I'm the one to take such rakin's as a joke. Some one hand me up the makin's of a smoke! If you think my fame needs bright'nin', Why, I'll rope a streak of lightnin', And I'll cinch 'im up and spur 'im till he's broke. _"

 Then one caper of repulsion Broke that hawse's back in two. Cinches snapped in the convulsion; Skyward man and saddle flew. Up he mounted, never laggin', While we watched him through our tears, And his last thin bit of braggin' Came a-droppin' to our ears--

 "_If you'd ever watched my habits very close, You would know I've broke such rabbits by the gross. I have kep' my talent hidin'; I'm too good for earthly ridin', And I'm off to bust the lightnin'--Adios!_"

 Badger CLARK

If Roosevelt anticipated that he would have trouble with his untamedbroncos, he was not disappointed. "The effort, " as he subsequentlyremarked, "both to ride them, and to look as if I enjoyed doing so, onsome cool morning when my grinning cowboy friends had gathered round'to see whether the high-headed bay could buck the boss off, 'doubtless was of benefit to me, but lacked much of being enjoyable. "

One morning, when the round-up "outfits" were camped on the LoggingCamp Range, south of the Big Ox Bow, Roosevelt had a memorablestruggle with one of his four broncos. The camp was directly behindthe ranch-house (which the Eaton brothers owned), and close by was achasm some sixty feet deep, a great gash in the valley which thetorrents of successive springs had through the centuries cut there. The horse had to be blindfolded before he would allow a saddle to beput on him. 

Lincoln Lang was among the cowboys who stood in an admiring circle, hoping for the worst. 

"Mr. Roosevelt mounted, with the blind still on the horse, " Lang said, telling the story afterward, "so that the horse stood still, althoughwith a well-defined hump on his back, which, as we all knew very well, meant trouble to come. As soon as Mr. Roosevelt got himself fixed inthe saddle, the men who were holding the horse pulled off the blindand turned him loose. "

Here Bill Dantz, who was also in the "gallery, " takes up the story:

"The horse did not buck. He started off quietly, in fact, until he waswithin a few feet of the chasm. Then he leapt in the air like a shotdeer, and came down with all four feet buckled under him, jumpedsideways and went in the air a second time, twisting ends. "

Here Lang resumes the narrative:

"Almost any kind of a bucking horse is hard to ride, but the worst ofall are the 'sunfishers' who change end for end with each jump, maintaining the turning movement in one direction so that the effectis to get the rider dizzy. This particular horse was of that type, andalmost simultaneous with the removal of the blind he was in gyroscopicaction. 

"I am aware that Mr. Roosevelt did not like to 'pull leather, ' as theterm goes, but this time at least he had to, but for the matter ofthat there were not many who would not have done the same thing. Asnearly as I can remember, he got the horn of his saddle in one handand the cantle in the other, then swung his weight well into theinside and hung like a leech. Of course, it took sheer grit to do it, because in thus holding himself tight to the saddle with his hands, hehad to take full punishment, which can be avoided only when one hasacquired the knack of balancing and riding loosely. 

"As it was, his glasses and six-shooter took the count within thefirst few jumps, but in one way or another he hung to it himself, until some of the boys rode up and got the horse headed into astraightaway by the liberal use of their quirts. Once they got himrunning, it was all over, of course. If I remember right, Mr. Roosevelt rode the horse on a long circle that morning and brought himin safe, hours later, as good as gold. "[17]

 [Footnote 17: "During the course of the Barnes-Roosevelt trial at Syracuse in 1916, Roosevelt was taking dinner one evening at the house of Mr. Horace S. Wilkinson. Chancellor Day, of Syracuse University, who was present, said: 'Mr. Roosevelt, my attention was first directed to you by an account of a scene when you were with the cowboys. It told of your trying to get astride a bronco, and it was a struggle. But you finally conquered him, and away you went in a cloud of dust. '

 "'Very true, very true, ' said Roosevelt, 'but I rode him all the way from the tip of his ear to the end of his tail. '"--_Rev. D. B. Thompson, Syracuse_, N. Y. ]

The horse which Roosevelt had called "Ben Butler" was not so easilysubdued. It was "Ben Butler's" special antic to fall over backward. Hewas a sullen, evil-eyed brute, with a curve in his nose and a droop inhis nostrils, which gave him a ridiculous resemblance to thepresidential candidate of the Anti-Monopoly Party. He was a greatman-killing bronco, with a treacherous streak, and Roosevelt had puthim in his "string" against the protests of his own men. "That horseis a plumb outlaw, " Bill Dantz declared, "an' outlaws is never safe. They kinda git bad and bust out at any time. He will sure kill you, sooner or later, if you try to ride him. "

One raw, chilly morning, Roosevelt, who had been ordered to ride "theoutside circle, " chose "Ben Butler" for his mount, because he knew thehorse was tireless and could stand the long, swift ride better thanany other pony he had. As Roosevelt mounted him, the horse reared andfell over backward. He had done that before, but this time he fell onhis rider. Roosevelt, with a sharp pain in his shoulder, extricatedhimself and mounted once more. But the horse now refused to go in anydirection, backward or forward. 

Sylvane and George Myers threw their lariats about the bronco's neck, and dragged him a few hundred yards, choking but stubborn, all fourfeet firmly planted and pawing the ground. When they released theropes, "Ben Butler" lay down and refused to get up. 

The round-up had started; there was no time to waste. Sylvane gaveRoosevelt his horse, Baldy, which sometimes bucked, but never wentover backwards, and himself mounted the now re-arisen "Ben Butler. " ToRoosevelt's discomfiture, the horse that had given him so much troublestarted off as meekly as any farm-horse. 

"Why, " remarked Sylvane, not without a touch of triumph, "there'snothing the matter with this horse. He's a plumb gentle horse. "

But shortly after, Roosevelt noticed that Sylvane had fallen behind. Then he heard his voice, in persuasive tones, "That's all right! Comealong!" Suddenly a new note came into his entreaties. "Here you! Go onyou! Hi, hi, fellows, help me out! He's laying on me!"

They dragged Sylvane from under the sprawling steed, whereuponSylvane promptly danced a war-dance, spurs and all, on the iniquitous"Ben. " Roosevelt gave up the attempt to take that particular bronco onthe round-up that day. 

"By gollies, " remarked "Dutch Wannigan" in later days, "he rode somebad horses, some that did quite a little bucking around for us. Idon't know if he got throwed. If he did, there wouldn't have beennothin' said about it. Some of those Eastern punkin-lilies now, thosegoody-goody fellows, if they'd ever get throwed off you'd never hearthe last of it. He didn't care a bit. By gollies, if he got throwedoff, he'd get right on again. He was a dandy fellow. "

The encounter with "Ben Butler" brought a new element into Roosevelt'scowpunching experience, and made what remained of the round-upsomewhat of an ordeal. For he discovered that the point of hisshoulder was broken. Under other circumstances he would have gone to adoctor, but in the Bad Lands you did not go to doctors, for the simplereason that there was only one physician in the whole region and hemight at any given moment be anywhere from fifty to two hundred andfifty miles away. If you were totally incapacitated with a broken legor a bullet in your lungs, you sent word to Dr. Stickney's office inDickinson. The doctor might be north in the Killdeer Mountains orsouth in the Cave Hills or west in Mingusville, for the territory hecovered stretched from Mandan a hundred and twenty miles east ofMedora, to Glendive, the same distance westward, south to the BlackHills and north beyond the Canadian border, a stretch of country notquite as large as New England, but almost. The doctor covered it onhorseback or in a buckboard; in the cab of a wild-cat engine or thecaboose of a freight, or, on occasion, on a hand-car. He was as youngas everybody else in that young country, utterly fearless, and, itseemed, utterly tireless. He rode out into the night careless alike ofblinding sleet and drifting snow. At grilling speed he rode until hishorse stood with heaving sides and nose drooping; then, at some ranch, he changed to another and rode on. Over a course of a hundred miles ormore he would ride relays at a speed that seemed incredible, and atthe end of the journey operate with a calm hand for a gun-shot woundor a cruelly broken bone, sometimes on the box of a mess-wagon turnedupside down on the prairie. 

Dr. Stickney was from Vermont, a quiet, lean man with a warm smile andfriendly eyes, a sense of humor and a zest for life. He had areputation for never refusing a call whatever the distance or theweather. Sometimes he rode with a guide; more often he rode alone. Heknew the landmarks for a hundred miles in any direction. At night, when the trail grew faint, he held his course by the stars; when anunexpected blizzard swept down upon him and the snow hid the trail, hesought a brush-patch in a coulee and tramped back and forth to keephimself from freezing until the storm had spent itself. It was a lifeof extraordinary devotion. Stickney took it with a laugh, blushingwhen men spoke well of him; and called it the day's work. 

God alone knew where the doctor happened to be on the day that "BenButler" rolled over backward with Theodore Roosevelt. It is safe tosurmise that Roosevelt did not inquire. You did not send for Dr. Stickney for a break in the point of your shoulder. You let the thingheal by itself and went on with your job. Of course, it was notpleasant; but there were many things that were not pleasant. It was, in fact, Roosevelt found, excruciating. But he said nothing aboutthat. 

By the beginning of June, the round-up had worked down to TepeeBottom, two or three miles south of the Maltese Cross, making itsmidday camp, one hot and sultry day, in a grove of ancient cottonwoodsthat stood like unlovely, weather-beaten, gnarled old men, withinhailing distance of "Deacon" Cummins's ranch-house. A messenger fromMrs. Cummins arrived at the camp at noon inviting Roosevelt and threeor four of his friends to dinner. A "home dinner" was not to bespurned, and they all rode over to the comfortable log cabin. The daywas blistering, a storm hung in the humid air, and none of themremembered, not even Roosevelt, that "gentlemen" did not go to dinnerparties in their shirt-sleeves, at least not in the world to whichMrs. Cummins liked to believe she belonged. Roosevelt was in his shirtand trousers, cowboy fashion. 

As the men prepared to sit down to dinner, Mrs. Cummins was obviouslyperturbed. She left the room, returning a minute later with a coatover her arm. 

"Mr. Roosevelt, " she said, "I know you won't like to come to dinnerwithout a coat. I have got one of Mr. Cummins's that will fit you. Iam sure you will feel more comfortable. "

What Roosevelt's emotions were at being thus singled out andproclaimed a "dude" among the men he wanted, above all things, toconsider him their peer, Roosevelt concealed at the moment and lateronly fitfully revealed. He accepted the coat with as good grace as hecould muster, to the suppressed delight of his friends. 

But Mrs. Cummins was not yet done with her guest of honor. She hadevidently been hurt, poor lady, by his failure to observe theamenities of social intercourse, for during the dinner she said tohim, "I don't see why men and women of culture come out here and letthe people pull them down. What they should do is to raise the peopleout here to their level. "

What Roosevelt answered is lost to history; but Lincoln Lang, who waswith him when he rode back to camp that afternoon, reported thatRoosevelt's comments on the dinner party were "blistering. " "He toldmy mother afterwards, " said Lang in later times, "that Mrs. Cumminswas out of place in the Bad Lands"; which was Mrs. Cummins's tragedyin a nutshell. 

They moved the camp that same afternoon a mile or two north to a widebottom that lay at the base of the peak known as Chimney Butte, northof Garner Creek and west of the Little Missouri. As eveningapproached, heavy black clouds began to roll up in the west, bringingrain. The rain became a downpour, through which flashes of lightningand rumblings of thunder came with increasing violence. The cattlewere very restless and uneasy, running up and down and trying here andthere to break out of the herd. The guards were doubled inanticipation of trouble. 

At midnight, fearing a stampede, the night-herders, of whom LincolnLang happened to be one, sent a call of "all hands out. " Rooseveltleaped on the pony he always kept picketed near him. Suddenly therewas a terrific peal of thunder. The lightning struck almost into theherd itself, and with heads and tails high the panic-stricken animalsplunged off into the darkness. 

Will Dow was at Roosevelt's side. The tumult evidently had notaffected his imperturbable gayety. "There'll be racing and chasing onCannobie lea, " Roosevelt heard him gayly quote. An instant later thenight had swallowed him. 

For a minute or two Roosevelt could make out nothing except the darkforms of the beasts, running on every side of him like the blackwaters of a roaring river. He was conscious that if his horse shouldstumble there would be no hope for him in the path of those panickyhoofs. The herd split, a part turning to one side, while the otherpart kept straight ahead. Roosevelt galloped at top speed, hoping toreach the leaders and turn them. 

He heard a wild splashing ahead. One instant he was aware that thecattle in front of him and beside him were disappearing; the next, hehimself was plunging over a cutbank into the Little Missouri. He bentfar back in the saddle. His horse almost fell, recovered himself, plunged forward, and, struggling through water and quicksand, made theother side. 

For a second he saw another cowboy beside him. The man disappeared inthe darkness and the deluge, and Roosevelt galloped off through agrove of cottonwoods after the diminished herd. The ground was roughand full of pitfalls. Once his horse turned a somersault and threwhim. At last the cattle came to a halt, but soon they were again awaythrough the darkness. Thrice again he halted them, and thrice againthey stampeded. 

"The country was muddy and wet, " said Lincoln Lang afterward. "We werehaving a heavy rain all night. I don't know how we ever got through. All we had was lightning flashes to go by. It was really one of theworst mix-ups I ever saw. That surely was a night. "

[Illustration: The scene of the stampede. On the farther side of theriver is the cutbank over which the cattle rushed in the dark. ]

Day broke at last, and as the light filtered through the cloudsRoosevelt could dimly discern where he was. He succeeded at last inturning back what remained of the cattle in the direction of the camp, gathering in stray groups of cattle as he went, and driving thembefore him. He came upon a cowboy on foot carrying his saddle on hishead. It was the man he had seen for a flash during the storm. Hishorse had run into a tree and been killed. He himself had escaped by amiracle. 

The men in the camp were just starting on the "long circle" whenRoosevelt returned. One of them saddled a fresh horse for him while hesnatched a hasty breakfast; then he was off for the day's work. 

As only about half of the night-herd had been brought back, thecircle-riding was particularly heavy, and it was ten hours beforeRoosevelt was back at the wagon camp once more for a hasty meal and afresh horse. He finished work as the late twilight fell. He had beenin the saddle forty hours, changing horses five times. That night heslept like the dead. 

The storm had raised the level of the river and filled every wash-outwith swirling brown waters. The following day Roosevelt had anadventure which came within an ace of being tragedy and culminated inhilarious farce. He was riding with a young Englishman, the son ofLord Somebody or Other--the name is immaterial--who was living thatspring with the Langs. Just north of the Custer Trail Ranch a bridgeof loose stringers had been laid across the wash-out, which, except attimes of heavy rains or melting snows, was completely dry. On thisoccasion, however, it was full to the banks, and had even flowed overthe rude bridge, jumbling the light logs. 

The stringers parted as their horses attempted to make their waygingerly across, and in an instant horses and riders and bridgetimbers were floundering indiscriminately in the rushing torrent. Roosevelt's horse worked his way out, but the Englishman, who was agood rider according to his lights, was not altogether used to mishapsof this sort and became excited. 

"I'm drowning! I'm drowning!" he called to Roosevelt. 

Roosevelt snatched the lasso from his saddle. He was not famous as aroper, but on this occasion his "throw" went true. The rope descendedover the shoulders of the British aristocrat, and an instant laterRoosevelt had him on solid ground. 

"As he was yanked unceremoniously out of that creek, " Rooseveltsubsequently remarked, "he did not seem to be very thankful. "

Sober second thoughts, however, brought gratitude with them. TheBritisher never forgot that Roosevelt had saved his life, andRoosevelt never forgot the picture that a son of a lord made, draggedthrough the water at the end of a lasso. 

On June 5th, which must have been the day after the rescue of theEnglishman, Roosevelt was writing to Lodge. 

 A cowboy from "down river" has just come up to the round-up, and brought me my mail, with your letter in it. I am writing on the ground; so my naturally good handwriting will not show to its usual advantage. 

 I have been three weeks on the round-up and have worked as hard as any of the cowboys; but I have enjoyed it greatly. Yesterday I was eighteen hours in the saddle--from 4 A. M. To 10 P. M. --having a half-hour each for dinner and tea. I can now do cowboy work pretty well. 

 Toronto[18] must be a dandy; I wish I could pick up one as good. That is, if he is gentle. You are all off about my horsemanship; as you would say if you saw me now. Almost all of our horses on the ranch being young, I had to include in my string three that were but partially broken; and I have had some fine circuses with them. One of them had never been saddled but once before, and he proved vicious, and besides bucking, kept falling over backwards with me; finally he caught me, giving me an awful slat, from which my left arm has by no means recovered. Another bucked me off going down hill; but I think I have cured him, for I put him through a desperate course of sprouts when I got on again. The third I nearly lost in swimming him across a swollen creek, where the flood had carried down a good deal of drift timber. However, I got him through all right in the end, after a regular ducking. Twice one of my old horses turned a somersault while galloping after cattle; once in a prairie-dog town, and once while trying to prevent the herd from stampeding in a storm at night. I tell you, I like gentle and well-broken horses if I am out for pleasure, and I do not get on any other, unless, as in this case, from sheer necessity. 

 [Footnote 18: Toronto was the name of Lodge's hunter. ]

It is too bad that letters cannot be published with stage directions. For surely the words, "I like gentle and well-broken horses, " shouldbear about them somewhere the suggestion of the glint of the eye, theflash of the teeth, the unctuous deliberateness, and the comicalbreak in the voice with which, surely, Roosevelt whispered them to hissoul before he wrote them down. 

While Roosevelt was enjoying adventures and misadventures of varioussorts, Sylvane Ferris was having what he might have described as "alittle party" of his own. For Sylvane, most honest and guileless ofmen, had got into the clutches of the law. It happened this way. 

Early in the spring some cowpunchers, driving in cattle which hadstrayed during the winter over the level country far to the east ofthe Little Missouri, came upon a cow marked with the maltese cross. They drove her westward with the rest of the "strays, " but none of themen belonged to the "Roosevelt outfit" and their interest in thisparticular cow was therefore purely altruistic. She was not aparticularly good cow, moreover, for she had had a calf in the winterand her udder had partially frozen. When, therefore, the necessityarose of paying board at the section-house at Gladstone after a fewhappy days at that metropolis, the cowboys, who did not have a cent ofreal money among them, hit upon the brilliant idea of offering the cowin payment. 

The section boss accepted the settlement, but evidently not without asense of the consequences that might follow the discovery in hispossession of a cow for which he could not present a bill of sale. Hetherefore promptly passed the cow on to a Russian cobbler in paymentfor a pair of shoes. The cobbler, with the European peasant's uncannyability to make something out of nothing, doctored the cow with a carewhich he would not have dreamed of bestowing on his wife, and made aprofitable milk-provider out of her. 

Sylvane discovered her during the round-up, picketed outside theRussian's shack, and promptly proceeded to take possession of her. TheRussian protested and told his story. Sylvane, pointing out that hewas moved by charity and not by necessity, offered the man sixdollars, which had been the price of the shoes. The Russian threw uphis hands and demanded no less than forty. Sylvane shrugged hisshoulders and annexed the cow. 

That evening as Sylvane was sitting around the mess-wagon with a dozenother cowpunchers, a stranger came walking from the direction ofGladstone. The cow was hitched to the wagon, for she had shown atendency to choose her own master. The stranger started to detach therope that held her. 

"Hold on!" cried Sylvane, "that is our cow. "

The stranger took some papers out of his pocket and handed them toSylvane. 

"Here are replevin papers, " he said. 

"I don't want your papers, " remarked Sylvane, who did not know areplevin paper from a dog license. 

The stranger threw the papers at Sylvane's feet. 

"I've come to take this cow. "

"Well, " remarked Sylvane, "if that's all the business you have, youcan go straight back where you came from. "

The stranger strode toward the cow, Sylvane did likewise. They reachedthe rope at the same moment. There was a shout from the delightedaudience of cowpunchers. 

The stranger released his hold on the rope. "If you say I can't takeher, I can't take her, " the man grumbled. "There's too many of you. But I'll bring back men that can. "

"Well, turn yourself loose, " remarked Sylvane agreeably. "You'll needa lot of them. "

There was another shout from the onlookers, and the stranger departed. Sylvane threw the papers into the mess-wagon. 

Roosevelt did not happen to be present, and in his absence the sobercounsel of "Deacon" Cummins made itself heard. The gist of it was thatSylvane had resisted an officer of the law, which was a criminaloffense. 

Sylvane, who was afraid of nothing that walked on two legs or on four, had a wholesome respect for that vague and ominous thing known as theLaw. 

"Say, I don't want to get in bad with any sheriff, " he said, reallyworried. "What had I oughter do?"

The "Deacon, " who possibly rejoiced at being for once taken seriously, suggested that Sylvane ride to Gladstone and see if he could notstraighten the matter out. The other cowpunchers, whose acquaintancewith legal procedure was as vague as Sylvane's, agreed that that plansounded reasonable. Sylvane went, accompanied by the "Deacon" andanother cowboy. If there was a gleam of wicked triumph in thestranger's eye when Sylvane rode up to him, Sylvane failed to noticeit. Before a justice of the peace he agreed to appear in court on acertain date, and his two companions furnished a bond. 

Next day, while they were in camp on the Heart River, an acquaintanceof Sylvane's, a lawyer who rejoiced in the harmonious name of WesternStarr, rode in from Dickinson to have dinner with "the boys. " Sylvaneshowed him the papers the stranger had deposited at his feet. 

The lawyer glanced over them. "What are these?" he asked. 

"I don't know, " answered Sylvane lightly. "That's what I handed themto you for, to find out. "

"Why, " exclaimed Starr, "these aren't anything. They haven't beensigned by anybody. "

Sylvane's jaw dropped. "Say, how about my bond?"

"Oh, that's valid, even if these are not. You've got to appear incourt. "

Sylvane's feelings concerning the "Deacon" and his precious advicewere deep and earnest. The situation was serious. He knew well enoughthe chance that the "outfit" of a wealthy Easterner like Rooseveltwould stand with a Gladstone jury, when it was a question of deprivinga poor man of his cow. 

Western Starr suggested that he arrange for a change of venue. 

Sylvane approved. The change of venue cost ten dollars, but wasgranted. The date of the trial was set. Sylvane traveled to Dickinsonand waited all day with his attorney for the trial to be called. Noone appeared, not even the judge. 

Starr's fee was twenty dollars. Sylvane's railroad fare was five more. The total bill was thirty-five. 

Roosevelt paid the bill. If he remarked that, taking lost time intoconsideration, it would have been cheaper, in the first place, to paythe Russian the forty dollars he demanded, there is no record of it. But the remark would not have been characteristic. The chances arethat he thought Sylvane's encounter with the law worth every cent thatit cost. 

XVIII

 Somewhere on some faded page I read about a Golden Age, But gods and Caledonian hunts Were nothing to what I knew once. Here on these hills was hunting! Here Antelope sprang and wary deer. Here there were heroes! On these plains Were drops afire from dragons' veins! Here there was challenge, here defying, Here was true living, here great dying! Stormy winds and stormy souls, Earthly wills with starry goals, Battle--thunder--hoofs in flight-- Centaurs charging down the night!

 Here there were feasts of song and story And words of love and dreams of glory! Here there were friends! Ah, night will fall And clouds or the stars will cover all, But I, when I go as a ghost again To the gaunt, grim buttes, to the friendly plain I know that for all that time can do To scatter the faithful, estrange the true-- Quietly, in the lavender sage, Will be waiting the friends of my golden age. 

 From _Medora Nights_

The wild riding, the mishaps, the feverish activity, the smell of thecattle, the dust, the tumult, the physical weariness, the comradeship, the closeness to life and death--to Roosevelt it was all magical andenticing. He loved the crisp morning air, the fantastic landscape, thelimitless spaces, half blue and half gold. His spirit was sensitive tobeauty, especially the beauty that lay open for all in the warm lightof dawn and dusk under the wide vault of heaven; and the experiencesthat were merely the day's work to his companions to him were edgedwith the shimmer of spiritual adventure. 

"We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst, " Roosevelt wrotethirty years later, "and we saw men die violent deaths as they workedamong the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another;but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was theglory of work and the joy of living. "

"It was a wonderful thing for Roosevelt, " said Dr. Stickney. "Hehimself realized what a splendid thing it was for him to have beenhere at that time and to have had sufficient strength in his characterto absorb it. He started out to get the fundamental truths as theywere in this country and he never lost sight of that purpose all thetime he was here. "

To the joy of strenuous living was added, for Roosevelt, thesatisfaction of knowing that the speculation in which he had risked solarge a part of his fortune was apparently prospering. The cattle werelooking well. Even pessimistic Bill Sewall admitted that, though hewould not admit that he had changed his opinion of the region as aplace for raising cattle. 

 I don't think we shall lose many of our cattle this winter [he wrote his brother]. I think they have got past the worst now. Next year is the one that will try them. It is the cows that perish mostly and we had but few that had calves last spring, but this spring thare will be quite a lot of them. The calves suck them down and they don't get any chance to gain up before they have another calf and then if the weather is very cold they are pretty sure to die. It is too cold here to raise cattle that way. Don't believe there is any money in she cattle here and am afraid thare is not much in any, unless it is the largest heards, and they are crowding in cattle all the time and I think they will eat us out in a few years. 

Sewall, being a strong individualist, was more than dubious concerningthe practicality of the coöperative round-up. The cowmen werepassionately devoted to the idea of the open range; to believe infences was treason; but it was in fences that Bill Sewall believed. 

 I don't like so free a country [he wrote]. Whare one man has as good a right as another nobody really has any right, so when feed gets scarce in one place they drive their cattle whare it is good without regard to whose range they eat out. I am satisfied that by the time we are ready to leave grass will be pretty scarce here. 

 I think the Cattle business has seen its best days and I gave my opinion to Mr. R. Last fall. I hope he may not lose but I think he stands a chance. Shall do all we can to prevent it, but it is such a mixed business. One or two can't do much. It is the most like driving on the Lake when you are mixed with everybody. I don't like it and never did. I want to controle and manage my own affairs and have a right to what I have, but here as on the Lake it is all common. One has as much right as another. 

Roosevelt remained with the round-up until it disbanded not far fromElkhorn Bottom. Then, on June 21st, he went East, accompanied byWilmot Dow, who was going home to get married and bring Sewall's wifeback with him when he brought back his own. 

Two reporters intercepted Roosevelt as he passed through St. Paul theday after his departure from Medora, and have left an attractivepicture of the politician-turned-cowboy. 

 Rugged, bronzed, and in the prime of health [wrote the representative of the _Pioneer Press_], Theodore Roosevelt passed through St. Paul yesterday, returning from his Dakota ranch to New York and civilization. There was very little of the whilom dude in his rough and easy costume, with a large handkerchief tied loosely about his neck; but the eyeglasses and the flashing eyes behind them, the pleasant smile and the hearty grasp of hand remained. There was the same eagerness to hear from the world of politics, and the same frank willingness to answer all questions propounded. The slow, exasperating drawl and the unique accent that the New Yorker feels he must use when visiting a less blessed portion of civilization have disappeared, and in their place is a nervous, energetic manner of talking with the flat accent of the West. Roosevelt is changed from the New York club man to the thorough Westerner, but the change is only in surface indications, and he is the same thoroughly good fellow he has always been. 

The reporter of the _Dispatch_ caught him in the lobby of theMerchant's Hotel. 

 "I'm just in from my ranch, " he said [runs the interview]. "Haven't had my dinner yet, but I think a short talk with a newspaper fellow will give me a whetted appetite. Yes, I am a regular cowboy, dress and all--" and his garb went far to prove his assertion, woolen shirt, big neck handkerchief tied loosely around his neck, etc. "I am as much of a cowboy as any of them and can hold my own with the best of them. I can shoot, ride, and drive in the round-up with the best of them. Oh, they are a jolly set of fellows, those cowboys; tiptop good fellows, too, when you know them, but they don't want any plug hat or pointed shoes foolishness around them. I get along the best way with them. 

 "We have just finished the spring round-up. You know what that means. The round-up covered about two hundred miles of grass territory along the river, and thousands of cattle were brought in. It is rare sport, but hard work after all. Do I like ranch life? Honestly I would not go back to New York if I had no interests there. Yes, I enjoy ranch life far more than city life. I like the hunt, the drive of cattle, and everything that is comprehended in frontier life. Make no mistake; on the frontier you find the noblest of fellows. How many cattle have I? Let's see, well, not less than 3500 at present. I will have more another year. "

The man from the _Dispatch_ wanted to talk politics, but beyond a fewgeneral remarks Roosevelt refused to satisfy him. 

"Don't ask me to talk politics, " he said. "I am out of politics. Iknow that this is often said by men in public life, but in this caseit is true. I really am. There is more excitement in the round-up thanin politics. And, " he remarked with zest, "it is far more respectable. I prefer my ranch and the excitement it brings, to New York life, " herepeated; then, lest he should seem to suggest the faintest hint ofdiscontent, he hastened to add, "though I always make it a point toenjoy myself wherever I am. "

Roosevelt spent two months in the East. On August 23d he was again inSt. Paul on his way, as he told a reporter of the _Dispatch_, toHelena, Montana, and thence back to Medora. Once more the interviewersought his views on political questions. Roosevelt made a fewnon-committal statements, refusing to prophesy. "My political life, "he remarked, "has not altogether killed my desire to tell the truth. "And with that happily flippant declaration he was off into thewilderness again. 

The "womenfolks" from Maine were at Elkhorn when Roosevelt arrived. They were backwoodswomen, self-reliant, fearless, high-hearted; truemates to their stalwart men. Mrs. Sewall had brought herthree-year-old daughter with her. Before Roosevelt knew what washappening, they had turned the new house into a new home. 

And now for them all began a season of deep and quiet contentment thatwas to remain in the memories of all of them as a kind of idyl. It wasa life of elemental toil, hardship, and danger, and of strong, elemental pleasures--rest after labor, food after hunger, warmth andshelter after bitter cold. In that life there was no room fordistinctions of social position or wealth. They respected one anotherand cared for one another because and only because each knew that theothers were brave and loyal and steadfast. 

[Illustration: Elkhorn ranch-house. Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt. ]

[Illustration: Site of Elkhorn, 1919. ]

Life on the ranch proved a more joyous thing than ever after the womenhad taken charge. They demanded certain necessities at once. Theydemanded chickens, which Roosevelt supplied, to the delight of thebobcats, who promptly started to feast on them; they demanded atleast one cow. No one had thought of a cow. No one in the length andbreadth of that cattle country, except Mrs. Roberts, seemed to thinkit worth while to keep a cow for the milk that was in her, and all thecows were wild as antelope. Roosevelt and Sewall and Dow among themroped one on the range and threw her, and sat on her, and milked herupside down, which was not altogether satisfactory, but was, for thetime being, the best thing they could do. 

Meals became an altogether different matter from what they had been atthe Maltese Cross where men were kings of the kitchen. "Eating was asort of happy-go-lucky business at the Maltese Cross, " remarked BillSewall subsequently. "You were happy if you got something, an' youwere lucky too. " There was now a new charm in shooting game, withwomen at home to cook it. And Mrs. Sewall baked bread that was not atall like the bread Bill baked. Soon she was even baking cake, whichwas an unheard-of luxury in the Bad Lands. Then, after a while, thebuffalo berries and wild plums began to disappear from the bushesroundabout and appear on the table as jam. 

"However big you build the house, it won't be big enough for twowomen, " pessimists had remarked. But their forebodings were notrealized. At Elkhorn no cross word was heard. They were, takenaltogether, a very happy family. Roosevelt was "the boss" in the sensethat, since he footed the bills, power of final decision was his; butonly in that sense. He saddled his own horse; now and then he washedhis own clothes; he fed the pigs; and once, on a rainy day, he blackedthe Sunday boots of every man, woman, and child in the place. He wasnot encouraged to repeat that performance. The folks from Maine madeit quite clear that if the boots needed blacking at all, which wasdoubtful, they thought some one else ought to do the blacking--not atall because it seemed to them improper that Roosevelt should blackanybody's boots, but because he did it so badly. The paste came off oneverything it touched. The women "mothered" him, setting hisbelongings to rights at stated intervals, for he was not conspicuousfor orderliness. He, in turn, treated the women with the friendlinessand respect he showed to the women of his own family. And the littleSewall girl was never short of toys. 

Elkhorn Ranch was a joyous place those days. Cowboys, hearing of it, came from a distance for a touch of home life and the luxury ofhearing a woman's voice. 

Roosevelt's days were full of diverse activities, and the men whoworked with him at Elkhorn were the pleasantest sort of companions. Bill Sewall, who, as Sylvane described him, was "like a track-hound onthe deer-trail, " had long ago given up the idea of making a cowboy ofhimself, constituting himself general superintendent of the house andits environs and guardian of the womenfolks. Not that the womenneeded protection. There was doubtless no safer place for women in theUnited States at that moment than the Bad Lands of the LittleMissouri; and Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Dow could have been counted on tohandle firearms as fearlessly if not as accurately as Bill himself. But Bill tended the famished, unhappy-looking potato-patch for them, and with characteristic cheerfulness did the other chores, being quitecontent to leave to Roosevelt and Dow and another young cowpunchernamed Rowe the riding of "sunfishers" and such things. He had a levelhead and an equable temper, and the cowpunchers all liked him. When adrunken cowboy, who had been a colonel in the Confederate army, accosted him one day in Joe Ferris's store with the object apparentlyof starting a fight, it was Sewall's quiet good nature that made hisefforts abortive. 

"You're a damned pleasant-looking man, " exclaimed the Southerner. 

Sewall smiled at him. "I am, " he said. "You can't find a pleasanterman anywhere round. " Which was the essential truth about Bill Sewall. 

Of all Roosevelt's friends up and down the river, Sewall's nephew, Will Dow, was possibly the one who had the rarest qualities ofintellect and spirit. He had a poise and a winsome lovableness thatwas not often found in that wild bit of country combined with suchruggedness of character. He had a droll and altogether original senseof humor, and an imagination which struck Roosevelt as extraordinaryin its scope and power and which disported itself in the building ofdelightful yarns. 

"He was always a companion that was sought wherever he went, " saidBill Sewall. "There are men who have the faculty of pleasing andcreating mirth and he was one of that kind. "

Rowe was a different sort, of coarser fiber, but himself not withoutcharm. He was a natural horseman, fearless to recklessness, anexcellent worker, and a fighting man with a curious streak ofgentleness in him that revolted against the cruelty of thebranding-iron. Most men accepted the custom of branding cattle andhorses as a matter of course. There was, in fact, nothing to do saveaccept it, for there was no other method of indicating the ownershipof animals which could be reasonably relied on to defy the ingenuityof the thieves. Attempts to create opinion against it were regarded assentimental and pernicious and were suppressed with vigor. 

But Rowe had plenty of courage. "Branding cattle is rotten, " heinsisted, in season and out of season; adding on one occasion to agroup of cowpunchers standing about a fire with branding-irons intheir hands, "and you who do the branding are all going to hell. "

"Aw, " exclaimed a cowboy, "there ain't no hell!"

"You watch, " Rowe retorted. "You'll get there and burn just as thatthere cow. "

In comparison to the lower reaches of the Little Missouri whereElkhorn Ranch was situated, the country about the Maltese Cross wasdensely populated. Howard Eaton, eight or ten miles away on BeaverCreek, was Elkhorn's closest neighbor to the north; "Farmer" Young, the only man in the Bad Lands who had as yet attacked the problem ofagriculture in that region, was the nearest neighbor to the south. Sixor eight miles beyond Farmer Young lived some people named Wadsworth. 

Wadsworth was an unsocial being whom no one greatly liked. He had beenthe first man to bring cattle into the Bad Lands, and it was some ofhis cattle, held by Ferris and Merrifield on shares, which Roosevelthad bought in the autumn of 1883. 

Roosevelt's first call on Mrs. Wadsworth had its serio-comic aspects. The Wadsworths had a great wolf-hound whom Roosevelt himself describedas "a most ill-favored hybrid, whose mother was a Newfoundland andwhose father was a large wolf, " and which looked, it seemed, more likea hyena than like either of its parents. The dog both barked andhowled, but it had a disconcerting habit of doing neither when it wason business bent. The first intimation Roosevelt had of its existenceone day, as he was knocking at the door of the Wadsworth cabin, was arush that the animal made for his trousers. 

Pete Pellessier, a round-faced, genial cowpuncher from Texas, subsequently told about it. "It was one of those dogs that comesneaking around, never a growl or anything else--just grab a hunk ofyour leg to let you know they're around. That's the kind of a dog thiswas. Roosevelt just started to make a bow to Mrs. Wadsworth, 'wayover, real nice. Well, that dog flew and grabbed him in the seat ofthe pants--he had on corduroy pants. 

"'Get out of here, you son-of-a-gun!' he says; 'get out of here, Itell you!'

"Then he turns to Mrs. Wadsworth. 'I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wadsworth, 'he says politely, 'that dog was grabbing me an'--'

"Just then the dog reached for another helping. 'Get out of here!'Roosevelt shouts to the dog, and then turns back, 'How do you do?' hesays to Mrs. Wadsworth. But the dog came back a third time, and thattime Roosevelt gave that wolf-hound a kick that landed him about tenrods off. An' Roosevelt went on with his visiting. "

It was a free and joyous life that Roosevelt lived with hiswarm-hearted companions at Elkhorn those late summer days of 1885. Nowand then, when work was done, he would sit on the porch for an hour ortwo at a time, watching the cattle on the sand-bars, "while, " as hewrote subsequently, "the vultures wheeled overhead, their blackshadows gliding across the glaring white of the dry river-bed. " Oftenhe would sink into his rocking-chair, grimy and hot after the day'swork, and read Keats and Swinburne for the contrast their sensuousmusic offered to the vigorous realities about him; or, forgettingbooks, he would just rock back and forth, looking sleepily out acrossthe river while the scarlet crests of the buttes softened to rose andthen to lavender, and lavender gave place to shadowy gray, and graygave place to the luminous purple of night. The leaves of thecottonwood trees before the house were never still, and often thecooing of mourning doves would come down to him from some high bough. He heard the thrush in the thicket near by, and in the distance theclanging cries of the water-fowl. He knew the note of every bird, andthey were like friends calling to him. 

XIX

 We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men, But we had to come to town to get the mail. And we're ridin' home at daybreak--'cause the air is cooler then-- All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail. Shorty's nose won't bear paradin', Bill's off eye is darkly fadin', All our toilets show a touch of disarray; For we found that City life is a constant round of strife, And we ain't the breed for shyin' from a fray. 

 Chant your war-whoops, pardners dear, while the east turns pale with fear, And the chaparral is tremblin' all aroun'; For we're wicked to the marrer; we're a midnight dream of terror, When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town!

 Badger CLARK

Meanwhile, as the months passed by, Medora was growing, and stretchingitself. Even the Mandan _Pioneer_, a hundred and fifty miles to theeast, thought it worth its while to brag about it. 

 Medora is distinctively a cattle town [runs the comment], and is ambitious to be the cattle market of the Northwest. In two years it has grown from absolutely nothing to be a town which possesses a number of fine buildings, and represents a great many dollars of capital. The Black Hills freight depot is a well-built, substantial building. A number of brick houses have been built during the last year, including a very neat and attractive Catholic church, and a large hotel. 

The _Pioneer_ did not see fit to say that most of the "fine buildings"had been built by one man and that on the slender reed of that man'sbusiness acumen the prosperity of the whole community rested. Tohave done so would possibly have seemed like looking a gift-horse inthe mouth. And Medora's prosperity appeared solid enough, in allconscience. Things were, in fact, humming. There was now a clothingstore in town, a drug store, a hardware store, a barber shop. Backedby Roosevelt, Joe Ferris had erected a two-story structure on theeastern bank and moved his store from Little Missouri to be an activerival of the Marquis's company store. A school was built (by whom andwith what funds remains mysterious) and Bill Dantz was madeSuperintendent of Education; and next to Joe's store, opposite theoffice of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, Fisher laid the beginnings ofMedora's Great White Way with a roller-skating pavilion, where thecowboys who drifted into town, drunk or sober, exhibited their skillto the hilarious delight of their friends. 

But the architectural monuments in which Medora's opulence mostvigorously expressed itself were the saloons. The number of thesevaried, according to the season. Sometimes there were a dozen, sometimes there were more, for no one bothered about a license and anyone with ten dollars and a jug of rum could start his own "liquorparlor. "

Among the saloons Bill Williams's stood in a class by itself. He, too, had followed civilization to Medora, establishing himself first in asmall building near Joe's store, and, when that burnt down, in animposing two-story frame structure which the Marquis de Mores builtfor him. The bar-room was on the first floor and above it was a hugehall which was used for public meetings and occasionally for dances. The relation of the dance-hall to the bar-room had its disadvantages, especially when the shooting began. The bar-room itself was asumptuous affair, for Williams had the shrewdness to know that it wasnot only rum that the lonely cowpuncher sought when he pushed in theswinging doors. The place was never closed, night or day, and the farowheel was seldom silent. 

The other saloons could not compete with the gorgeousness with whichBill Williams edged the cloud of robbery and ruin that hung about hisiniquitous saloon; when they seemed for a night to compete, drawing totheir own hospitable bars the cowpunchers whom Williams looked upon ashis own legitimate prey, he had a way of standing at his door andshooting indiscriminately into the night. Out of a dozen rum-shopswould pour excited cowboys eager to know "what the shooting wasabout, " and as they crowded inquisitively about his bar, trade wouldonce more become brisk in Bill Williams's saloon. 

[Illustration: Hell-Roaring Bill Jones. ]

[Illustration: Bill Williams's saloon (1919). ]

Bill Williams was a _bona-fide_ "bad man. " So also was Maunders. Butthey were of Medora's hundred-odd permanent inhabitants during thatsummer of 1885, the only ones who might with complete fidelity tofacts have been so designated. Others blew in and blew out again, creating a little disturbance and drifting west. The great majorityof Medora's noisy population were merely light-hearted youngsterswho had not yet outgrown their love for fire-crackers. 

Under the title "Styles in the Bad Lands, " the Dickinson _Press_reprinted certain "fashion notes" from the columns of an enterprisingcontemporary:

 The Estelline (Dak. ) _Bell_ has been at some trouble to collect the following latest fashion notes for the benefit of its Bad Lands readers: The "gun" is still worn on the right hip, slightly lower down than formerly. This makes it more convenient to get at during a discussion with a friend. The regular "forty-five" still remains a favorite. Some affect a smaller caliber, but it is looked upon as slightly dudish. A "forty, " for instance, may induce a more artistic opening in an adversary, but the general effect and mortality is impaired. The plug of tobacco is still worn in the pocket on the opposite side from the shooter, so when reaching for the former, friends will not misinterpret the move and subsequently be present at your funeral. It is no longer considered necessary to wait for introductions before proceeding to get the drop. There will be time enough for the mere outward formalities of politeness at the inquest. The trimming of the "iron" is still classic and severe, only a row of six cartridges grouped around the central barrel being admissible. Self-cockers are now the only style seen in the best circles. [19] Much of the effectiveness of the gun was formerly destroyed by having to thumb up the hammer, especially when the person with whom you were conversing wore the self-cocking variety. It has been found that on such occasions the old-style gun was but little used except in the way of circumstantial evidence at the inquest. Shooting from the belt without drawing is considered hardly the thing among gentlemen who do not wish to be considered as attempting to attract notice. In cases where the gentleman with whom you are holding a joint debate already has the drop, his navy six having a hair trigger, and he being bound to shoot, anyway, this style of discussion is allowable, though apt to cause a coldness to spring up. As regards the number of guns which it is admissible to wear, great latitude is allowed, from one up to four being noted on the street and at social gatherings. One or two is generally considered enough, except where a sheriff with a reputation of usually getting his man and a Winchester rifle is after you, when we cannot too strongly impress upon the mind of the reader the absolute necessity for going well heeled. 

 [Footnote 19: "Whoever wrote that was badly off his base. The simon-pure cowpuncher would not accept a self-cocker as a gift. They laughed at them in fact. Once, on a bet, a cowpuncher shot off all six shots with his single-action Colt . 45 while his opponent was getting off three with his self-cocker. "--_Lincoln Lang. _]

In Medora in those midsummer days of 1885, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones wasthe life of every party. Wherever there was deviltry, there was BillJones, profane and obscene beyond description, but irresistiblycomical. He was as lean and muscular as John Falstaff was short andfat, but the divergences between the genial old reprobate of Eastcheapand the saturnine, but by no means unlovable, rapscallion of Medorawere less striking than the qualities they had in common. He had goodfriends, none better than the gay, infinitely pathetic patrician'sson, Van Zander, who played Prince Hal to him, light-heartedlyflipping a fortune in the air as others, essentially less admirable, might have flipped a dollar. 

"Deacon" Cummins thought Bill Jones dreadful, which naturally incitedBill Jones always to do the worst that was in him to do whenever the"Deacon" was within earshot. He found delight in drawing up beside himon the round-up and pouring forth every evil tale he knew. 

"Jones, I don't know why you tell those stories when I'm around, " the"Deacon" would exclaim, not without pathos. "You know I don't likethem. "

After his first encounter with Roosevelt in the office of the _BadLands Cowboy_, Bill Jones told him no foul stories. The contrastbetween Bill Jones's attitude toward a virtuous man who was strong anda virtuous man who was weak might furnish a theme for many sermons. 

The antics of Saturday nights were many and some of them wereexplosive, but on the whole men looked more tolerantly on the shacklesof civilization in Medora in 1885 than they had in 1884. Thevigilantes' raid had undoubtedly chased the fear of God into thehearts of the evil-doers. 

 Whatever can be said against the methods adopted by the "stranglers" who came through here last fall [remarked the _Bad Lands Cowboy_], it cannot but be acknowledged that the result of their work has been very wholesome. Not a definite case of horse-stealing from a cowman has been reported since, and it seems as though a very thorough clean-up had been made. 

The ranch-owners, evidently, did not find the situation assatisfactory as Packard found it, for in July the Little MissouriRiver Stockmen's Association, of which Roosevelt was chairman, determined to organize a posse to "clean up" the country north of therailroad between the Missouri and the Little Missouri rivers. Osterhaut, captain of the round-up, was appointed leader and half adozen ranchmen contributed a cowboy apiece. Roosevelt sent Sewall ashis representative. 

 The route was through about as wild and unsettled a portion of the country as can be found now, so the people here say [Sewall wrote his brother on his return], and the oldest heads seemed to think thare might be some danger, but we saw nothing worse than ourselves. 

Once more, that August, Packard raised his voice in favor of theorganization of the county, but once more mysterious forces blockedhis efforts. Meanwhile, the Stockmen's Association was exerting astabilizing influence that was as quiet as it was profound. No onetalked about it, or thought much about it. But to evil-doers, itloomed uncomfortably in the background. Sometime during the year 1885, the Association voted to employ a stock inspector at Medora to examinethe brands of all cattle shipped thence to Chicago. This was adistinct check to the thieves, and might have been checkmate, if theAssociation had not seen fit to appoint to the position the same JoeMorrill who as United States deputy marshal had already exhibited atenderness toward the lawbreakers which was almost if not altogethercriminal. What Roosevelt's attitude was to this appointment is notknown; but he was under no illusions in regard to Morrill. 

Amid the tumult and excitement of life in Medora that summer of 1885, the consolations of organized religion were more inaccessible eventhan the services of an earthly physician, and there was no servant ofChrist, of any creed or any denomination, who ministered to the menand women scattered through that wild region in a manner even remotelycomparable to the self-sacrificing devotion with which Dr. Stickneyministered to them. That excellent disciple of the Lord doctoredbroken spirits even as he doctored broken bodies. The essentials ofreligion, which are love and service, he gave with both hands from afull heart; the "trimmings" he left to the parsons. 

These "trimmings" were, it seemed, the only things which the fewprofessional men of God who drifted into Medora were able tocontribute. With the exception of the Roman Catholic chapel, erectedby the Marquise de Mores as a thank-offering after the birth of hertwo children, there was no church of any denomination in LittleMissouri or Medora, or, in fact, anywhere in Billings County; and inthe chapel there were services not more than once or twice a month. Occasionally an itinerant Methodist or Baptist, whom no one knewanything about, blew in from anywhere, and blew out again; and if hewas seen no more there were no lamentations. [20] Services of a sortwere held in the "depot, " in one of the stores or in the dance-hallover Bill Williams's saloon, but attendance was scanty. 

 [Footnote 20: The Dickinson _Press_ burst into verse in describing the exploits of one of the preachers. 

 "Of a gospel preacher we now will tell Who started from Glendive to save souls from hell. At the Little Missouri he struck a new game, With the unregenerate, 'Honest John' is its name. 

 "He indulged too much in the flowing bowls, And forgot all about the saving of souls, But 'dropped' his three hundred, slept sweetly and well, And let the Little Missourians wander to ---- that place whose main principles of political economy are brimstone and caloric. "

 But the verses tell only half the story. As Sylvane Ferris relates it Bill Williams, conniving with Jess Hogue to fleece the preacher, gave him the impression that he too was losing heavily; and actually shed tears. The preacher was heard to murmur, as he staggered into the night, "I don't mind losing my own money, but I am so sorry for that nice Mr. Williams. "]

The inhabitants of the Bad Lands did not greatly feel the need ofspiritual instruction, and were inclined to seek consolation, whenthey needed it, in "Forty-Mile Red-Eye" rather than in theology. 

"Anything or any one associated with religion or spiritual living wasshunned, " Bill Dantz explained in after days, "religion being lookedon as an institution for old women and weaklings. Such travelingevangelists and, later, regular pastors as came to the Northwest weretreated with respect, but never came within miles of the intimacy orconfidence of the cowboys. Such early congregations as clustered aboutthe pioneer churches were the newly arrived 'nesters' or homesteadersof the towns; the cowboys never. There could be no possible communityof interests between book-learned men of sedentary profession and ahalf-tamed, open-range horseman. "

The reason, of course, was that the missionaries were fundamentallyless honest and virtuous than the gay-hearted argonauts to whom theyattempted to bring the gospel; and their patient listeners, who had noillusions concerning their own piety, nevertheless knew it. Thepreachers, moreover, were less than human. They preached interminablesermons. Discourses lasting an hour and a half were common, and evenlengthier ones were not unusual. The parsons were hopelesslythick-skinned, moreover, and impervious to hints. When on oneoccasion, at which Sylvane was present, the congregation began toconsult their watches, the preacher, instead of bringing his sermon toa close, exclaimed, "See here, you don't want to be lookin' at yourwatches. You don't hear a sermon often. "

One missionary, the representative of a certain Home Mission Society, came to Packard, saying that he wanted to start a church in Medora, and asking Packard for his moral support. Packard agreed that a churchmight be useful and secured the baggage-room at the "depot" for anauditorium. The man held his first services, preaching an hour and ahalf. 

"See here, " said Packard when the performance was over, "this won'tdo. You preach altogether too long. "

"Well, " asked the preacher, "how long shall it be?"

"Your whole service oughtn't to be longer than your sermon was. "

The missionary it appeared, was eager to please. The following Sundayhe preached three quarters of an hour. 

But Packard was still dissatisfied. "Cut it to fifteen minutes, " heinsisted. "You can say all you have to say in that time. "

The third Sunday the missionary did not appear. He had found itnecessary to make a swift exit from his domicile, departing by onedoor as a sheriff entered by another. He had, it seems, knocked in thehead of one of his parishioners with a hatchet. 

Experiences of this sort were not calculated to inspire respect forthe clergy in the minds of the cowpunchers. 

"Them preachers, " Sylvane subsequently remarked, "broke us fellowsfrom going to church. "

But though religion did not flourish in the alkaline soil of the BadLands, the fundamental American principle of orderly government, basedon the consent of the governed, slowly and with many setbacks tookroot. The town of Medora itself began to sober down. Joe Ferris was arock of defense for law and order. In disputes, instead of clutchingat the six-shooter, men began to turn to Joe as an arbitrator, knowingthat he was honest and fair and had a sense of humor. Packard, moreover, had established himself firmly in the respect and affectionof his neighbors, and his reiterations, week after week and monthafter month, of certain notions of order and decency, gradually beganto have their effect. The _Cowboy_ became the dominant factor inMedora's struggle toward maturity. 

From out of the blue ether and the whimsical generosity of Fate, meanwhile, had come an assistant for Packard who gave new zest to hisadventure. His name was Johnny O'Hara, and Packard always insistedthat he came as a gift from the gods. 

"In all literature there was only one like him, " said Packard in afterdays, "and that was Kim. And Kim's name was O'Hara. As chela to TeshooLama, Kim acquired merit. As devil in the _Bad Lands Cowboy_ office, Johnny acquired a place in my estimation only to be described in thebeatitudes of an inspired writer. Kim went out with his begging-bowland he and his Lama feasted bounteously. Johnny boarded passengertrains with an armful of the _Cowboy_ and returned with enough moneyto pay current expenses. Kim played the great game with StricklandSahib and attained rupees sufficient for a ride on the tee-rain. Johnny took the remains of a bunch of bananas I had ordered by expressfrom St. Paul and sold them for enough to pay for the first and even asecond one. Two banana feasts for nothing, plus a profit! Kim camefrom the top of Zam-Zanneh to his chelaship with Teshoo Lama. Johnnycame from the top of Mount Olympus or the biggest butte in the BadLands to become my right hand. Blessed be the name of O'Hara, be itKim or Johnny. "

They worked together, with Joe Ferris and Sylvane and Merrifield andGregor Lang and Howard Eaton, the solid citizens, and Roosevelt, theaggressive champion of order, to establish America in a patch ofsagebrush wilderness. 

XX

 Bill's head was full o' fire An' his gizzard full o' rum, An' the things he said wuz rich an' red An' rattled as they come. 

 Dave wuz on his stummick, Readin' the news at his ease-like, When Bill comes, brave, sayin' what he'll do to Dave In words what could walk away, cheese-like. 

 Ol' Bill's fist wuz man-size Sure as any alive-- But Dave, never squintin', turns over the printin' An' there wuz his Forty-five. 

 Bill he chokes an' swallers, But Dave he's gentle an' mild, An' they talks together o' cows an' the weather, An' allows they is re-con-ciled. 

 From _Medora Nights_

Where, meanwhile, was the Marquis de Mores?

A casual observer, during the spring of 1885, might have remarked thatphysically he was never long at any one place; but that metaphoricallyhe was on the crest of the wave. The erection of the great abattoir, which had replaced the more primitive structure built in 1883, gave animpression of great prosperity. Actually, however, it was a symptom offailure. It had, in fact, been erected only because of theirremediable inefficiency of the original smaller structure. By theend of 1884 the Marquis had discovered that the slaughtering oftwenty-five head of cattle a day could not, by the most painstakingapplication of "business methods, " be made profitable. It took morethan butchers, the Marquis found, to operate a slaughter-house. Anengine was needed and an engineer, a foreman, a bookkeeper, ahide-man, a tallow-man, a blood-man, a cooper, and a night-watchman. These men could easily take care of three or four hundred head a day, and they were required to take care only of twenty-five. 

The Marquis was not without executive ability. He had, since thepreceding autumn, sought competent advisers, moreover, and followedtheir suggestions. Among other things, these advisers had told himthat, owing to the unusual quality of the stem-cured grass in the BadLands, beef fit for market could be slaughtered as early as the firstof June when beef commanded a high price. 

Accordingly, on June 1st the new abattoir was opened. Every precautionagainst waste had, it seemed, been taken, and for fear lest the branchhouses in Kansas City, Bismarck, and elsewhere should be unable toabsorb the output of the slaughter-house and interrupt its steadyoperation, the Marquis secured a building on West Jackson Street, Chicago, where the wholesale dealers in dressed beef had their stalls, with the purpose of there disposing of his surplus. 

[Illustration: Hotel de Mores. ]

[Illustration: The abattoir of the Marquis de Mores. ]

A hundred head of cattle were slaughtered daily at the new abattoir. At last the plant was efficient. The Marquis had a right tocongratulate himself. But unexpectedly a fresh obstacle to successobtruded itself. The experts had been wrong; the beef proved ofpoor quality. The branch houses disposed of it with difficulty, andthe retail dealers in Chicago refused to buy. Although dressed beefwas produced there in enormous quantities for Eastern markets, thelocal consumer had a prejudice against cold-storage meat. He did notlike grass-fed beef, moreover. It was as good or better than corn-fedbeef, but he was not accustomed to it, and would not change his habitseven at a saving. 

It was a staggering blow, but the Marquis was a fighting man and hetook it without wincing. Packard, discussing the situation with himone day, pointed out to him that the cattle could not possibly bestall-fed before they were slaughtered as no cattle feed was raisedshort of the corn country, hundreds of miles to the south. 

The Marquis was not noticeably perturbed by this recital of an obviousfact. "I am arranging to buy up the hop crop of the Pacific coast, " heanswered calmly. "This I will sell to the Milwaukee and St. Louisbrewers on an agreement that they shall return to me all the resultantmalt after their beer is made. This I will bring to Medora in tankcars. It is the most concentrated and fattening food to be bought. Iwill cover the town site south of the track with individualfeeding-pens; thousands of them. Not only can I hold fat cattle aslong as I wish, but I will feed cattle all the year round and alwayshave enough to keep the abattoir running. "

There was something gorgeous in the Marquis's inability to know whenhe was beaten. His power of self-hypnotism was in fact, amazing, andthe persistence with which he pursued new bubbles, in his efforts toescape from the devils which the old ones had hatched as they burst, had its attractive side. 

"The Medora Stage and Forwarding Company, " the Dickinson _Press_announced on May 16th, "is a total wreck. " It was; and shortly after, Van Driesche, most admirable of valets and now the Marquis's privatesecretary, went with "Johnny" Goodall, foreman of the Marquis's ranch, to Deadwood to salvage what they could from the rocks. 

But two weeks later the Marquis had a new dream. The _Press_ announcedit; "The Marquis de Mores believes he has discovered kaoline, a clayfrom which the finest pottery is made, near the town of Medora. " Theinference is clear. If Medora could not rival Chicago, it might easilyrival Sèvres or Copenhagen. 

For all the Marquis's endeavors to outface fortune, however, and towin success somewhere, somehow, beyond this valley of a hundredfailures, the Nemesis which every man creates out of his limitationswas drawing her net slowly and irresistibly about him. He had nofriends in Medora. His foreign ways and his alien attitude of mindkept him, no doubt against his own desires, outside the warm circle ofthat very human society. He was an aristocrat, and he did notunderstand the democratic individualism of the men about him. "TheMarquis, " as one of his associates later explained, "always had theidea of being the head of something or other, and tried to runeverything he had anything to do with. "

The Marquis loved the Bad Lands; there was no question about that. "Ilike this country, " he said to J. W. Foley, who became hissuperintendent about this time, "because there is room to turn aroundwithout stepping on the feet of others. " The trouble was, however, that with a man of the Marquis's qualities and limitations, the Desertof Sahara would scarcely have been wide enough and unsettled enough tokeep him content with his own corner of it. He seemed fated to step onother people's toes, possibly because at bottom he did not greatlycare if he did step on them when they got in the way. 

"De Mores, " said Lincoln Lang, "seemed to think that some sort ofdivine right reposed in him to absorb the entire Little Missouricountry and everything in it. "

He had king's blood in him, in fact, and the genealogy which hesolemnly revealed to Foley reached into an antiquity staggeringlyremote, and made Bourbons and Guelphs, Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgsappear by comparison as very shoddy parvenus. He claimed descent onthe maternal side from Caius Mucius, who, as Livy relates, crossed theTiber to slay King Porsena and killed the King's secretary by mistake, a piece of business so similar to certain actions of the man whoclaimed him for an ancestor as to lend some color to the claim. DeMores was related more or less nearly to the Orleans family which hadnever renounced what it regarded as its title to the throne of France;and he himself had his eye on a crown. Behind all his activities inthe Bad Lands loomed a grandiose purpose. To one or two of hisassociates he revealed it. He would make a great fortune in America, he declared, then return to France and, with the glitter of hisdollars about him, gain control of the French army and by a _coupd'état_ make himself King of France. 

It was a gorgeous piece of day-dreaming; but its fulfillment was, inthose middle eighties, not beyond the border of the possible. 

As the only rival for leadership in the Bad Lands of this aspirant fora throne stood, by one of Fate's queerest whimsies, a man who also hadhis eye on one of the high places of this world. The Marquis de Moreswas the leader, or if not the leader at least the protector, of theforces of reaction; Theodore Roosevelt was the leader of the forces ofprogress. They were both in the middle twenties, both aristocrats bybirth, both fearless and adventurous; but one believed in privilegeand the other believed in equality of opportunity. 

"When it came to a show-down, the Marquis was always there, " said Dr. Stickney, who watched the quiet struggle for supremacy with aphilosophic eye, "but he had no judgment. You couldn't expect it. Hewas brought up in the army. He was brought up in social circles thatdidn't develop judgment. He didn't know how to mix with the cowboys. When he did mix with any of them, it was always with the worstelement. Now, when Roosevelt came to the Bad Lands he naturallyattracted the better element among the cowboys, such men as theFerrises and Merrifield, men of high character whose principles weregood. "

And Packard said: "Roosevelt was the embodiment of the belief ofobedience to the law and the right of the majority to change it. TheMarquis was equally honest in his belief that he himself was the lawand that he had a divine right to change the law as he wished. "

The conflict between the two forces in the community was quiet butpersistent. Roosevelt dined on occasion with the Marquis and theMarquis dined on occasion with Roosevelt; they discussed horsemanshipand hunting and books; at the meeting of the Montana Stockgrowers'Association at Miles City in April, that year, the Marquis proposedRoosevelt for membership; on the surface, in fact, they got alongtogether most amicably. But under the surface fires were burning. 

On one occasion, when Roosevelt and the Marquis were both in the East, Roosevelt sent a message to his sister "Bamie, " with whom he wasliving, telling her that he had invited the Marquis and his wife todinner that evening. The message that came back from "Bamie" was, insubstance, as follows: "By all means bring them. But please let meknow beforehand whether you and the Marquis are on friendly terms atthe moment or are likely to spring at each other's throat. "

"Theodore did not care for the Marquis, " said "Bamie" in later years, "but he was sorry for his wife and was constantly helping the Marquisout of the scrapes he was forever getting into with the othercattlemen. "

There were many reasons why the relations between the two men shouldnot have been noticeably cordial. Roosevelt had from the start thrownin his lot with the men who had been most emphatic in theirdenunciation of the Marquis's part in the killing of Riley Luffsey. Gregor Lang, who was the Marquis's most caustic critic, wasRoosevelt's warm friend. "Dutch Wannigan, " moreover, who had beensaved only by a miracle in the memorable ambuscade, was one ofRoosevelt's cow-hands. That summer of 1885 he was night-herder for theMaltese Cross "outfit. " He was a genial soul and Roosevelt liked him. No doubt he was fascinated also by his remarkable memory, for"Wannigan, " who was unable to read or write, could be sent to townwith a verbal order for fifty items, and could be counted on not onlyto bring every article he had been sent for, but to give an exactaccounting, item by item, of every penny he had spent. For the Marquisthe presence of "Dutch Wannigan" in Roosevelt's "outfit" was, nodoubt, convincing evidence of Roosevelt's own attitude in regard tothe memorable affray of June 26th, 1883. Whatever irritation he mayhave felt toward Roosevelt because of it could scarcely have beenmollified by the fact that "Dutch Wannigan, " in his quiet way, wasmoving heaven and earth to bring about the indictment of the Marquisfor murder. 

But there was another reason why the relations between the Marquis andRoosevelt were strained. In the Marquis's business ventures he wasconstantly being confronted by unexpected and, in a sense, unaccountable obstacles, that rose suddenly out of what appeared aclear road, and thwarted his plans. The railroads, which gave specialrates to shippers who did far less business than he, found for onereason or another that they could not give him any rebate at all. Wholesale dealers refused, for reasons which remained mysterious, tohandle his meat; yard-men at important junctions delayed his cars. Hecould not help but be conscious that principalities and powers that hecould not identify were working in the dark against him. He suspectedthat the meat-packers of Chicago had passed the word to their alliesin Wall Street that he was to be destroyed; and assumed thatRoosevelt, bound by a dozen ties to the leaders in the business lifeof New York, was in league with his enemies. 

A totally unexpected incident brought the growing friction between thetwo men for a flash into the open. Roosevelt had agreed to sell theMarquis eighty or a hundred head of cattle at a price, on which theyagreed, of about six cents a pound. Accompanied by two of hiscowpunchers, he drove the cattle to the enclosure adjoining theabattoir of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, had themweighed, and went to the Marquis for his check. 

"I am sorry I cannot pay you as much as I agreed for those cattle, "said the Marquis. 

"But you bought the cattle, " Roosevelt protested. "The sale wascomplete with the delivery. "

"The Chicago price is down a half cent, " answered the Marquisregretfully. "I will pay you a half cent less than we agreed. "

The air was electric. Packard told about it long afterwards. "It was aticklish situation, " he said. "We all knew the price had been agreedon the day before; the sale being completed with the delivery of thecattle. Fluctuations in the market cut no figure. Roosevelt would havemade delivery at the agreed price even if the Chicago price had goneup. "

Roosevelt turned to the Marquis. "Did you agree to pay six cents forthese cattle?"

"Yes, " the Marquis admitted. "But the Chicago price--"

"Are you going to pay six cents for them?" Roosevelt broke in. 

"No; I will pay five and a half cents. "

Roosevelt turned abruptly to his cowpunchers. "Drive 'em out, boys, "he said. The men drove out the cattle. 

"There was no particular ill-feeling between them, " Packard saidlater, "and Roosevelt gave the Marquis credit for an honest beliefthat a variation in the Chicago price would cut a figure in theiragreed price. It was that very fact, however, which made impossibleany further business relations between them. "

The _Pioneer Press_ of St. Paul, in its issue of August 23d, 1885, tells its own version of the story. 

 About a year ago the Marquis made a verbal contract with Theodore Roosevelt, the New York politician, who owns an immense cattle ranch near Medora, agreeing to purchase a number of head of cattle. Roosevelt had his stock driven down to the point agreed upon, when the Marquis declined to receive them, and declared that he had made no such contract. Roosevelt stormed a little, but finally subsided and gave orders to his men not to sell any cattle to the Marquis or transact any business with him. The relations between the Marquis and Roosevelt have since been somewhat strained. 

A reporter of the Bismarck _Tribune_, a few days after this storyappeared, caught Roosevelt as he was passing through the city on hisreturn from a flying visit to the East, and evidently asked him whattruth there was in it. His deprecation of the story is not altogetherconclusive. 

 Theodore Roosevelt, the young reformer of New York, passed through this city yesterday [he writes], _en route_ to his ranch in the Bad Lands. He was as bright and talkative as ever, and spoke of the great opportunities of the imperial Northwest with more enthusiasm than has ever been exhibited by the most sanguine old-timer. Mr. Roosevelt recently had a slight tilt with the Marquis de Mores on a cattle deal, and the story has been exaggerated until readers of Eastern papers are led to believe that these two cattle kings never speak as they pass by and are looking for each other with clubs. This is not true. 

Meanwhile, during those summer months of 1885 the hot water into whichthe Frenchman had flung himself when he assisted in the killing ofRiley Luffsey began to simmer once more. It came to a boil on August26th, when a grand jury in Mandan indicted the Marquis de Mores formurder in the first degree. 

The Marquis had not been unaware how matters were shaping themselves. When the movement to have him indicted first got under way, in fact, it was intimated to him that a little matter of fifteen hundreddollars judiciously distributed would cause the indictment to bewithdrawn. He inquired whether the indictment would stay withdrawn orwhether he would be subject to indictment and, in consequence, toblackmail, during the rest of his life. He was told that since he hadnever been acquitted by a jury, he might be indicted at any moment, the next day, or ten years hence. He declared that he preferred toclean up the matter then and there. 

"I have plenty of money for defense, " he said to a reporter of the NewYork _Times_, adapting, not without humor, a famous American war-cryto his own situation, "but not a dollar for blackmail. "

Knowing the ways of courts, he removed himself from the Territorywhile the forces were being gathered against him at Mandan. 

"I determined that I would not be put in jail, " he explained to the_Times_ interviewer, "to lie there perhaps for months waiting for atrial. Besides, a jail is not a safe place in that part of thecountry. Now the court seems to be ready and so will I be in a fewdays. I do not fear the result. "

He was convinced that the same forces which had thwarted him in hisbusiness enterprises were using the Luffsey episode to push him out ofthe way. 

"I think the charge has been kept hanging over me, " he said, "for thepurpose of breaking up my business. It was known that I intended tokill and ship beef to Chicago and other Eastern cities, and hadexpended much money in preparations. If I could have been arrested andput in jail some months ago, it might have injured my business andperhaps have put an end to my career. "

The Marquis was convinced that it was Roosevelt who was financing theopposition to him and spoke of him with intense bitterness. 

The indictment of the Marquis, meanwhile, was mightily agitating thewestern part of the Territory. Sentiment in the matter had somewhatveered since the first trials which had been held two years before. The soberer of the citizens, recognizing the real impetus which theMarquis's energy and wealth had given to the commercial activity ofthe West Missouri region, were inclined to sympathize with him. Therewas a widespread belief that in the matter of the indictment theMarquis had fallen among thieves. 

The Marquis returned from the East about the last day of August, andgave himself up to the sheriff at Mandan. He was promptly lodged injail. The remark he had made to the interviewer in New York, that ajail was not a safe place in Dakota, proved prophetic. A mob, composedof cowboys and lumberjacks, bombarded the jail in which the Marquiswas confined. At the close of the bombardment, Roosevelt, who happenedto be in Mandan, on his way to the East, called on the Marquis. 

In the Marquis's cell he found the Frenchman with his faithful valetand secretary. The secretary was under the bed, but the Marquis wassitting on its edge, calmly smoking a cigarette. 

As the date for the trial drew near, feeling rose. The idle andvociferous elements in the town discovered that the Marquis was aplutocrat and an enemy of the people, and called thirstily for hisblood. There was a large Irish population, moreover, which rememberedthat the slain man had borne the name of Riley and (two years afterhis demise) hotly demanded vengeance. The Marquis declared that, withpopular sentiment as it was, he could not be given a fair trial, anddemanded a change of venue. It was granted. The mob, robbed of itsprey, howled in disappointment. A mass meeting was held andresolutions were passed calling for the immediate removal of theiniquitous judge who had granted the Marquis's petition. 

The trial, which began on September 15th, was more nerve-racking forthe lawyers than for the defendant. For the witnesses were elusive. The trial seemed to be regarded by the majority of those connectedwith it as a gracious act of Providence for the redistribution of someof the Marquis's wealth. Everybody, it seemed, was thrusting a fingerinto the Marquis's purse. One of his friends later admitted that theFrenchman's money had been freely used, "but, of course, only, " heblandly explained, "to persuade the witnesses to tell the truth. "

McFay, a carpenter, who had distinguished himself at the previoustrial by the melodramatic quality of his testimony, proved thepeskiest witness of all. He was spending his days and his nightsduring the trial gambling and living high. Whenever his money gave outhe called at the office of one of the Marquis's supporters to "borrow"fifty dollars to continue his revelry, and the victim was too muchafraid of what fiction he might tell the jury to refuse him. It wasdetermined in solemn conclave, however, that McFay should be the firstwitness called, and disposed of. 

The lawyers breathed a sigh of relief when the time came to put theshifty carpenter on the stand. But just as he was to be called, McFaydrew aside the friend of the Marquis whom he had so successfully bled. 

"Come outside a minute, " he said. 

The friend went. 

"My memory is getting damn poor, " declared the carpenter. 

"How much do you want?"

"Oh, five hundred. "

He got it. The trial proceeded. 

One juror was, for no reason which they themselves could adequatelyanalyze, withdrawn by the Marquis's attorneys at the last minute. Hetold one of them years after that, if he had been allowed to serve, hewould have "hung up the jury until some one had passed him tenthousand. " It was a close shave. 

Two items in the testimony were notably significant. One wascontributed by the Marquis: "O'Donald and Luffsey discharged all thebarrels of their revolvers, " he said, "and then began to shoot withtheir rifles. " The other item was contributed by Sheriff Harmon, whoarrested O'Donald and "Dutch Wannigan" immediately after the affray. He testified "that the guns and pistols of the hunters were loadedwhen handed to him. "

The jury made no attempt to pick its way through contradictions suchas this, and returned to the court room after an absence of tenminutes with a verdict of "not guilty. "

[Illustration: The Bad Lands near Medora. Showing the house of theMarquis de Mores. ]

The Marquis's acquittal did not, it seems, mollify his bitternesstoward Roosevelt. He prided himself on his judgment, as he had onceinformed Howard Eaton, but his judgment had a habit of basing itsconclusions on somewhat nebulous premises. Two or three bits ofcircumstantial evidence had served to convince the Marquis definitelythat Roosevelt had been the impelling force behind the prosecution. The fact that "Dutch Wannigan" was an employee of Roosevelt's, initself, not unnaturally, perhaps, stirred the Marquis's ire. When hewas told, however, that "Dutch Wannigan, " before departing for thetrial at Mandan, had received money from Joe Ferris, his suspicionsappeared confirmed, for Joe was known to be Roosevelt's close friend, and it was an open secret that Roosevelt was financing Joe's venturein storekeeping. If his suspicions needed further confirmation, theyseemed to get it when a little, black-haired Irishman, named JimmieMcShane, otherwise known as "Dynamite Jimmie, " received a sum of moneyfrom Joe Ferris and appeared at the trial as the first witness for theprosecution. On the surface the case against Roosevelt was convincing, and the Marquis evidently did not dip beneath it. If he had, he wouldhave realized that Joe Ferris was the acknowledged banker of the BadLands to whom practically all the thrifty souls among the cowpunchersbrought a portion of their wages for safe-keeping. When "DutchWannigan" and "Dynamite Jimmie, " therefore, received money from JoeFerris, they received only what was their own, and what they neededfor their expenses at the trial. 

But the Marquis, whose mind liked to jump goat-like from crag to crag, did not stop to examine the evidence against Roosevelt. He accepted itat its face value, and wrote Roosevelt a stinging letter, telling himthat he had heard that Roosevelt had influenced witnesses against himin the murder trial. He had supposed, he said, that there was, nothingbut friendly feeling between himself and Roosevelt, but since it wasotherwise there was always "a way of settling differences betweengentlemen. "

Roosevelt, who had returned from the East early in October, receivedthe letter at Elkhorn Ranch and read it aloud to Bill Sewall. "That'sa threat, " he exclaimed. "He is trying to bully me. He can't bully me. I am going to write him a letter myself. Bill, " he went on, "I don'twant to disgrace my family by fighting a duel. I don't believe infighting duels. My friends don't any of them believe in it. They wouldbe very much opposed to anything of the kind, but I won't be bulliedby a Frenchman. Now, as I am the challenged party, I have theprivilege of naming the weapons. I am no swordsman, and pistols aretoo uncertain and Frenchy for me. So what do you say if I make itrifles?"

Roosevelt sat down on a log and then and there drafted his reply. Hehad no unfriendly feeling for the Marquis, he wrote, "but, as theclosing sentence of your letter implies a threat, I feel it my duty tosay that I am ready at all times and at all places to answer for myactions. "

Then he added that if the Marquis's letter was meant as a challenge, and he insisted upon having satisfaction, he would meet him withrifles at twelve paces, the adversaries to shoot and advance until oneor the other dropped. 

"Now, " said Roosevelt, "I expect he'll challenge me. If he does, Iwant you for my second. "

Sewall grunted. "You will never have to fight any duel of that kindwith that man, " he said. "He won't challenge you. He will find someway out of it. "

Roosevelt was not at all sure of this. The Marquis was a bully, but hewas no coward. 

A day or so later the answer came by special messenger. Rooseveltbrought it over to Sewall. "You were right, Bill, about the Marquis, "he said. 

Sewall read the Marquis's letter. The Marquis declared that Roosevelthad completely misunderstood the meaning of his message. The idea thathe had meant to convey was that there was always a way of settlingaffairs of that sort between gentlemen--without trouble. And would notMr. Roosevelt do him the honor of dining with him, and so forth and soon?

"The Marquis, " as Roosevelt remarked long afterward, "had a streak ofintelligent acceptance of facts, and as long as he did not _publicly_lose caste or incur ridicule by backing down, he did not intend to runrisk without adequate object. He did not expect his bluff to becalled; and when it was, he had to make up his mind to withdraw it. "

There was no more trouble after that between Theodore Roosevelt andthe Marquis de Mores. 

XXI

 I'd rather hear a rattler rattle, I'd rather buck stampeding cattle, I'd rather go to a greaser battle, Than-- Than to-- Than to fight-- Than to fight the bloody In-ji-ans. 

 I'd rather eat a pan of dope, I'd rather ride without a rope, I'd rather from this country lope, Than-- Than to-- Than to fight-- Than to fight the bloody In-ji-ans. 

 _Cowboy song_

All through that autumn of 1885, Roosevelt remained in the Bad Lands. With his whole being he reveled in the wild and care-free life; butthe newspapers did not seem to be able to rise above the notion thathe was in Dakota for political purposes:

 Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, it is rumored [remarked the Chicago _Tribune_] has an eye on politics in Dakota, and is making himself popular with the natives. He is bright, certainly, but Mr. Roosevelt will find the methods in Dakota quite different from those which gave him sudden prominence in New York. There is a great deal of breeziness in a Dakota convention, but it is not the breeziness of innocence. It is high art. The number of gentlemen who are in training for United States senatorships, when Dakota shall have acquired admission, is not limited, and each and every aspirant can pull a wire with a silent grace which is fascinating. If Mr. Roosevelt really likes politics, he will enjoy himself in Dakota. 

If Roosevelt had any notion of entering the race for the senatorshipin Dakota, he has left no record of it. Howard Eaton spoke to him onceabout it. He was interested and even a little stirred, it appeared, atthe possibility of representing the frontier in the United StatesSenate as, half a century previous, Thomas H. Benton, of Tennessee, whom he greatly admired, had represented it. But the thought failed totake permanent hold of him. He was, moreover, thinking of himself inthose days more as a writer than as a politician. 

The autumn was not without excitement. A small band of Indians beganhere and there to set fire to the prairie grass, and before thecattlemen realized what was happening, thousands of acres of winterfeed lay blackened and desolate. 

This act of ruthless destruction was the climax of a war of reprisalswhich had been carried on relentlessly between the Indians and thewhite men since the first bold pioneer had entered the West Missouricountry. There was endless trouble and bad blood between the races, which at intervals flared up in an outrage, the details of which werenever told in print because they were as a rule unprintable. In theregion between the Little Missouri and the Yellowstone, in the years1884 and 1885, the wounds left by the wars, which had culminated inthe death of Custer at the Little Big Horn, were still open and sore. In the conflict between white and red, the Indians were not alwaysthe ones who were most at fault. In many cases the robberies and othercrimes which were committed were the acts of men maddened bystarvation, for the ranges where they had hunted had been taken fromthem, and the reservations in many cases offered insufficient food. The agents of the Great White Father, moreover, were not alwaysover-careful to give them all the cattle and the ponies which theGovernment was by treaty supposed to grant them. In consequence they"lifted" a cow or a calf where they could. The cattlemen, on theirpart, thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of _might is right_, regarded the Indians as a public enemy, and were disposed to treattheir ponies and any other property which they might possess aslegitimate prize of war. There was, in fact, during the middleeighties, open and undisguised warfare between red and whitethroughout the region whose eastern border was the Bad Lands. It was, moreover, a peculiarly atrocious warfare. Many white men shot whateverIndians they came upon like coyotes, on sight; others captured them, when they could, and, stripping off their clothes, whipped them tillthey bled. The Indians retaliated horribly, delivering their whitecaptives to their squaws, who tortured them in every conceivablefashion, driving slivers up under their nails, burning them alive, andfeeding them with flesh cut from their own bodies. Along the banks ofthe Little Missouri there were no outrages, for the Indians had beendriven out of the country at the end of the seventies, and, save foroccasional raids in the early eighties, had made little trouble; butat the edge of the Bad Lands there was a skirmish now and then, and inthe winter of 1884 Schuyler Lebo, son of that odd Ulysses who hadguided Roosevelt to the Big Horn Mountains, was shot in the leg by anIndian while he was hunting on Bullion Butte. 

Roosevelt had a little adventure of his own with Indians that summer. He was traveling along the edge of the prairie on a solitary journeyto the unexplored country north and east of the range on which hiscattle grazed, and was crossing a narrow plateau when he suddenly sawa group of four or five Indians come up over the edge directly infront. As they saw him, they whipped their guns out of their slings, started their horses into a run, and came toward him at full speed. 

He reined up instantly and dismounted. 

The Indians came on, whooping and brandishing their weapons. 

Roosevelt laid his gun across the saddle and waited. 

 It was possible [Roosevelt wrote subsequently] that the Indians were merely making a bluff and intended no mischief. But I did not like their actions, and I thought it likely that if I allowed them to get hold of me they would at least take my horse and rifle, and possibly kill me. So I waited until they were a hundred yards off and then drew a bead on the first. Indians--and, for the matter of that, white men--do not like to ride in on a man who is cool and means shooting, and in a twinkling every man was lying over the side of his horse, and all five had turned and were galloping backwards, having altered their course as quickly as so many teal ducks. 

At some distance the Indians halted and gathered evidently for aconference. 

Thereupon one man came forward alone, making the peace sign first withhis blanket and then with his open hand. Roosevelt let him come towithin fifty yards. The Indian was waving a piece of soiled paper, hisreservation pass. 

"How! Me good Injun, " he called. 

"How!" Roosevelt answered. "I'm glad you are. But don't come anycloser. "

The Indian asked for sugar and tobacco. Roosevelt told him that he hadnone. Another Indian now began almost imperceptibly to approach. Roosevelt called to him to keep back, but the Indian paid noattention. 

Roosevelt whipped up his gun once more, covering the spokesman. Thatindividual burst into a volume of perfect Anglo-Saxon profanity; buthe retired, which was what he was supposed to do. Roosevelt led thefaithful Manitou off toward the plains. The Indians followed him at adistance for two miles or more, but as he reached the open country atlast they vanished in the radiant dust of the prairie. 

Indians were a familiar sight in Medora and about the ranch-houses upand down the Little Missouri. In groups of a half-dozen or over theywere formidable, but singly they were harmless and rather patheticcreatures. Roosevelt's attitude toward the Indians as a race wasunequivocal. He detested them for their cruelty, and even more fortheir emphasis on cruelty as a virtue to be carefully developed as awhite man might develop a sense of chivalry; but he recognized thefact that they had rights as human beings and as members of tribeshaving treaty relations with the United States, and insisted in seasonand out of season that those rights be respected. 

 I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the Indian [he said in the course of a lecture which he delivered in New York, during January, 1886]. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian. Turn three hundred low families of New York into New Jersey, support them for fifty years in vicious idleness, and you will have some idea of what the Indians are. Reckless, revengeful, fiendishly cruel, they rob and murder, not the cowboys, who can take care of themselves, but the defenseless, lone settlers on the plains. As for the soldiers, an Indian chief once asked Sheridan for a cannon. "What! Do you want to kill my soldiers with it?" asked the general. "No, " replied the chief, "want to kill the cowboy; kill soldier with a club. "

It was characteristic of Roosevelt that, in spite of his detestationof the race, he should have been meticulously fair to the individualmembers of it who happened to cross his path. He made it a point, bothat the Maltese Cross and at Elkhorn, that the Indians who drifted inand out at intervals should be treated as fairly as the whites, neither wronging them himself nor allowing others to wrong them. 

Mrs. Maddox, the maker of the famous buckskin shirt, who was anextraordinary woman in more ways than one, had her own very individualnotions concerning the rights of the Indians. When Roosevelt stoppedat her shack one day, he found three Sioux Indians there, evidentlytrustworthy, self-respecting men. Mrs. Maddox explained to him thatthey had been resting there waiting for dinner, when a white man hadcome along and tried to run off with their horses. The Indians hadcaught the man, but, after retaking their horses and depriving him ofhis gun, had let him go. 

"I don't see why they let him go, " she exclaimed. "I don't believe instealing Indians' horses any more than white folks', so I told 'emthey could go along and hang him, I'd never cheep! Anyhow I won'tcharge them anything for their dinner, " she concluded. 

The psychology of the Indians was curious, and it took timeoccasionally for their better qualities to reveal themselves. Aschairman of the Little Missouri Stock Association, Roosevelt on oneoccasion recovered two horses which had been stolen from an oldIndian. The Indian took them, muttering something that sounded like"Um, um, " and without a word or a gesture of gratitude rode away withhis property. Roosevelt felt cheap, as though he had done a servicewhich had not been appreciated; but a few days later the old Indiancame to him and silently laid in his arms a hide bearing an elaboratepainting of the battle of the Little Big Horn. 

The depredations of the Indians in the autumn of 1885 made concertedaction on the part of the cattlemen inevitable. The damage which thefires did to the cattle ranges themselves was not extensive, for thedevastation was confined in the main to a strip of country abouteighteen miles on either side of the railroad's right of way, and theranches were situated from twenty-five to eighty miles from the track. The real harm which the fires did was in the destruction of the"drives" to the railroad. Driving cattle tended, under the bestconditions of water and pasture, to cause loss of weight; when the"drive" lay through a burnt district for twenty or twenty-five milesthe deterioration of the cattle became a serious matter. 

Day after day the cowboys fought the fires. It was peculiarlyharassing work. 

 The process we usually followed [Roosevelt wrote in his Autobiography] was to kill a steer, split it in two lengthwise, and then have two riders drag each half-steer, the rope of one running from his saddle-horn to the front leg, and that of the other to the hind leg. One of the men would spur his horse over or through the line of fire, and the two would then ride forward, dragging the steer, bloody side downward, along the line of flame, men following on foot with slickers or wet horse-blankets to beat out any flickering blaze that was still left. It was exciting work, for the fire and the twitching and plucking of the ox carcass over the uneven ground maddened the fierce little horses so that it was necessary to do some riding in order to keep them to their work. After a while it also became very exhausting, the thirst and fatigue being great, as, with parched lips and blackened from head to foot, we toiled at our task. 

Work of this sort, day in, day out, did not make for magnanimity onthe part of the cowboys. It was found that seventy-five Indians, whohad received hunting permits from the agent at Berthold, wereresponsible for the devastation, and even the Eastern newspapers beganto carry reports about a "serious conflict" which was likely to breakout any minute "between cattlemen and Indian hunters in the Bad Landsof the Little Missouri. "

Some one evidently called a meeting of the Little Missouri RiverStockmen's Association to consider the situation, which was becomingdangerous, for on November 4th the New York _Herald_ reported that

 the Cattle Association on Thursday next will send in a party of thirty-five cowboys to order the Indians off the Bad Lands and to see that they go. The Indians, being well armed and having permits [the report concluded] are expected to resist unless they are surprised when separated in small parties. 

Whether or not the party was ever sent is dark; but there was nofurther trouble with the Indians that year. 

Roosevelt did not attend the meeting of the Association he himselfhad established. Sometime after the middle of October, he had returnedto the East. On October 24th he rode with the Meadowbrook Hunt Cluband broke his arm, riding in at the death in spite of a danglingsleeve. A week or two later he was again in the Bad Lands. 

He was a sorry sight as he arrived at Elkhorn Ranch, for his brokenarm had not been the only injury he had incurred. His face was scarredand battered. 

Bill Sewall regarded him with frank disapproval. "You're too valuablea man to use yourself up chasing foxes, " he remarked. "There's somemen that can afford to do it. There's some men that it don't make muchdifference if they do break their necks. But you don't belong to thatclass. "

Roosevelt took the lecture without protest, giving his mentor theimpression that it had sunk in. 

Roosevelt remained in the Bad Lands until after Christmas, shootinghis Christmas dinner in company with Sylvane. Before the middle ofJanuary he was back in New York, writing articles for _Outing_ and the_Century_, doing some work as a publisher in partnership with a friendof his boyhood, George Haven Putnam, delivering an occasional lecture, and now and then making a political speech. Altogether, life was notdull for him. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile, winter closed once more over the Bad Lands. The Marquiswent to France, followed by rumors disquieting to those who had highhopes for the future of what the Marquis liked to call "my littletown. " J. B. Walker, who "operated the Elk Hotel, " as the phrase went, "skipped out, " leaving behind him a thousand dollars' worth of debtsand a stock of strong drink. Nobody claimed the debts, butHell-Roaring Bill Jones took possession of the deserted cellar andsold drinks to his own great financial benefit, until it occurred tosome unduly inquisitive person to inquire into his rights; whichspoiled everything. 

The event of real importance was the arrival of a new bride in Medora. For early in January, 1886, Joe Ferris went East to New Brunswick; andwhen he came back a month later he brought a wife with him. 

It was a notable event. The "boys" had planned to give Joe and hislady a "shivaree, " such as even Medora had never encountered before, but Joe, who was crafty and knew his neighbors, succeeded inmisleading the population of the town concerning the exact hour of hisarrival with his somewhat apprehensive bride. There was a wildscurrying after tin pans and bells and other objects which wereeffective as producers of bedlam, but Joe sent a friend forth with abill of high denomination and the suggestion that the "boys" break itat Bill Williams's saloon, which had the desired effect. 

[Illustration: Joseph A. Ferris. ]

[Illustration: Joe Ferris's store. ]

The "boys" took the greatest interest in the wife whom Joe (who waspopular in town) had taken to himself out in New Brunswick, and therewas real trepidation lest Joe's wife might be the wrong sort. Other men, who had been good fellows and had run with the boys, hadmarried and been weaned from their old companions, bringing out womenwho did not "fit in, " who felt superior to the cowboys and did nottake the trouble to hide their feelings. The great test was, whetherJoe's wife would or would not like Mrs. Cummins. For Mrs. Cummins, inthe minds of the cowpunchers, stood for everything that wasreprehensible in the way of snobbery and lack of the human touch. IfMrs. Ferris liked Mrs. Cummins, it was all over; if she properlydisliked her, she would do. 

Mrs. Cummins called in due course. Merrifield was on the porch of thestore when she came and in his excited way carried the news to theboys. As soon as she left by the front steps, Merrifield bounded up bythe back. His eyes were gleaming. 

"Well, now, Mrs. Ferris, " he cried, "how did you like her?"

Mrs. Ferris laughed. 

"Well, what did she say?" Merrifield pursued impatiently. 

"Why, " remarked Mrs. Joe, "for one thing she says I mustn't trust anyof you cowboys. "

Merrifield burst into a hearty laugh. "That's her!" he cried. "That'sher! What else did she say?"

"She told me how I ought to ride, and the kind of horse I ought toget, and--"

"Go on, Mrs. Ferris, " cried Merrifield. 

"Why, she says I never want to ride any horse that any of you cowboysgive me, for you're all bad, and you haven't any consideration for awoman and you'd as lief see a woman throwed off and killed as not. "

Merrifield's eyes sparkled in the attractive way they had when he wasin a hilarious mood. "Say, did you ever hear the like of that? You'dthink, to hear that woman talk, that we was nothing but murderers. What else did she say?"

"Well, " remarked the new bride, "she said a good many things. "

"You tell me, Mrs. Ferris, " Merrifield urged. 

"For one thing she said the cowboys was vulgar and didn't have anymanners. And--oh, yes--she said that refined folks who knew the betterthings of life ought to stick together and not sink to the level ofcommon people. "

"Now, Mrs. Ferris, " remarked Merrifield indignantly, "ain't that aree-di-culous woman? Ain't she now?"

Mrs. Ferris laughed until the tears came to her eyes. "I think sheis, " she admitted. 

Merrifield carried the news triumphantly to the "boys, " and the newbride's standing was established. She became a sort of "honorarymember-once-removed" of the friendly order of cowpunchers, associatedwith them by a dozen ties of human understanding, yet, by her sex, removed to a special niche apart, where the most irresponsible did notfail, drunk or sober, to do her deference. For her ears language waswashed and scrubbed. Men who appeared to have forgotten what shamewas, were ashamed to have Mrs. Ferris know how unashamed they couldbe. Poor old Van Zander, whom every one in Billings County had seen"stewed to the gills, " pleaded with Joe not to tell Mrs. Ferris thatJoe had seen him drunk. 

It became a custom, in anticipation of a "shivaree, " to send roundword to Mrs. Ferris not to be afraid, the shooting was all in fun. 

A woman would have been less than human who had failed to feel at homein the midst of such evidences of warmth and friendly consideration. Joe Ferris's store became more than ever the center of life in Medora, as the wife whom Joe had brought from New Brunswick made his friendsher friends and made her home theirs also. 

She had been in Medora less than a month when news came from Rooseveltthat he was getting ready to start West and would arrive on the LittleMissouri sometime about the middle of March. Joe's wife knew how toget along with "boys" who were Joe's kind, but here was a differentsort of proposition confronting her. Here was a wealthy, and, in amodest way, a noted, man coming to sleep under her roof and eat at hertable. The prospect appalled her. Possibly she had visions, for allthat Joe could say, of a sort of male Mrs. Cummins. "I was scairt todeath, " she admitted later. 

Roosevelt arrived on March 18th. His "city get-up" was slightlydistracting, for it had a perfection of style that Mrs. Joe was notaccustomed to; but his delight at his return to the Bad Lands was sofrank and so expressive that her anxiety began to dissolve in herwonder at this vehement and attractive being who treated her like aqueen. He jumped in the air, clicking his heels together like a boylet unexpectedly out of school, and at odd moments clapped Joe on theback, crying, "By George! By George!" with the relish of a cannibalreaching into the pot for a second joint. 

She tried to treat him like the city man that he looked, but hepromptly put a stop to that. 

"Just use me like one of the boys, Mrs. Ferris, " he said decisively. His words sounded sincere; but, being a shrewd-minded lady, shewondered, nevertheless. 

She did not know him when he came down to breakfast next morning. Vanished was the "dude, " and in his place stood a typical cowpuncherin shaps and flannel shirt and knotted handkerchief. And his clothesrevealed that they had not been worn only indoors. 

He gave an exclamation of delight as he entered the dining-room. "Awhite tablecloth in the Bad Lands! Joe, did you ever expect to seeit?"

There was no more ice to break after that. 

XXII

 "Listen, gentle stranger, I'll read my pedigree: I'm known on handling tenderfeet and worser men than thee; The lions on the mountains, I've drove them to their lairs; The wild-cats are my playmates, and I've wrestled grizzly bears;

 "The centipedes have tried and failed to mar my tough old hide, And rattlesnakes have bit me, and crawled away and died. I'm as wild as the wild horse that roams the boundless plains, The moss grows on my teeth and wild blood flows through my veins. 

 "I'm wild and woolly and full of fleas, And never been curried below the knees. Now, little stranger, if you'll give me your address, -- How would you like to go, by fast mail or express?"

 Buckskin Joe

That spring of 1886 Roosevelt had a notable adventure. He arrived atElkhorn on March 19th. 

 I got out here all right [he wrote his sister "Bamie" the following day] and was met at the station by my men; I was really heartily glad to see the great, stalwart, bearded fellows again, and they were as honestly pleased to see me. Joe Ferris is married, and his wife made me most comfortable the night I spent in town. Next morning snow covered the ground; we pushed down, in a rough four-in-hand (how our rig would have made the estimable Mrs. Blank open her eyes!) to this ranch which we reached long after sunset, the full moon flooding the landscape with light. 

It was like coming home from a foreign country to see the LittleMissouri once more, and the strangely fascinating desolation of theBad Lands, and the home ranch and the "folks" from Maine and the loyalfriends of the Maltese Cross. He had good friends in the East, butthere was a warmth and a stalwart sincerity in the comradeship ofthese men and women which he had scarcely found elsewhere. Through thecold evenings of that early spring he loved to lie stretched at fulllength on the elk-hides and wolf-skins in front of the greatfireplace, while the blazing logs crackled and roared, and Sewall andDow and the "womenfolks" recounted the happenings of the season of hisabsence. 

Spring came early that year and about the 20th of March a greatice-jam, which had formed at a bend far up the river, came slowly pastElkhorn, roaring and crunching and piling the ice high on both banks. 

 There has been an ice gorge right in front of the house [he wrote "Bamie"], the swelling mass of broken fragments having been pushed almost up to our doorstep. The current then broke through the middle, leaving on each side of the stream, for some miles, a bank of huge ice-floes, tumbled over each other in the wildest confusion. No horse could by any chance get across; we men have a boat, and even thus it is most laborious carrying it out to the water; we work like arctic explorers. 

Early in the spring, Sewall and Dow had crossed the river to hunt fora few days in the rough hills to the east, and had killed four deerwhich they had hung in a tree to keep them from the coyotes. Rooseveltdetermined to go with his men to bring home the deer, but when, afterinfinite difficulty, they reached the thicket of dwarf cedars wherethe deer had been hung, they found nothing save scattered pieces oftheir carcasses, and roundabout the deeply marked footprints of a pairof cougars, or "mountain lions. " The beasts had evidently been at workfor some time and had eaten almost every scrap of flesh. Roosevelt andhis men followed their tracks into a tangle of rocky hills, but, before they had come in sight of the quarry, dusk obscured thefootprints and they returned home resolved to renew the pursuit atdawn. They tied their boat securely to a tree high up on the bank. 

The next day Roosevelt made arrangements with a companion of manyhunts, "old man" Tompkins, who was living in the shack which CaptainRobins had occupied, to make a determined pursuit of the cougars; butwhen, the following morning, he was ready to start once more for thefarther shore, his boat was gone. It was Bill Sewall who made thediscovery. He was not a man easily excited, and he took a certainquiet satisfaction in sitting down to breakfast and saying nothingwhile Roosevelt held forth concerning the fate which was awaiting themountain lions. 

"I guess we won't go to-day, " said Sewall, at length, munching thelast of his breakfast. 

"Why not?" Roosevelt demanded. 

Sewall showed him a red woolen mitten with a leather palm which he hadpicked up on the ice, and the end of the rope by which the boat hadbeen tied. It had been cut with a sharp knife. "Some one has gone offwith the boat, " he said. 

Roosevelt had no doubt who had stolen the boat, for the thief orthieves could scarcely have come by land without being detected. Therewas only one other boat on the Little Missouri, and that was a smallflat-bottom scow owned by three hard characters who lived in a shacktwenty miles above Elkhorn. They were considered suspicious persons, and Roosevelt and his men had shrewdly surmised for some time thatthey were considering the advisability of "skipping the country"before the vigilantes got after them. On inquiry they found that theshack which the men had occupied was deserted. 

The leader of the three was a stocky, ill-looking individual namedFinnegan, with fiery red hair which fell to his shoulders, gaining forhim the nickname "Redhead" Finnegan; a brick-red complexion, and anevil reputation. He was a surly, quarrelsome, unkempt creature, andwhen he came into a saloon with his stumbling gait (as he frequentlydid), self-respecting cowboys had a way of leaving him in fullpossession of the field, not because they feared him, but because theydid not care to be seen in his presence. He boasted that he was "fromBitter Creek, where the farther up you went the worse people got, " andhe lived "at the fountain head. " He had blown into Medora early inMarch and had promptly gone to Bill Williams's saloon and filled up onBill Williams's peculiarly wicked brand of "conversation juice. "

"Well, it laid him out all right enough, " remarked Lincoln Lang, telling about it in after years. "I can testify to that, since I wasright there and saw the whole thing. Johnny Goodall, who was somepractical joker at that time, went into the bar and saw Finnegan lyingon the floor. He got some help and moved him to the billiard table. Then Goodall sent to the barber shop for a hair clipper, and proceededto operate in the following manner: first he clipped off one side ofFinnegan's beard and moustache, and after that removed his long curlson one side, being careful to leave a stair pattern all up the side ofhis head. He concluded operations by removing the fringes upon oneside of his buckskin shirt. Next morning Finnegan sobered up and whenhe saw himself in the looking-glass he went bersark. "

"His heart got bad, " Bill Dantz remarked, taking up the narrative. "Helaid down in a fringe of brush near the Marquis's store, where hecould command a clear view of the town, and began to pump lead intoeverything in sight. "

The first shot was aimed at the office of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_. Whether or not "Redhead" Finnegan had it in for the stern moralist whoinsisted that drunken criminals should be punished, not only for theircrimes, but also for their drunkenness, is a question on which therecords are dark. Fisher was shaving in Packard's office and the shotbroke the mirror in front of him. Packard, who was on horseback on thebluff behind Medora, saw Fisher dash out of the shack, and rushed tothe scene of conflict. His horse had knocked Finnegan senselessbefore the desperado knew that the Chief of Police was on his trail. When Finnegan came to he was in a box-car, under lock and seal. But afriend released him, and the man from Bitter Creek made his way downthe river to his cabin. 

The population of Medora had not relished Finnegan's bombardment, andsuggestions concerning a possible "necktie party" began to makethemselves heard. Finnegan evidently decided that the time had comefor him, and the men who lived with him in his ill-kept shack, toleave the country. Travel by horse or foot was impossible. The boatthey owned was a miserable, leaky affair. The Elkhorn skiff hadevidently appeared to Finnegan and Company in the nature of a godsend. 

[Illustration: Wilmot Dow and Theodore Roosevelt (1886). ]

[Illustration: The piazza at Elkhorn. Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt. ]

Roosevelt's anger boiled up at the theft of the boat and he ran tosaddle Manitou. But Sewall restrained him, pointing out that if thecountry was impassable for the horses of the thieves, it was no lessimpassable for the horses of the pursuers. He declared that he and Dowcould build a flat-bottomed boat in three days. Roosevelt told him togo ahead. With the saddle band--his forty or fifty cow-ponies--on thefarther side of the river, he could not afford to lose the boat. Butthe determining motive in his mind was neither chagrin nor anxiety torecover his property. In a country where self-reliant hardihood andthe ability to hold one's own under all circumstances ranked as thefirst of the virtues, to submit tamely to theft or to any otherinjury was, he knew, to invite almost certain repetition of theoffense. 

A journal which he kept for a month or two that spring gives inlaconic terms a vivid picture of those March days. 

 March 22. Tramped over to get deer; mountain lions had got them. 

 March 23. Shot 4 prairie chickens. 

 March 24. Thieves stole boat; started to build another to go after them. 

 March 25. Went out after deer; saw nothing. Boat being built. River very high; ice piled upon banks several feet. 

 March 26. Boat building. 

 March 27. Boat built. Too cold to start. Shot 4 chickens. 

 March 28. Bitter cold. 

 March 29. Furious blizzard. 

While Sewall and Dow, who were mighty men with their hands, werebuilding the boat, and his other cowpuncher, Rowe, was hurrying toMedora to bring out a wagon-load of supplies for their contemplatedjourney, Roosevelt himself was by no means idle. He had agreed towrite a life of Thomas Hart Benton for the _American StatesmenSeries_, and, after two or three months' work in the East gatheringhis material, had begun the actual writing of the book immediatelyafter his return to the Bad Lands. 

 I have written the first chapter of the Benton [he wrote to Lodge on March 27th], so at any rate I have made a start. Writing is horribly hard work to me; and I make slow progress. I have got some good ideas in the first chapter, but I am not sure they are worked up rightly; my style is very rough, and I do not like a certain lack of _sequitur_ that I do not seem able to get rid of. 

 I thought the article on Morris admirable in every way; one of your crack pieces. Some of the sentences were so thoroughly characteristic of you that I laughed aloud when I read them. One of my men, Sewall (a descendant of the Judge's, by the way), read it with as much interest as I did, and talked it over afterwards as intelligently as any one could. 

 At present we are all snowed up by a blizzard; as soon as it lightens up I shall start down the river with two of my men in a boat we have built while indoors, after some horse-thieves who took our boat the other night to get out of the country with; but they have such a start we have very little chance of catching them. I shall take Matthew Arnold along; I have had no chance at all to read it as yet. 

The next day he was writing to his sister "Bamie. " He was evidentlyconvinced that she would worry about him if she knew the nature of theadventure on which he was about to embark, for in his letter heprotests almost too much concerning the utterly unexciting nature ofhis activities:

 Since I wrote you life has settled down into its usual monotonous course here. It is not as rough as I had expected; I have clean sheets, the cooking is pretty good, and above all I have a sitting-room with a great fireplace and a rocking-chair, which I use as my study. 

 The walking is horrible; all slippery ice or else deep, sticky mud; but as we are very short of meat I generally spend three or four hours a day tramping round after prairie chickens, and one day last week I shot a deer. The rest of the time I read or else work at Benton, which is making very slow progress; writing is to me intensely irksome work. 

 In a day or two, when the weather gets a little milder, I expect to start down the river in a boat, to go to Mandan; the trip ought to take a week or ten days, more or less. It will be good fun. My life on the ranch this summer is not going to be an especially adventurous or exciting one; and my work will be mainly one of supervision so that there will be no especial hardship or labor. 

 I really enjoy being with the men out here; they could be more exactly described as my retainers than as anything else; and I am able to keep on admirable terms with them and yet avoid the familiarity which would assuredly breed contempt. 

On the 30th of March the blizzard which had been raging a day or twomoderated, and Roosevelt, hoping a thaw had set in, determined to setoff after the thieves. They left Rowe as guard over the ranch and "thewomenfolks, " and with their unwieldy but water-tight craft, laden withtwo weeks' provision of flour, coffee, and bacon, started to driftdown the river. 

The region through which they passed was bare and bleak and terrible. On either side, beyond the heaped-up piles of ice, rose the scarredbuttes, weather-worn into fantastic shapes and strangely blotched withspots of brown and yellow, purple and red. Here and there the blackcoal-veins that ran through them were aflame, gleaming weirdly throughthe dusk as the three men made their camp that night. 

The weather was cold and an icy wind blew in their faces. 

"We're like to have it in our faces all day, " remarked Will Dowcheerfully, paddling at the bow. 

"We can't, unless it's the crookedest wind in Dakota, " answeredSewall, who was steering. 

They followed the river's course hither and thither in and out amongthe crags, east and west, north and south. 

"It _is_ the crookedest wind in Dakota, " muttered Sewall to himself. 

The thermometer dropped to zero, but there was firewood in plenty, andthey found prairie fowl and deer for their evening meals. Late thethird day, rounding a bend, they saw their boat moored against thebank. Out of the bushes, a little way back, the smoke of a camp-firecurled up through the frosty air. 

"There's your boat!" cried Sewall, who had, in his own phrase, been"looking sharp. " "Get your guns ready. I'll handle the boat. "

They flung off their heavy coats. Sewall was in the stern, steeringthe boat toward shore. Dow was at Roosevelt's side in the bow. Roosevelt saw the grim, eager look in their eyes, and his own eyesgleamed. 

He was the first ashore, leaping out of the boat as it touched theshore ice and running up behind a clump of bushes, so as to cover thelanding of the others. Dow was beside him in an instant. Sewall wasfastening the boat. 

 It was rather funny business [Sewall wrote his brother subsequently] for one of the men was called a pretty hard ticket. He was also a shooting man. If he was in the bushes and saw us first he was liable to make it very unhealthy for us. 

Roosevelt and Dow peered through the bushes. Beside a fire in a groveof young cottonwoods a solitary figure was sitting; his guns were onthe ground at his side. 

"Hands up!"

Roosevelt and Dow rushed in on the man, who was not slow to do as hewas told. He was a halfwitted German named Wharfenberger, a tool ofrogues more keen than he, whom Sewall later described as "an oldishman who drank so much poor whiskey that he had lost most of themanhood he ever possessed. "

They searched the old man, taking his gun and his knives from him, andtelling him that if he did exactly as he was told they would use himwell; but if he disobeyed or tried to signal the other men, they wouldkill him instantly. Knowing something of the frontier, he was ready tobelieve that he would be given short shrift, and was thoroughlysubmissive. 

Finnegan and the third man, a half-breed named Bernstead, had, itseems, gone hunting, believing themselves safe. Sewall guarded theGerman, while Roosevelt and Dow, crouching under the lee of a cutbank, prepared to greet the others. 

The ground before them was as level as a floor, with no growth on itof any sort beside the short dead grass which would not have givencover to a rabbit. Beyond, to the east lay a wide stretch of levelbottom covered with sagebrush as high as a man's waist, and beyondthat was a fringe of bushes bordering a stretch of broken buttecountry. The wind had fallen. Save for the rush of the river, therewas no sound. 

 Will and I [Sewall wrote his brother] kept watch and listened--our eyes are better than Roosevelt's, Will on the right and I on the left. R. Was to rise up and tell them to hands up, Will and I both with double barrel guns loaded with Buck shot, and we were all going to shoot if they offered to raise a gun. It is rather savage work but it don't do to fool with such fellows. If there was any killing to be done we meant to do it ourselves. 

About an hour before sunset they heard Finnegan and his companioncrawling through the stunted bushes at the foot of the clay hill. Themen started to go upstream. 

"We are going to lose them, " Roosevelt whispered; "they are not comingto camp. "

"I think, " answered Sewall, "they are looking for the camp smoke. "

He was evidently right, for suddenly they saw it and came straightthrough the sagebrush toward the watchers. Roosevelt and his menwatched them for some minutes as they came nonchalantly toward them, the barrels of their rifles glinting in the sunlight. Now they wereforty yards away, now thirty, now twenty. 

"Hands up!"

The half-breed obeyed, but for an instant Finnegan hesitated, glaringat his captors with wolfish eyes. Roosevelt walked toward him, covering the center of the man's chest to avoid over-shooting him. 

"You thief, put up your hands!"

Finnegan dropped his rifle with an oath and put up his hands. 

They searched the thieves and took away their weapons. "If you'll keepquiet, " said Roosevelt, "and not try to get away, you'll be all right. If you try anything we'll shoot you. "

This was language which the thieves understood, and they accepted thesituation. Sewall took an old double-barrel ten-gauge Parker shot-gunand stood guard. 

Dow was a little uneasy about the gun. 

"The right-hand barrel goes off very easily, " he warned Sewall. "It'sgone off with me several times when I did not mean it to, and if youare going to cover the men with it you better be careful. "

"I'll be careful, " remarked Sewall in his deliberate fashion, "but ifit happens to go off, it will make more difference to them than itwill to me. "

They camped that night where they were. Having captured their men, they were somewhat in a quandary how to keep them. The cold was sointense that to tie them tightly hand and foot meant in all likelihoodfreezing both hands and feet off during the night; there was no usetying them at all, moreover, unless they tied them tightly enough tostop in part the circulation. Roosevelt took away everything from thethieves that might have done service as a weapon, and corded hisharvest in some bedding well out of reach of the thieves. 

"Take off your boots!" he ordered. 

It had occurred to him that bare feet would make any thought of flightthrough that cactus country extremely uninviting. The men surrenderedtheir boots. Roosevelt gave them a buffalo robe in return and theprisoners crawled under it, thoroughly cowed. 

Captors and captives started downstream in the two boats the nextmorning. The cold was bitter. Toward the end of the day they werestopped by a small ice-jam which moved forward slowly only to stopthem again. They ran the boats ashore to investigate, and found thatthe great Ox-Bow jam, which had moved past Elkhorn a week ago, hadcome to a halt and now effectually barred their way. They could notpossibly paddle upstream against the current; they could not go onfoot, for to do so would have meant the sacrifice of all theirequipment. They determined to follow the slow-moving mass of ice, andhope, meanwhile, for a thaw. 

They continued to hope; day after weary day they watched in vain forsigns of the thaw that would not come, breaking camp in the morningon one barren point, only to pitch camp again in the evening onanother, guarding the prisoners every instant, for the trouble theywere costing made the captors even more determined that, whatever waslost, Finnegan and Company should not be lost. 

Roosevelt's journal for those days tells the story:

 April 1. Captured the three boat-thieves. 

 April 2. Came on with our prisoners till hung up by ice-jam. 

 April 3. Hung up by ice. 

 April 4. Hung up by ice. 

 April 5. Worked down a couple of miles till again hung up by ice. 

 April 6. Worked down a couple of miles again to tail of ice-jam. 

Their provisions ran short. They went after game, but there was noneto be seen, no beast or bird, in that barren region. The addition totheir company had made severe inroads on their larder and it was notlong before they were all reduced to unleavened bread made with muddywater. The days were utterly tedious, and were made only slightly morebearable for Roosevelt by Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" and MatthewArnold, interlarded with "The History of the James Brothers, " whichthe thieves quite properly carried among their belongings. And thethieves had to be watched every minute, and the wind blew and chilledthem to the bone. 

Roosevelt thought that it might be pleasant under certaincircumstances to be either a Dakota sheriff or an Arctic explorer. Buthe did not find great joy in being both at the same time. 

When the flour was nearly gone, Roosevelt and his men had aconsultation. 

"We can't shoot them, " said Roosevelt, "and we can't feed them. Itlooks to me as though we'd have to let them go. "

Sewall disagreed. "The flour'll last a day or two more, " he said, "andit's something to know that if we're punishing ourselves, we'repunishing the thieves also. "

"Exactly!" cried Roosevelt. "We'll hold on to them!"

The next day Sewall, on foot, searched the surrounding region far andwide for a ranch, and found none. The day after, Roosevelt and Dowcovered the country on the other side of the river, and at last cameon an outlying cow-camp of the Diamond C Ranch, where Rooseveltsecured a horse. 

It was a wiry, rebellious beast. 

"The boss ain't no bronco-buster, " remarked Dow, apologetically, tothe cowboys. 

But "the boss" managed to get on the horse and to stay on. Dowreturned to Sewall and the thieves, while Roosevelt rode fifteen milesto a ranch at the edge of the Killdeer Mountains. There he securedsupplies and a prairie-schooner, hiring the ranchman himself, a ruggedold plainsman, to drive it to the camp by the ice-bound river. Sewalland Dow, now thoroughly provisioned, remained with the boats. Roosevelt with the thieves started for the nearest jail, which was atDickinson. 

It was a desolate two days' journey through a bleak waste of burnt, blackened prairie, and over rivers so rough with ice that they had totake the wagon apart to cross. Roosevelt did not dare abate his watchover the thieves for an instant, for they knew they were drawing closeto jail and might conceivably make a desperate break any minute. Hecould not trust the driver. There was nothing for it but to pack themen into the wagon and to walk behind with the Winchester. 

Hour after hour he trudged through the ankle-deep mud, hungry, cold, and utterly fatigued, but possessed by the dogged resolution to carrythe thing through, whatever the cost. They put up at the squalid hutof a frontier granger overnight, but Roosevelt, weary as he was, didnot dare to sleep. He crowded the prisoners into the upper bunk andsat against the cabin door all night, with the Winchester across hisknees. 

Roosevelt's journal gives the stages of his progress. 

 April 7. Worked down to C Diamond Ranch. Two prairie chickens. 

 April 8. Rode to Killdeer Mountains to arrange for a wagon which I hired. 

 April 9. Walked captives to Killdeer Mountains. 

 April 10. Drove captives in wagon to Captain Brown's ranch. 

"What I can't make out, " said the ranchman from the Killdeers, with apuzzled expression on his deeply wrinkled, tough old face, whichSewall said "looked like the instep of an old boot that had lain outin the weather for years, "--"what I can't make out is why you make allthis fuss instead of hanging 'em offhand. "

Roosevelt grinned, and the following evening, after athree-hundred-mile journey, deposited three men who had defied thelaws of Dakota in the jail at Dickinson. 

He was not a vision of beauty as he emerged from the jail to find aplace to scrape off two weeks' accumulation of Dakota mud. His feetwere in bad shape from the long march through the gumbo, and he askedthe first man he met where he could find a physician. By a curiouscoincidence the man he addressed happened to be the only physicianwithin a hundred and fifty miles in any direction. It was Dr. Stickney. 

They had heard of each other, and Roosevelt was glad, for more reasonsthan one, to follow him to his office. For the quiet man with thetwinkling eyes, who combined the courage and the humanness of acowpuncher with the unselfish devotion of a saint, was a great figurein the Bad Lands. Like Roosevelt he was under thirty. 

The doctor, in after years, told of that morning's visit. "He did notseem worn out or unduly tired, " he said. "He had just come from thejail, having deposited his prisoners at last, and had had no sleep forforty-eight hours, and he was all teeth and eyes; but even so heseemed a man unusually wide awake. You could see he was thrilled bythe adventures he had been through. He did not seem to think he haddone anything particularly commendable, but he was, in his own phrase, 'pleased as Punch' at the idea of having participated in a realadventure. He was just like a boy. 

"We talked of many things that day while I was repairing his blisteredfeet. He impressed me and he puzzled me, and when I went home tolunch, an hour later, I told my wife that I had met the most peculiar, and at the same time the most wonderful, man I had ever come to know. I could see that he was a man of brilliant ability and I could notunderstand why he was out there on the frontier. I had heard his nameand I had read something of his work in the New York Legislature andin the Republican Convention, two years previous, and it seemed to methat he belonged, not here on the frontier, but in the East, in theturmoil of large affairs. "

 I got the three horse-thieves in fine style [Roosevelt wrote to Lodge]. My two Maine men and I ran down the river three days in our boat, and then came on their camp by surprise. As they knew there was no other boat on the river but the one they had taken, and as they had not thought of our building another, they were completely taken unawares, one with his rifle on the ground, and the others with theirs on their shoulders; so there was no fight, nor any need of pluck on our part. We simply crept noiselessly up and rising, when only a few yards distant, covered them with the cocked rifles while I told them to throw up their hands. They saw that we had the drop on them completely, and I guess they also saw that we surely meant shooting if they hesitated, and so their hands went up at once. We kept them with us nearly a week, being caught in an ice-jam; then we came to a ranch where I got a wagon, and I sent my two men on downstream with the boat, while I took the three captives overland a two days' journey to a town where I could give them to the sheriff. I was pretty sleepy when I got there, as I had to keep awake at night a good deal in guarding; and we had gotten out of food and the cold had been intense. 

To his sister Corinne he admitted that he was well satisfied to partfrom his prisoners. 

 I was really glad to give them up to the sheriff this morning [he writes from Dickinson], for I was pretty well done out with the work, the lack of sleep, and the constant watchfulness, but I am as brown and as tough as a pine knot and feel equal to anything. 

It happened that the editor of the _Herald_ of Newburyport, Massachusetts, had a friend in Dickinson who occasionally sent himnews of the frontier which he printed as the "Dickinson (Dakota)Letter to the Newburyport Herald. "

[Illustration: Dow and Sewall in the boat they made themselves, ladenwith the loot of the thieves. ]

 To illustrate what manner of men we need [he wrote during the week following the successful conclusion of Roosevelt's adventure], I will relate an incident which is to the point. I presume you are all acquainted, through the newspapers, with the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, who is quite prominent in New York politics and society. He owns a ranch on the Little Missouri, about eighty miles northwest from here, and created quite a stir last Sunday by bringing to town three horse-thieves whom he had captured with the help of two of his "cow men. "

Thereupon follows the story of the capture and jailing of Finnegan andCompany. 

 When I saw him [the correspondent continues], Mr. Roosevelt had been on the "trail" for three weeks, and wore a cowboy's hat, corduroy jacket, flannel shirt, and heavy shoes, but was in excellent health and spirits. 

 Said he, "I don't know how I look, but I feel first-rate!"

 The next morning he appeared in the justice's court, saw the outlaws indicted, and a little later took the train bound west, for his "cow camp. " I had never seen Mr. Roosevelt before, although I had read many articles from his pen; and when I left home I had no idea of meeting a gentleman of his standing on the frontier masquerading in the character of an impromptu sheriff. But, only such men of courage and energy can hope to succeed in this new, beautiful, but undeveloped country. 

The justice of the peace who indicted the thieves was Western Starr. He turned out to be an old acquaintance of Roosevelt's, a classmate inthe Columbia Law School. The coincidence gave an added flavor to theproceeding. 

In Medora there seemed to be only one opinion concerning Roosevelt'sadventure, though it was variously expressed. 

"Roosevelt, " said his friend, John Simpson, a Texan, who was owner ofthe "Hash-knife" brand and one of the greatest cattlemen in theregion, "no one but you would have followed those men with just acouple of cow-hands. You are the only real damn fool in the county. "

The rest of the population echoed the bewildered query of the teamsterfrom the Killdeers. "Why didn't you _kill_ them?" every one asked. "They would have killed you. "

"I didn't come out here to kill anybody, " Roosevelt answered. "All Iwanted to do was to defend myself and my property. There wasn't anyone around to defend them for me, so I had to do it myself. "

And there the matter rested. But the people of Medora began to see alittle more clearly than they had ever seen before the meaning ofgovernment by law. [21]

 [Footnote 21: The thieves were tried at Mandan in August, 1886. The German, known as "Dutch Chris, " was acquitted, but Finnegan, and Bernstead, known as "the half-breed, " were sentenced to twenty-five months in the Bismarck Penitentiary. Finnegan glared at Roosevelt as he passed him in the court room. "If I'd had any show at all, " he cried, "you'd have sure had to fight!"

 That was no doubt true, but his anger evidently wore off in the cool of the prison, for a little later he wrote Roosevelt a long and friendly epistle, which was intended to explain many things:

 In the first place I did not take your boat Mr. Roosevelt because I wanted to steal something, no indeed, when I took that vessel I was labouring under the impression, die dog or eat the hachette. .. . When I was a couple of miles above your ranch the boat I had sprung a leak and I saw I could not make the Big Missouri in it in the shape that it was in. I thought of asking assistance of you, but I supposed you had lost some saddles and blamed me for taking them. Now there I was with a leaky boat and under the circumstances what was I two do, two ask you for help, the answer I expected two get was two look down the mouth of a Winchester. I saw your boat and made up my mind two get possession of it. I was bound two get out of that country cost what it might, when people talk lynch law and threaten a persons life, I think that it is about time to leave. I did not want to go back up river on the account that I feared a mob. .. . I have read a good many of your sketches of ranch life in the papers since I have been here, and they interested me deeply. Yours sincerely. 

 &c. 

 P. S. Should you stop over at Bismarck this fall make a call to the Prison. I should be glad to meet you. ]

XXIII

 Oh, I am a Texas cowboy, light-hearted, brave, and free, To roam the wide, wide prairie, 'tis always joy to me. My trusty little pony is my companion true, O'er creeks and hills and rivers he's sure to pull me through. 

 When threatening clouds do gather and herded lightnings flash, And heavy rain drops splatter, and rolling thunders crash; What keeps the herds from running, stampeding far and wide? The cowboy's long, low whistle and singing by their side. 

 _Cowboy song_

By a curious coincidence the culmination of Roosevelt's dramaticexposition of the meaning of government by law coincided in point oftime precisely with the passing of the Bad Lands out of a state ofprimeval lawlessness into a condition resembling organized government. 

Since the preceding summer, Packard had, in the columns of the_Cowboy_, once more been agitating for the organization of BillingsCounty. The conditions, which in the past had militated against theproposal, were no longer potent. The lawless element was still large, but it was no longer in the majority. For a time a new and naïveobjection made itself widely heard. The stock-growers protested thatif the county were organized, they would be taxed! The Mandan_Pioneer_ explained that, according to the laws of Dakota Territory, the nearest organized county was authorized to tax all the cattle andother stock in Billings County, and that "the only possible differencethat could result in organization would be to keep the taxes at homeand allow them to be expended for home improvements such as roads, bridges, schoolhouses, and public buildings. " The cattlemen were notin a position to explain publicly what they probably meant, namely, that a board of county commissioners and a tax assessor sitting inMedora would have far less difficulty than a similar group sitting ahundred and fifty miles east in Mandan in following the mysteriousmovements of their cattle during the season when assessments weremade. An active agent of the county might conceivably note that whenBillings County, Dakota, was making its assessments, the herds couldgenerally be found in Fallon County, Montana, and that when FallonCounty was making its assessments, the cattle were all grazing inBillings. But even in the Bad Lands it was no longer politic toprotest openly against what was palpably the public welfare, and thepetition for the organization of the county received the necessarysignatures, and was sent to the governor. "This is a step in the rightdirection, " patronizingly remarked the Mandan _Pioneer_. "BillingsCounty is rich enough and strong enough to run its own affairs. "

Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris had been active in the work oforganization, and were eager to "run" Bill Sewall for Countycommissioner. But that shrewd individual pleaded unfitness and lack oftime and refused to be cajoled into becoming a candidate. 

There is some doubt concerning the exact date of the first election. Roosevelt's diary would indicate that it was held on April 12th, butthe paragraph printed in the Minneapolis _Tribune_ of April 15th wouldindicate that it was held on the 14th. Both statements are probablywrong, and the election in all likelihood was held on the 13th. 

Roosevelt, having testified against the three thieves, returned toMedora late on the afternoon of election. There had been many threatsthat the party of disorder would import section hands from theneighboring railway stations to down the legions of the righteous. Anespecial watcher had been set at the polling-places. It was none otherthan Hell-Roaring Bill Jones. He was still on most cordial terms withhis old intimates, the ruffians who congregated at Bill Williams'ssaloon, but he liked Roosevelt and the men who surrounded the youngEasterner, and had cast in his lot with them. The effectiveness, as aguardian of the peace, of the man who had at the beginning of hiscareer in the Bad Lands been saloon "bouncer" for Bill Williams wasnotable. 

Roosevelt found a group of his friends at the polling-place. 

"Has there been any disorder?" he asked. 

"Disorder, hell!" said one of the men in the group. "Bill Jones juststood there with one hand on his gun and the other pointin' overtoward the new jail whenever any man who didn't have the right to votecome near the polls. There was only one of them tried to vote, andBill knocked him down. Lord!" he concluded meditatively, "the waythat man fell!"

"Well, " struck in Bill Jones, "if he hadn't fell, I'd of walked roundbehind him to see what was proppin' him up!"

The candidates for the various offices had been selected in a spiritof compromise between the two elements in the town, the forces oforder securing every office except one. The county commissionerselected were "Johnny" Goodall, a blacksmith named Dan Mackenzie, andJ. L. Truscott, who owned a large ranch south of the Big Ox Bow. VanDriesche, the best of all valets, was elected treasurer, and BillDantz superintendent of schools; but the forces of disorder couldafford to regard the result without apprehension, for they had beenallowed to elect the sheriff; and they had elected Joe Morrill. 

Election night was lurid. Morrill, evidently desiring to make a goodimpression without serious inconvenience to his friends, served noticeimmediately after his election that there must be no "shooting up" ofthe town, but "the boys" did not take Morrill very seriously. Fisher, who had a room in Mrs. McGeeney's hotel next to Joe Ferris's store, found the place too noisy for comfort, and adjourned to the office ofthe _Bad Lands Cowboy_. The little shack was unoccupied, for Packard, having recently married, had moved his residence into one of thedeserted cantonment buildings on the western side of the river. Truscott had neglected to secure a room in the hotel and Fisherinvited him to join him in the _Cowboy_ office. 

The day had been strenuous, and the two men were soon sound asleep. Fisher was awakened by a sharp object striking him in the face. Aninstant later he heard a round of shots, followed instantly by anothershower of broken glass. He discovered that one of the windows, whichfaced the Tamblyn Saloon, was completely shattered. He shook Truscott. 

"I guess, " he said, "we'd better look for some place not quite soconvenient for a target. "

They adjourned to Fisher's room in Mrs. McGeeney's hotel. After all, noise was preferable to bullets. 

"The boys" were full of apologies the next morning, declaring thatthey had not realized that the place was occupied. Packard, it seemed, had been publishing certain editorials shortly before dealing with thecriminal responsibility of drunkards, and they just thought they wouldgive the _Cowboy_ a "touching up. "

Medora's new régime began with a call which Howard Eaton made uponMerrifield. 

"Now that we're organized, we'll have some fun with Deacon Cummins, "said Eaton, with a chuckle. 

Eaton had apprehensions that the "Deacon" would ask for improvements, a road to his ranch, for instance, or possibly a bridge or two, so hesuggested to Merrifield that they draw up a statement calculated todiscourage any such aspirations. This was the statement as theyfinally submitted it to their fellow citizens:

 We the undersigned do hereby solemnly covenant and agree to hang, burn, or drown any man that will ask for public improvements made at the expense of the County. 

Eaton and Merrifield signed it, together with a dozen others; thenthey laid it before Mrs. Cummins's husband for his signature. "TheDeacon" took it with extreme seriousness, and signed his name to it;and there was no call for improvements from the solemn couple at TepeeBottom. 

The day after the election, the Little Missouri Stock Association heldits semi-annual meeting. Roosevelt presided, "preserving, " as he wroteto Lodge a day or so later, "the most rigid parliamentary decorum. " Hewas elected a representative of the Association at the meeting of theMontana Stock growers' Association in Miles City, to be held a day ortwo later, and, after a hurried trip to Elkhorn Ranch with Merrifield, started west for Miles City, taking Sylvane with him. 

Miles City was a feverish little cowtown under ordinary circumstances, but in April of every year, when the cattlemen of Montana and westernDakota gathered there for the annual meeting of the MontanaStockgrowers' Association, it was jubilant and noisy beyonddescription. For a week before the convention was called to order, stockmen from near and far began to arrive, bringing in their trainthirsty and hilarious cowboys who looked upon the occasion mainly asa golden opportunity for a spree. They galloped madly up and down thewide, dusty streets at every hour of the day and night, knowing nosober moment as long as the convention lasted. 

Roosevelt and Sylvane arrived on April 18th, taking what quarters theycould get in the Macqueen House which was crowded to the doors and wasgranting nobody more than half a bed. The ceremonies began early nextmorning with a blast from the Fifth Infantry band from Fort Keogh, thearmy post two miles to the west. 

 Promptly at 9:30 A. M. [runs the story in the Minneapolis _Tribune_] a procession was formed in front of the Macqueen House, with the Fifth Infantry band at its head, followed by carriages containing the officers of the Association and ladies; next a cavalcade of wild cowboys just brought in from the adjacent ranges, followed by about 150 cowmen marching four abreast. The procession was about two and one-half blocks long from end to end, and the line of march was through the principal streets to the skating rink, where the public meetings of the Association are held. 

 As the procession was nearing the rink, the horses of the foremost carriage, containing the president, vice-president, and secretary, took fright and dashed into the band. Both horses took the same side of the tongue and made things unpleasant. At this stage of the game President Bryan and others abandoned the carriage, and Secretary R. B. Harrison, with his large minute book, made a leap for life, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. The procession then broke up with a wild charge of cowboys, accompanied with such yells as would strike terror to the heart of the tenderfooted. 

The actual meeting of the Stockgrowers' Association was, contrary towhat might have been expected from its prelude, a thoroughly dignifiedaffair. Roosevelt was, as one of the other stockmen later declared, "rather inclined to listen and take the advice of older men"; but itwas significant that he was, nevertheless, elected to the ExecutiveCommittee as the successor of the Marquis de Mores as representativefor Dakota Territory; and was appointed to one or two other committeesof lesser importance. 

"Roosevelt was of a restless, nervous, but aggressive disposition, "said H. H. Hobson, of Great Falls, who was present at that meeting, "and took a keen interest in the proceedings. He was a great admirerof Granville Stuart, and was always on his side of every question. "

The absorbing issues before the convention were the Texas fever andthe overstocking of the range. Feeling ran high, and "the debates, " asHobson later remarked, "were more than warm. Roosevelt, " he added, "was at all times eager and ready to champion his side. "

At one of the sessions there was a fierce debate between two prominentcattlemen, which was renewed, after the meeting, at the Miles CityClub. Each man had his hot partisans, who began to send messengers outfor reinforcements. Most of the men were armed. It was clear that ifhostilities once broke out, they would develop instantly into aminiature war. 

Roosevelt saw that the situation was critical, and jumped to his feet. "If you can't settle your own difficulties, " he cried to the two menwho had started the quarrel, "why don't you fight it out? I'llreferee. "

The suggestion was received with favor. Roosevelt formed a ring andthe two men expended their anger in a furious fist fight. Which manwon, history does not record. The important point is that Roosevelt, by his resolute action, had prevented a fight with "six-shooters. "

 I have just returned from the Stockmen's Convention in Miles City [Roosevelt wrote "Bamie" from Elkhorn on April 22d], which raw, thriving frontier town was for three days thronged with hundreds of rough-looking, broad-hatted men, numbering among them all the great cattle and horse raisers of the Northwest. I took my position very well in the convention, and indeed these Westerners have now pretty well accepted me as one of themselves, and as a representative stockman. I am on the Executive Committee of the Association, am President of the Dakota branch, etc. --all of which directly helps me in my business relations here. 

There is something almost touching in Roosevelt's efforts to persuadehis sisters that his cattle venture was not the piece of wildrecklessness which they evidently considered it. 

 This winter has certainly been a marvelously good one for cattle [he wrote in another letter]. My loss has been so trifling as hardly to be worth taking into account; although there may be a number who have strayed off. I think my own expenses out here this summer will be very light indeed, and then we will be able to start all square with the beginning of the New Year. 

In another letter he wrote, "Unless we have a big accident, I shallget through this all right, if only I can get started square with nodebt!" And a little later he sent "Bamie" a clipping from a review ofhis "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, " which referred to him as "a man oflarge and various powers in public matters _as well as shrewd andenterprising in the conduct of business_. " "I send the enclosed slip, "he wrote, "on account of the awful irony of the lines I haveunderscored; send it to Douglas when you write him. "

"Douglas" was Douglas Robinson, the husband of Roosevelt's sisterCorinne, and distinctly the business man of the family. 

Bill Sewall was apprehensive. "There was always a cloud over me, " hesaid long afterward, "because I never could see where he was going toget his money. I tried to make him see it. He was going to buy land. Iurged him not to. I felt sure that what he was putting into thosecattle he was going to lose. "

Roosevelt admitted that spring that Sewall's conviction, that the cowswould not be able in the long run to endure the hard winters, was notwithout reason. "Bill, " he said, after he had made a careful study ofthe herd, "you're right about those cows. They're not looking well, and I think some of them will die. "

But on the whole the herd was in good condition. He had every right tobelieve that with average luck his investment would emphaticallyjustify itself. 

 While I do not see any great fortune ahead [he wrote to his sister Corinne], yet, if things go on as they are now going, and have gone for the past three years, I think I will each year net enough money to pay a good interest on the capital, and yet be adding to my herd all the time. I think I have more than my original capital on the ground, and this year I ought to be able to sell between two and three hundred head of steer and dry stock. 

Sewall as usual, was less sanguine. 

 As for hard times [he wrote his brother that April] they are howling that here, and lots are leaving the country. Lots more would if they could. We are all right. Roosevelt is the same good fellow he always has been and though I don't think he expects to make much, his upper lip is stiff and he is all right. 

Meanwhile, he was hammering ahead on his Life of Benton. He was a slowand rather laborious writer, but his persistence evidently atoned forhis lack of speed in composition, for whereas, on April 29th, he wrotehis sister that he had written only one chapter and intended to devote"the next three weeks to getting this work fairly under way, " by the7th of June he announced that the book was "nearly finished. "

"Some days, " Sewall related afterward, "he would write all day long;some days only a part of the day, just as he felt. He said sometimeshe would get so he could not write. Sometimes he could not tell whena thing sounded right. Then he would take his gun and saunter off, sometimes alone, sometimes with me or Dow, if he was around. "

Occasionally he would "try out" a passage on Sewall. "Bill, " heexclaimed one morning, "I am going to commit the unpardonable sin andmake you sit down and listen to something I've written. "

Bill was willing. The passage was from the first chapter of thebiography of the Tennessee statesman and dealt with the attitude ofthe frontier toward law and order and the rights of "the otherfellow. " Bill gave his approval and the passage stood. 

Day after day Roosevelt pushed forward into his subject, writing withzest, tempered by cool judgment. He did not permit an occasional tripto Medora to interrupt his work. He had a room over Joe Ferris'sstore, and after Joe and his wife had gone to bed, he would throw openthe doors of the kitchen and the dining-room and walk to and frohammering out his sentences. 

"Every once in a while, " said Joe later, "everything would be quiet, then after fifteen minutes or so he would walk again as though he waswalkin' for wages. "

Mrs. Ferris, who had a maternal regard for his welfare, was alwayscareful to see that a pitcher of milk was in his room before thenight's labors commenced; for Roosevelt had a way of working into thesmall hours. "The eight-hour law, " he remarked to Lodge, "does notapply to cowboys"; nor, he might have added, to writers endeavoringto raise the wherewithal to pay for a hunting trip to the Coeurd'Alênes in the autumn. 

 I wonder if your friendship will stand a very serious strain [he wrote Lodge, early in June]. I have pretty nearly finished Benton, mainly evolving him from my inner consciousness; but when he leaves the Senate in 1850 I have nothing whatever to go by; and, being by nature both a timid, and, on occasions, by choice a truthful, man, I would prefer to have some foundation of fact, no matter how slender, on which to build the airy and arabesque superstructure of my fancy--especially as I am writing a history. Now I hesitate to give him a wholly fictitious date of death and to invent all of the work of his later years. Would it be too infernal a nuisance for you to hire some of your minions on the _Advertiser_ (of course, at my expense) to look up, in a biographical dictionary or elsewhere, his life after he left the Senate in 1850? He was elected once to Congress; who beat him when he ran the second time; what was the issue; who beat him, and why, when he ran for Governor of Missouri; and the date of his death? I hate to trouble you; don't do it if it is any bother; but the Bad Lands have much fewer books than Boston has. 

The Executive Committee of the Montana Stockgrowers' Association, ofwhich Roosevelt was a member, had, in order to unify the work of therounding-up of the cattle throughout Montana and western Dakota, issued directions at its meeting in April for the delimitation of thevarious round-up districts and the opening of the round-ups. Theround-up for "District No. 6, " which included the valley of the LittleMissouri, commences [so ran the order] at Medora, May 25, 1886; works down the Little Missouri to the mouth of Big Beaver Creek; thence up the Big Beaver to its head; thence across to the Little Beaver at the crossing of the old government road (Keogh trail); thence down Little Beaver to its mouth; thence across to Northern Hash-knife Camp on Little Missouri, and down to Medora. John Goodall, foreman. 

Roosevelt apparently could not resist the temptation which theround-up offered, especially as its course would take him back in thedirection of Elkhorn, and he deserted his study and entered once moreinto what was to him the most fascinating activity of the cowboy'slife. 

 There were half a dozen wagons along [he wrote subsequently]. The saddle bands numbered about a hundred each; and the morning we started, sixty men in the saddle splashed across the shallow ford of the river that divided the plain where we had camped from the valley of the long winding creek up which we were first to work. 

By the 7th of June he was back at Elkhorn Ranch again on a flyingvisit. 

 I will get a chance to send this note to-morrow [he wrote his sister "Bamie"] by an old teamster who is going to town. I have been on the round-up for a fortnight, and really enjoy the work greatly; in fact I am having a most pleasant summer, though I miss all of you very, very much. We breakfast at three and work from sixteen to eighteen hours a day counting night-guard; so I get pretty sleepy; but I feel as strong as a bear. I took along Tolstoy's "La Guerre et La Paix" which Madame de Mores had lent me; but I have had little chance to read it as yet. I am very fond of Tolstoy. 

In "The Wilderness Hunter" Roosevelt, two or three years later, toldof that "very pleasant summer" of 1886. 

 I was much at the ranch, where I had a good deal of writing to do; but every week or two I left, to ride among the line camps, or spend a few days on any round-up which happened to be in the neighborhood. 

 These days of vigorous work among the cattle were themselves full of pleasure. At dawn we were in the saddle, the morning air cool in our faces; the red sunrise saw us loping across the grassy reaches of prairie land, or climbing in single file among the rugged buttes. All forenoon we spent riding the long circle with the cowpunchers of the round-up; in the afternoon we worked the herd, cutting the cattle, with much breakneck galloping and dextrous halting and wheeling. Then came the excitement and hard labor of roping, throwing, and branding the wild and vigorous range calves; in a corral, if one was handy, otherwise in a ring of horsemen. Soon after nightfall we lay down, in a log hut or tent, if at a line camp; under the open sky, if with the round-up wagon. 

 After ten days or so of such work, in which every man had to do his full share, --for laggards and idlers, no matter who, get no mercy in the real and healthy democracy of the round-up, --I would go back to the ranch to turn to my books with added zest for a fortnight. Yet even during these weeks at the ranch there was some outdoor work; for I was breaking two or three colts. I took my time, breaking them gradually and gently, not, after the usual cowboy fashion, in a hurry, by sheer main strength and rough riding, with the attendant danger to the limbs of the man and very probable ruin to the manners of the horse. We rose early; each morning I stood on the low-roofed veranda, looking out under the line of murmuring, glossy-leaved cottonwoods, across the shallow river, to see the sun flame above the line of bluffs opposite. 

Almost every day he was off among the buttes or across the prairiewith a rifle in his hand, shooting now a whitetail buck within a fewhundred yards of the ranch-house; now a blacktail, in the hillsbehind. Occasionally, rising before dawn, he would hunt in the rollingprairie country ten or fifteen miles away, coming home at dusk with aprong-buck across his saddle-bow. Now and then he would take theranch-wagon and one of the men, driving to some good hunting ground, and spending a night or two, returning usually with two or threeantelope; and not infrequently he would ride away by himself onhorseback for a couple of days, lying at night, as he wrote, "underthe shining and brilliant multitude of stars, " and rising again in thechill dawn to crawl upon some wary goat of the high hills. 

After writing his sister on the 7th of June, he evidently stayed atthe ranch for ten days to work on his Life of Benton. Then he was awaywith the round-up again. His diary succinctly records his progress:

 June 18. Rode to Medora on Sorrel Joe. 

 June 19. Out on round-up with Maltese Cross wagon. 

 June 20. Worked down to South Heart. 

 June 21. Worked up Rocky Ridge. 

 June 22. Worked to Davis Creek. 

[Illustration: Catholic Chapel. Hotel Rough Riders. The "depot". Thecompany store of the Marquis. Bill Williams's saloon. Joe Ferris'sstore. Medora in 1919. ]

Early next morning Roosevelt was in Medora. 

 The round-up is swinging over from the East to the West Divide [he wrote to Lodge]. I rode in to get my mail and must leave at once. We are working pretty hard. Yesterday I was in the saddle at 2 A. M. , and except for two very hearty meals, after each of which I took a fresh horse, did not stop working till 8. 15 P. M. ; and was up at half-past three this morning. 

They worked next day down to Andrews Creek. 

While the round-up was camped at Andrews Creek an incident occurredwhich revealed Roosevelt's influence over the cowpunchers, not aloneof his own "outfit. " Andrews Creek was not more than a mile fromMedora, and after the day's work was done, the cowboys naturallyadjourned with much enthusiasm to that oasis for the thirsty. As theevening wore on, the men, as "Dutch Wannigan" remarked long afterward, "were getting kinda noisy. " Roosevelt, who had also ridden to town, possibly to keep an eye on "the boys, " heard the commotion, and, contrary to his usual habit, which was to keep out of such centers oftrouble, entered the saloon where the revelry was in progress. 

"I don't know if he took a drink or not, " said "Dutch Wannigan"afterward. "I never saw him take one. But he came in and he paid forthe drinks for the crowd. 'One more drink, boys, ' he says. Then, assoon as they had their drinks, he says, 'Come on, ' and away they went. He just took the lead and they followed him home. By gollies, I neverseen anything like it!"

The round-up now worked southward. Roosevelt's diary gives its coursefrom day to day. 

 June 24. To Gardiner Creek. 

 June 25. To Bullion's Creek. 

 June 26. Down Bullion's Creek. 

 June 27. To Chimney Butte. 

 June 28. Rode in to Medora. 

From Medora he wrote his sister Corinne:

 I have been off on the round-up for five weeks, taking a holiday of a few days when we had a cold snap, during which time I killed two elk and six antelopes, all the meat being smoke-dried and now hanging round the trees, till the ranch looks like an Indian encampment. Since June 24th, I have never once had breakfast as late as 4 o'clock. I have been in the saddle all the day and work like a beaver and am as happy and rugged as possible. 

To "Bamie" he wrote:

 If I did not miss all at home so much, and also my beautiful home, I would say that this free, open-air life, without any worry, was perfection. 

The round-up ended in Medora, where it had begun. 

 You would hardly know my sunburned and wind-roughened face [Roosevelt wrote "Bamie"]. But I have really enjoyed it and am as tough as a hickory nut. 

He evidently did not think he needed any vacation after the strenuouslabors of the preceding weeks, for his diary records no interlude. 

 June 29. Rode back to Elkhorn Ranch with Merrifield. 

 June 30. Benton. 

 July 1. Benton; rode out with Bill Rowe to get and brand calves. 

 July 2. Benton; rode out with Bill Rowe after calves; got them into corral and branded them. Rode little black horse. 

 July 3. Rode up to Medora on Manitou. 

Roosevelt had been invited to be the orator at Dickinson's firstcelebration of Independence Day, and, on the morning of the Fourth, accompanied by two New York friends, Lispenard Stewart and Dr. Taylor, and half the cowboys of Billings County, "jumped" an east-boundfreight for the scene of the festivities. 

Dickinson was in holiday mood. The West Missouri slope had nevercelebrated the Fourth with fitting ceremonies before and Dickinson, which, with its seven hundred inhabitants, considered itself somewhatof a metropolis, made up its mind to "spread itself. " From near andfar eager crowds streamed into the little town, on foot and onhorseback. The _Press_ reported the celebration with zest:

 A BIG DAY

 The First Fourth of July Celebration in Dickinson a Grand Success

 An Epoch in the History of Our Town that Will Long be Remembered

 Addresses by Hon. Theodore Roosevelt and Hon. John A. Rea

 The first Fourth of July celebration, attempted in Dickinson, took place last Monday. It exceeded the anticipations of all and proved to be a grand success--a day that will long be remembered. The day dawned bright and cool. Early in the morning people began to arrive and by ten o'clock the largest crowd ever assembled in Stark County lined the principal streets. The train from the west brought a number of Medora people, amongst them Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, the orator of the day. 

 The first exercise was the parade, consisting of three divisions, under charge of Chief Marshal Auld, assisted by C. S. Langdon and Western Starr. About ten o'clock everything was in readiness and the parade began to move, headed by the Dickinson Silver Cornet Band. Following the band were the lady equestriennes, a large number of ladies being in line. They were followed by the members of Fort Sumter Post G. A. R. And Onward Lodge R. R. B. Next came a beautifully decorated wagon drawn by four white horses, containing little girls dressed in white, representing the States of the Union. This was one of the most attractive features of the parade, and was followed by a display of reaping and other farm machinery. The "Invincibles" were next in line and created considerable mirth by their fantastic and grotesque appearance. Citizens in carriages and on horseback brought up the rear. After parading through the principal streets the procession marched to the public square and were dismissed. 

"The trouble with the parade, " remarked Bill Dantz long after, "wasthat every one in town was so enthusiastic they insisted on joiningthe procession, and there was no one to watch except two men who weretoo drunk to notice anything"; which was Dantz's way of saying thatthe "first exercise" was eminently successful. 

 Western Starr [continues the _Press_] was introduced by Dr. V. H. Stickney, master of ceremonies, and read the Declaration of Independence in a clear, forcible tone, after which the entire audience joined in singing that familiar and patriotic song, "America. " The people then partook of the free dinner prepared for the occasion. After dinner the people were called to order and Rev. E. C. Dayton offered up a prayer, followed by music by the band. 

The speeches followed. The first speaker was a typical politician ofthe old school. 

 This is a big country [he said]. At a dinner party of Americans in Paris during the Civil War this toast was offered by a New Englander: "_Here's to the United States, bounded on the north by British America, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. _"

 An Ohio man followed with a larger notion of our greatness: "_Here's to the United States, bounded on the north by the North Pole, on the south by the South Pole, on the east by the rising sun, and on the west by the setting sun. _"

 It took the Dakota man, however, to rise to the greatness of the subject: "_I give you the United States, bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by primeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment. _"

The politician proceeded with the eloquence of the professional"orator, " and the audience applauded him vociferously. Then Rooseveltrose and spoke. He looked very slim and young and embarrassed. 

 I am peculiarly glad [he said] to have an opportunity of addressing you, my fellow citizens of Dakota, on the Fourth of July, because it always seems to me that those who dwell in a new territory, and whose actions, therefore, are peculiarly fruitful, for good and for bad alike, in shaping the future, have in consequence peculiar responsibilities. You have already been told, very truthfully and effectively, of the great gifts and blessings you enjoy; and we all of us feel, most rightly and properly, that we belong to the greatest nation that has ever existed on this earth--a feeling I like to see, for I wish every American always to keep the most intense pride in his country, and people. But as you already know your rights and privileges so well, I am going to ask you to excuse me if I say a few words to you about your duties. Much has been given to us, and so, much will be expected of us; and we must take heed to use aright the gifts entrusted to our care. 

 The Declaration of Independence derived its peculiar importance, not on account of what America was, but because of what she was to become; she shared with other nations the present, and she yielded to them the past, but it was felt in return that to her, and to her especially, belonged the future. It is the same with us here. We, grangers and cowboys alike, have opened a new land; and we are the pioneers, and as we shape the course of the stream near its head, our efforts have infinitely more effect, in bending it in any given direction, than they would have if they were made farther along. In other words, the first comers in a land can, by their individual efforts, do far more to channel out the course in which its history is to run than can those who come after them; and their labors, whether exercised on the side of evil or on the side of good, are far more effective than if they had remained in old settled communities. 

 So it is peculiarly incumbent on us here to-day so to act throughout our lives as to leave our children a heritage, for which we will receive their blessing and not their curse. 

Stickney, sitting on the platform as presiding officer, was struck bythe contrast which Roosevelt offered to the man who had preceded him. The first speaker had been "eloquent" in the accepted meaning of theword; Roosevelt was not consciously eloquent at all. He talked as healways talked, simply, directly, earnestly, emphatically. 

 We have rights [he went on], but we have correlative duties; none can escape them. We only have the right to live on as free men, governing our own lives as we will, so long as we show ourselves worthy of the privileges we enjoy. We must remember that the Republic can only be kept pure by the individual purity of its members; and that if it become once thoroughly corrupted, it will surely cease to exist. In our body politic, each man is himself a constituent portion of the sovereign, and if the sovereign is to continue in power, he must continue to do right. When you here exercise your privileges at the ballot box, you are not only exercising a right, but you are also fulfilling a duty; and a heavy responsibility rests on you to fulfill your duty well. If you fail to work in public life, as well as in private, for honesty and uprightness and virtue, if you condone vice because the vicious man is smart, or if you in any other way cast your weight into the scales in favor of evil, you are just so far corrupting and making less valuable the birthright of your children. The duties of American citizenship are very solemn as well as very precious; and each one of us here to-day owes it to himself, to his children, and to all his fellow Americans, to show that he is capable of performing them in the right spirit. 

 It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it. 

 I do not undervalue for a moment our material prosperity; like all Americans, I like big things; big prairies, big forests and mountains, big wheat-fields, railroads, --and herds of cattle, too, --big factories, steamboats, and everything else. But we must keep steadily in mind that no people were ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue. It is of more importance that we should show ourselves honest, brave, truthful, and intelligent, than that we should own all the railways and grain elevators in the world. We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune. Here we are not ruled over by others, as in the case of Europe; we rule ourselves. All American citizens, whether born here or elsewhere, whether of one creed or another, stand on the same footing; we welcome every honest immigrant no matter from what country he comes, provided only that he leaves off his former nationality, and remains neither Celt nor Saxon, neither Frenchman nor German, but becomes an American, desirous of fulfilling in good faith the duties of American citizenship. 

 When we thus rule ourselves, we have the responsibilities of sovereigns, not of subjects. We must never exercise our rights either wickedly or thoughtlessly; we can continue to preserve them in but one possible way, by making the proper use of them. In a new portion of the country, especially here in the Far West, it is peculiarly important to do so; and on this day of all others we ought soberly to realize the weight of the responsibility that rests upon us. I am, myself, at heart as much a Westerner as an Easterner; I am proud, indeed, to be considered one of yourselves, and I address you in this rather solemn strain to-day, only because of my pride in you, and because your welfare, moral as well as material, is so near my heart. 

It was a hilarious party of cowpunchers who took the afternoon trainback to Medora. For a part of the brief journey Packard sat withRoosevelt discussing his speech. 

"It was during this talk, " said Packard afterward, "that I firstrealized the potential bigness of the man. One could not helpbelieving he was in deadly earnest in his consecration to the highestideals of citizenship. He had already made his mark in the New YorkLegislature. He was known as a fighter who dared to come out in theopen and depend upon the backing of public opinion. He was reputed tobe wealthy enough to devote his life to any work he chose, and Ilearned, on the return journey to the Bad Lands that day, that hebelieved he could do better work in a public and political way than inany other. My conclusion was immediate, and I said, 'Then you willbecome President of the United States. '

"One would suppose that I could remember the actual words he used inreply, but I cannot. I remember distinctly that he was not in theleast surprised at my statement. He gave me the impression of havingthoroughly considered the matter and to have arrived at the sameconclusion that I had arrived at. I remember only this of what hesaid, 'If your prophecy comes true, I will do my part to make a goodone. '"

XXIV

 The road is wide and the stars are out, and the breath of night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet, But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face, And leave the splendor of out-of-doors for a human dwelling-place. 

 Joyce KILMER

A few days after the celebration in Dickinson. Roosevelt went East. The political sirens were calling. He was restless for something to dothat would bring into service the giant's strength of which he wasbecoming increasingly conscious, and, incidentally, would give him anopportunity to win distinction. He had been half inclined to accept anoffer from Mayor Grace of New York to head the Board of Health, butLodge, as Roosevelt wrote to his sister Corinne, thought it "_infradig_, " and he reluctantly rejected it. There were rumors in the airthat he might have the Republican nomination for Mayor of New York ifhe wanted it. He went East, possibly for the purpose of investigatingthem, returning to Elkhorn early in August. 

Roosevelt was unquestionably restless. He loved the wild country, buthe had tasted all the various joys and hardships it had to offer, and, although he said again and again that if he had no ties of affectionand of business to bind him to the East, he would make Dakota hispermanent residence, down in his heart he was hungering for a widerfield of action. The frontier had been a challenge to his manhood;now that he had stood every test it had presented to him, its glamourfaded and he looked about for a sharper challenge and more exactinglabors. 

For a few weeks that August he half hoped that he might find them onthe field of battle. Several American citizens, among them a man namedCutting, had been arrested in Mexico, apparently illegally, andBayard, who was President Cleveland's Secretary of State, had beenforced more than once to make vigorous protests. Relations becamestrained. The anti-Mexican feeling on the border spread over the wholeof Texas, regiments were organized, and the whole unsettled regionbetween the Missouri and the Rockies, which was inclined to look uponMexico as the natural next morsel in the fulfillment of the nation's"manifest destiny, " began to dream of war. 

Roosevelt, seeing how matters were tending, set about to organize atroop of cavalry in the Bad Lands. He notified the Secretary of Warthat it stood at the service of the Government. 

 I have written to Secretary Endicott [Roosevelt wrote to Lodge on August 10th], offering to try to raise some companies of horse-riflemen out here, in the event of trouble with Mexico. Won't you telegraph me at once if war becomes inevitable? Out here things are so much behindhand that I might not hear of things for a week. I have not the least idea there will be any trouble, but as my chances of doing anything in the future worth doing seem to grow continually smaller, I intend to grasp at every opportunity that turns up. The cowboys were all eager for war, not caring much with whom. They were fond of adventure and to tell the truth [as Roosevelt wrote later], they were by no means averse to the prospect of plunder. News from the outside world came to us very irregularly, and often in distorted form, so that we began to think we might get involved in a conflict not only with Mexico, but with England also. One evening at my ranch the men began talking over English soldiers, so I got down "Napier" and read them several extracts from his descriptions of the fighting in the Spanish peninsula, also recounting as well as I could the great deeds of the British cavalry from Waterloo to Balaklava, and finishing up by describing from memory the fine appearance, the magnificent equipment, and the superb horses of the Household Cavalry and of a regiment of hussars I had once seen. 

 All of this produced much the same effect on my listeners that the sight of Marmion's cavalcade produced in the minds of the Scotch moss-troopers on the eve of Flodden; and at the end, one of them, who had been looking into the fire and rubbing his hands together, said, with regretful emphasis, "Oh, how I _would_ like to kill one of them!"

Roosevelt went to Bismarck and found the Territorial Governor friendlyto his project. 

 Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, the famous statesman, ranchman, and hunter [runs the story in the Bismarck _Tribune_], has been making inquiries since the announcement of the Mexican difficulties as to the available volunteer troops in the Northwest, and in the event of action being required, it is confidently believed Mr. Roosevelt would tender to the Government the services of an entire regiment of cowboys, under his command. At a recent visit here he was assured of two companies of Dakota cowboys to accompany him. Mr. Roosevelt has been the captain of a company of militia in New York, and no better man could be found to lead the daring cowboys to a seat of war and no commander would have more effective troops. 

The war cloud blew over. Roosevelt evidently received a letter fromLodge explaining that the Mexican incident was of a trivial nature, for, on the 20th of August, he wrote him rather apologetically:

 I wrote as regards Mexico _qua_ cowboy, not _qua_ statesman; I know little of the question, but conclude Bayard is wrong, for otherwise it would be phenomenal; he ought to be idolized by the mugwumps. If a war had come off, I would surely have had behind me as utterly reckless a set of desperadoes as ever sat in the saddle. 

 It is no use saying that I would like a chance at something I thought I could really do; at present I see nothing whatever ahead. However, there is the hunting in the fall, at any rate. 

The season which began with Finnegan and Company was richer in variedexperiences than it was in financial returns. Roosevelt recognizedthat there were already too many cattlemen in the business to makelarge profits possible. 

 In certain sections of the West [he told a reporter of the Mandan _Pioneer_ in July] the losses this year are enormous, owing to the drought and overstocking. Each steer needs from fifteen to twenty-five acres, but they are crowded on very much thicker, and the cattlemen this season have paid the penalty. Between the drought, the grasshoppers, and the late frosts, ice forming as late as June 10th, there is not a green thing in all the region I have been over. A stranger would think a donkey could not live there. The drought has been very bad throughout the region, and there is not a garden in all of it. 

Sewall was aware of that fact to his sorrow, for the garden he himselfhad planted and tended with infinite care had died between dawn anddusk on that memorable Fourth of July on which Roosevelt addressed thecitizens of Dickinson. 

 They say dry years are best for cattle [he wrote his brother]. If so, this must be a nice one and they do seem to be doing well so far, but if we have much snow next winter it looks to me as if they would have short picking. 

The prospect was not engaging. But, though Roosevelt was not gettingmuch financial return on his rather generous investment, he wasgetting other things, for him at this time of far greater value. Hewho had been weak in body and subject to racking illnesses had inthese three years developed a constitution as tough and robust as anIndian's. He had achieved something beside this. Living, talking, working, facing danger, and suffering hardships with the Sewalls andthe Dows, the Ferrises and the Langs, and Merrifield and Packard andBill Dantz and Hell-Roaring Bill Jones, and countless other stalwartcitizens of the Bad Lands, he had come very close to the heart of the"plain American. " He loved the companions of his joys and labors, andthey in turn regarded him with an admiration and devotion which wasall the deeper because of the amazing fact that he had come from theranks of the "dudes. "

They admired him for his courage and his feats of endurance, but, being tender-hearted themselves, they loved him for his tenderness, which had a way that they approved, of expressing itself, not inwords, but in deeds. Bill Sewall had a little girl of three, "aforlorn little mite, " as Roosevelt described her to "Bamie, " and itwas Roosevelt who sent the word East which transported the child, thathad neither playmates nor toys, into a heaven of delight with pictureblocks and letter blocks, a little horse and a rag doll. 

His warm human sympathy found expression in a dramatic manner a day ortwo before his departure late that August for the Coeur d'Alênes. Hewas rounding up some cattle with his men near Sentinel Butte, twentymiles west of Medora, when word came that a cowpuncher named GeorgeFrazier had been struck by lightning and killed, and that his body hadbeen taken to Medora. Frazier belonged to the "outfit" of the Marquisde Mores, but he had worked for Roosevelt two years previous, diggingpost-holes with George Myers in June, 1884. Roosevelt knew that theman had no relatives in that part of the world, to see that a fittingdisposition of the body was made, and instantly expressed hisdetermination to take charge of the arrangements for the funeral. 

"We will flag the next train and go to Medora, " he said. 

The next train, they knew, was "No. 2, " the finest train running overthe road. It did not, on the surface, look probable that it would stopat a desolate spot in the prairie to permit a handful of cowboys toget on. "They won't stop here for nuthin', " one of the men insisted. "By Godfrey, they'll have to stop!" Roosevelt retorted, and sent a mandown to the track to flag the train. 

The engineer saw the warning signal and slowed down, but did not stop. The cowboys dashed alongside the engine, firing shots in the air. Theengineer, believing that he was being held up by bandits and that thenext shot might be aimed at himself, brought the train to astandstill. There was a wild scramble among the passengers; even thetrain crew expected the worst. Valuables were hurriedly secreted. "Idon't believe, " remarked George Myers afterward, "some of thepassengers ever did find all the things that was hid away. "

Leaving their horses in charge of one of the cowboys, Roosevelt, followed by Sylvane Ferris, Merrifield, Myers, and Johnny Goodall, boarded the train. The conductor was resigned by this time to ahold-up; but when he discovered the actual nature of their mission, heflew into a rage and threatened to put them all off. 

"You be good, " cried Roosevelt, "or you'll be the one to get off!" Hisvigorous advice was supplemented by impressive injunctions from othermembers of the party. When they finally did get off, it was at Medora. 

A salvo of profanity from the train crew followed them. "You'll hearfrom this!" thundered the conductor. They did not hear from it. Itwould not have greatly disturbed Roosevelt if they had. He opened asubscription to cover the expenses of the funeral. Everybody "chippedin, " and the unfortunate received the burial that a God-fearingcowpuncher deserved. 

Roosevelt went with Merrifield west to the Coeur d'Alênes, in northernIdaho, almost immediately after Frazier's funeral. He was to meet ahunter named John Willis, who was to take him and Merrifield out afterwhite goat. He had never met Willis, but his correspondence with himhad suggested possibilities of interest beside the chase. Roosevelthad written Willis in July that he had heard of his success in pursuitof the game of the high peaks. "If I come out, " he concluded, "do youthink it will be possible for me to get a goat?"

The answer he received was written on the back of his own letter andwas quite to the point. "If you can't shoot any better than you canwrite, I don't think it will be. "

Roosevelt's reply came by wire. "Consider yourself engaged. "

It would have been strange if, after this epistolary exchange, the twomen should not have been rather curious about each other'spersonalities. Roosevelt, descending from the train at a way-stationin the mountains, found a huge, broad-shouldered man his own age, waiting for him, The man was not over-cordial. He did not, he lateradmitted, regard Roosevelt's corduroy knee-pants with favor. 

Roosevelt, knowing how to catch a hunter, showed Willis his guns. "Will you go on a trip with me?" he asked. 

"I am going to start out day after to-morrow for a three or fourweeks' hunt, " Willis answered. "If you want to go along as my guest, you are welcome to. But I want to tell you before we go, I won't takeany booze. "

"Why do you say that?" asked Roosevelt, thoroughly interested in thisstrange creature. 

"Why, I've an idea you are some brewer's son who's made a lot ofmoney. You look as if you'd been raised on beer. "

Roosevelt roared with delight. "I want to make a contract with you, "he said. "I will give you twenty-five dollars for everything that youshow me in the way of game. "

"I don't want it, " said Willis gruffly. 

"Then I will buy the grub. "

"All the grub I'll take along won't amount to more than three or fourdollars--a hundred pounds of flour, twenty-five pounds of bacon, driedapples, and black tea. That's all you'll get. "

"By George, " cried Roosevelt, "that's fine!"

"You can't stand a trip like this, " Willis remarked with deadlyfrankness. 

"You take me on the trip and I'll show you. I can train myself to walkas far as you can. "

Willis doubted it and said so. 

They camped far up in the mountains, hunting day after day through thedeep woods just below the timber-line. Roosevelt and Merrifield wereaccustomed to life in the saddle, and although they had varied it withan occasional long walk after deer or sheep, they were quite unable tocope with Willis when it came to mountaineering. The climbing washard, the footing was treacherous, and the sharp rocks tore theirmoccasins into ribbons. There was endless underbrush, thickets ofprickly balsam or laurel--but there were no goats. 

At last, one mid-afternoon, as he was supporting himself against atree, halfway across a long landslide, Roosevelt suddenly discoveredone of the beasts he was after, a short distance away, making his waydown a hill, looking for all the world like a handsome tame billy. Hewas in a bad position for a shot, and as he twisted himself about hedislodged some pebbles. The goat, instantly alert, fled. Rooseveltfired, but the shot went low, only breaking a fore-leg. 

The three men raced and scrambled after the fleeing animal. It leapedalong the hillside for nearly a mile, then turned straight up themountain. They followed the bloody trail where it went up the sharpestand steepest places, skirting the cliffs and precipices. 

Roosevelt, intent on the quarry, was not what Bill Sewall would havecalled "over-cautious" in the pursuit. 

He was running along a shelving ledge when a piece of loose slatewith which the ledge was covered slipped under his foot. He clutchedat the rock wall, he tried to fling himself back, but he could notrecover himself. 

He went head first over the precipice. 

Roosevelt's luck was with him that day. He fell forty or fifty feetinto a tall pine, bounced through it, and landed finally, notuncomfortably, in a thick balsam, somewhat shaken and scratched, butwith no bones broken and with his rifle still clutched in his hand. 

From above came the hoarse voice of John Willis. "Are you hurt?" heasked. 

"No, " answered Roosevelt, a trifle breathless. 

"Then come on!"

Roosevelt "came on, " scrambling back up the steep height he had soswiftly descended, and raced after the guide. He came upon the goat atlast, but winded as he was, and with the sweat in his eyes, he shottoo high, cutting the skin above the spine. The goat plunged downhilland the hunters plunged after him, pursuing the elusive animal untildarkness covered the trail. 

"Now, " said Willis, "I expect you are getting tired. "

"By George, " said Roosevelt, "how far have we gone?"

"About fifteen or twenty miles up and down the mountains. "

"If we get that goat to-morrow, I will give you a hundred dollars. "

"I don't want a hundred dollars. But we'll get the goat. "

Roosevelt brought him down the next day at noon. 

Roosevelt spent two weeks with Willis in the mountains. It was a richexperience for the Easterner, but for the tall Missourian it proved tobe even more. Willis was a child of the frontier, who had knockedabout between the Rio Grande and the Canadian border ever since hisboyhood, doing a hundred different things upon which the law andcivilized men were supposed to look with disapproval. [22]

 [Footnote 22: Willis was a great teller of tales. See _Hunting the Grizzly_, by Theodore Roosevelt (The Sagamore Series, G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 216 ff. ), for the most lurid of his yarns. ]

To this odd child of nature, bred in the wilderness, Roosevelt openedthe door to a world which John Willis did not know existed. 

"He was a revelation to me, " said Willis long afterward. "He was sowell posted on everything. He was the first man that I had ever metthat really knew anything. I had just been with a lot of roughnecks, cowpunchers, horse-thieves, and that sort. Roosevelt would explainthings to me. He told me a lot of things. "

Among other things, Roosevelt told Willis some of his experiences inthe New York Assembly. Huge sums had been offered him to divert himfrom this course or that which certain interests regarded as dangerousto their freedom of action. To Willis it was amazing that Rooseveltshould not have accepted what was offered to him, and he began to beaware of certain standards of virtue and honor. 

To Roosevelt the trip was a splendid adventure; to Willis it proved aturning-point in his life. [23]

 [Footnote 23: When Roosevelt came to Helena in 1911, John Willis was one of the crowd that greeted him. Willis clapped Roosevelt on the back familiarly. "I made a man out of you, " he cried. Quick as a flash, came Roosevelt's retort: "Yes. John made a man out of me, but I made a Christian out of John. "]

Roosevelt returned to Elkhorn the middle of September, to find thatSewall and Dow had come to a momentous decision. Dow had, during hisabsence, taken a train-load of cattle to Chicago, and had found thatthe best price he was able to secure for the hundreds of cattle he hadtaken to the market there was less by ten dollars a head than the sumit had cost to raise and transport them. Sewall and Dow had "figuredthings over, " and had come to the conclusion that the sooner theyterminated their contract with Roosevelt the less money he would lose. They recognized that they themselves were safe enough, for by the"one-sided trade, " as Sewall called it, which Roosevelt had made withthem, they were to share in whatever profits there were, and in casethere were no profits were to receive wages. But neither of themenjoyed the part he was playing in what seemed to both of them a pieceof hopeless business. 

[Illustration: Ferris and Merrifield on the ruins of the first shackat Elkhorn. It was this shack which Maunders claimed. ]

[Illustration: Corrals at Elkhorn. Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt. ]

Roosevelt himself had been wondering whether it was wise to allow thetwo backwoodsmen to continue in an enterprise in which the future wasso clouded and full of the possibilities of disaster. He himselfmight win through, and he might not. The thing was a gamble, in anyevent. He could afford to take the risk. Sewall and Dow could not. 

He had written "Bamie, " earlier in the summer, that he was "curious tosee how the fall sales would come out. " Dow's report completelysatisfied his curiosity. 

He called the two men into his room. He told them that he too had been"figuring up things. " He would stand by his agreement, he said, if, facing an uncertain outcome, they wished to remain. But, if they werewilling, he thought they had "better quit the business and go back. "

Sewall and Dow did not hesitate. They said they would go back. 

"I never wanted to fool away anybody else's money, " Sewall added. "Never had any of my own to fool away. "

"How soon can you go?" asked Roosevelt. 

Sewall turned and went into the kitchen "to ask the womenfolks. " Ithappened that three or four weeks previous the population of Elkhornhad been increased by two. Baby sons had arrived in the same week inthe families of both Sewall and Dow. The ministrations of Dr. Stickneyhad not been available, and the two mothers had survived because theyhad the constitutions of frontierswomen rather than because they hadthe benefit of the nursing of the termagant who was Jerry Tompkins'swife. The babies--known to their families, and to the endlesssuccession of cowboys who came from near and far to inspect them, as"the Bad Lands babies"--were just six weeks old. 

"The womenfolks say they can go in three weeks, " Sewall reported. 

"Three weeks from to-day, " answered Roosevelt, "we go. "

And so the folks from Maine, who had made a rough and simple house inthe wilderness into a home, began to gather together their belongingsand pack up. Wise old Bill Sewall had been right. 

"You'll come to feel different, " he had said, two years before, whenRoosevelt had been lonely and despondent. "And then you won't want tostay here. "

Life, which for a while had seemed to Roosevelt so gray and dismal, had, in fact, slowly taken on new color. At times he had imagined thatDakota might satisfy him for a permanent residence, but that fancy, born of grief and disappointment, had vanished in the radiance of anew happiness. He had become engaged to Edith Carow, and he knew thatthe world for him and for her was that busy world where his friendswere, and hers, and where he and she had been boy and girl together. 

The lure of politics, moreover, was calling him. And yet, during thoselast weeks at Elkhorn, he was not at all sure that he wished toreënter the turmoil. He rode out into the prairie one day for a last"session" with Bill Sewall shortly before the three weeks were up. Hetold Sewall he had an idea he ought to go into law. 

"You'd be a good lawyer, " said Bill, "but I think you ought to go intopolitics. Good men like you ought to go into politics. If you do, andif you live, I think you'll be President. "

Roosevelt laughed. "That's looking a long way ahead. "

"It may look a long way ahead to you, " Sewall declared stoutly, "butit isn't as far ahead as it's been for some of the men who got there. "

"I'm going home now, " said Roosevelt, "to see about a job my friendswant me to take. I don't think I want it. It will get me into a row. And I want to write. "

An Easterner, whose name has slipped from the record, hearing possiblythat Roosevelt was making changes in the management of his herds, offered to buy all of Roosevelt's cattle. Roosevelt refused. The manoffered to buy Merrifield's share, then Sylvane's. Both rejected theoffer. The herd had increased greatly in value since they hadestablished it. The coming spring, they said, they would begin to getgreat returns. .. . 

"September 25, 1886, " runs an item in Bill Sewall's account-book, "squared accounts with Theodore Roosevelt. " On the same day Rooseveltmade a contract with Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris by which he agreed, as the contract runs, "to place all his cattle branded with theMaltese cross and all his she-stock and bulls branded with the elkhornand triangle, some twenty-odd hundred head in all, valued at sixtythousand dollars, " in charge of Ferris and Merrifield on shares forthe term of four years; the men of the Maltese Cross agreeing on theirpart to take charge of the Elkhorn steer brand which was Roosevelt'sexclusive property. 

Then, knowing that his cattle were in good hands, Roosevelt once moreturned his face to the East, conscious in his heart, no doubt, that, however soon he might return, or however often, the Dakota idyl wasended. 

XXV

 I may not see a hundred Before I see the Styx, But coal or ember, I'll remember Eighteen-eighty-six. 

 The stiff heaps in the coulee, The dead eyes in the camp, And the wind about, blowing fortunes out As a woman blows out a lamp. 

 From _Medora Nights_

Roosevelt accepted the Republican nomination for Mayor of New YorkCity, "with the most genuine reluctance, " as he wrote Lodge. Herecognized that it was "a perfectly hopeless contest; the chance forsuccess being so very small that it may be left out of account. " Itwas a three-cornered fight, with Henry George as the nominee of aUnited Labor Party on a single-tax platform, and Abram S. Hewitt asthe candidate of Tammany Hall. 

The nomination gave Dakota an occasion to express its mind concerningits adopted son, and it did so, with gusto. 

 Theodore is a Dakota cowboy [said the _Press_ of Sioux Falls], and has spent a large share of his time in the Territory for a couple of years. He is one of the finest thoroughbreds you ever met--a whole-souled, clearheaded, high-minded gentleman. When he first went on the range, the cowboys took him for a dude, but soon they realized the stuff of which the youngster was built, and there is no man now who inspires such enthusiastic regard among them as he. 

Roosevelt conducted a lively campaign, for it was not in him to makeanything but the best fight of which he was capable even with the oddsagainst him. The thoughtful element of the city, on whose supportagainst the radicalism of Henry George on the one hand and thecorruption of Tammany on the other, he should have been able to count, became panic-stricken at the possibility of a labor victory, and gavetheir votes to Hewitt. He was emphatically defeated; in fact he ranthird. "But anyway, " he remarked cheerfully, "I had a bully time. "

He went abroad immediately after election, and in December, at St. George's, Hanover Square, London, he married Edith Kermit Carow. 

 * * * * *

Once more, winter descended upon the Bad Lands. 

 Medora [remarked the Bismarck _Tribune_ in November] has pretty nearly gone into winter quarters. To be sure, the slaughter-house establishment of Marquis de Mores will not formally shut down until the end of the month, but there are many days on which there is no killing done and the workmen have to lay off. The past season has not been of the busiest, and the near approach of winter finds this about the quietest place in western Dakota. The hotel is closed. There is only one general store and its proprietor declared that the middle of December will find him, stock and all, hundreds of miles from here. The proprietor of the drug store will move early in December, as he cannot make his board in the place. 

 A. T. Packard, the editor of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, which now has a circulation of 650, is evidently prospering well, and, with the managers of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Company and the railroad agents, seems to be about the only person who expresses an intention of spending the season here. 

Fortunate were those who spent that season elsewhere. Old-timers, whose wits had been sharpened by long life in the open, had all theautumn been making ominous predictions. They talked of a hard winterahead, and the canniest of them defied the skeptics by riding intoMedora trailing a pack-horse and purchasing six months' supplies ofprovisions at one time. 

Nature, they pointed out, was busier than she had ever been, in thememory of the oldest hunter in that region, in "fixin' up her folksfor hard times. " The muskrats along the creeks were building theirhouses to twice their customary height; the walls were thicker thanusual, and the muskrats' fur was longer and heavier than any old-timerhad ever known it to be. The beavers were working by day as well as bynight, cutting the willow brush, and observant eyes noted that theywere storing twice their usual winter's supply. The birds were actingstrangely. The ducks and geese, which ordinarily flew south inOctober, that autumn had, a month earlier, already departed. Thesnowbirds and the cedar birds were bunched in the thickets, flutteringabout by the thousands in the cedar brakes, obviously restless anduneasy. The Arctic owls, who came only in hard winters, were about. 

There was other evidence that the winds were brewing misery. Not onlythe deer and the antelope, the wolves and the coyotes, but the olderrange cattle and the horses were growing unusually long coats. 

Other signs of strange disturbances of Nature were not lacking. DuringOctober the usual Indian-summer haze seemed to have lifted to a higheraltitude, interposing, as it were, a curtain between earth and sun. The light became subdued and unnatural. Halos appeared about the sun, with sun-dogs at opposite sides of the circle. The superstitious werestartled, in the time of the full moon, at four shafts of light, whichcould be seen emanating from it, giving an eerie effect as of a crossover the silver disc. 

There was usually a wet snowstorm in late October; this year it didnot come. A weird, dull stillness was in the air. Then, one eveningtoward the end of the first week in November, the snow came, fallinglightly and noiselessly. As the evening advanced, the wind arose; andeven as it increased in violence, the spirit in the thermometer fell. The wind became a gale, and before midnight a blizzard was howling andsweeping through the Bad Lands such as no one there had ever knownbefore. The snow was like the finest powder, driving through everycrack and nail hole, and piling snowdrifts within the houses as wellas without. 

"Upon getting up in the morning, " said Lincoln Lang long afterward, describing that storm, "the house was intensely cold, with everythingthat could freeze frozen solid. The light was cut off from thewindows looking south. As we opened the front door, we were confrontedby a solid wall of snow reaching to the eaves of the house. There wasno drift over the back door, looking north, but, as I opened it, I wasblown almost from my feet by the swirl of the snow, which literallyfilled the air, so that it was impossible to see any of thesurrounding ranch-buildings or even the fence, less than fifty feetdistant. It was like a tornado of pure white dust or very fine sand, icy cold, and stinging like a whip-lash. "

As fast as the fine dry snow fell, it drifted and packed itself intothe coulees, gulches, and depressions, filling them to a depth of ahundred feet or more. The divides and plateaus, and other exposedplaces, were left almost bare, except where some mound or rock or bitof sagebrush created an obstruction, about which the eddying currentspiled snowdrifts which rose week after week to huge proportions. Onthe river bottoms where the sagebrush was thick, the snow lay levelwith the top of the brush, then drove on to lodge and pack about thecottonwood trees and beneath the river-banks, forming great drifts, extending here and there from bank to bank. 

The blizzard abated, but the icy cold did not; another blizzard came, and another and another. Save as it was whirled by the wind, ultimately to become a part of some great drift, the snow remainedwhere it fell. No momentary thaw came to carry away a portion of thecountry's icy burden, or to alleviate for a few hours the strain onthe snowbound men and women in the lonely ranch-houses. On the bottomsthe snow was four feet deep. 

November gave way to December, and December to January. The terriblecold persisted, and over the length and breadth of the Bad Lands thedrifts grew monstrous, obliterating old landmarks and creating new, tothe bewilderment of the occasional wayfarer. 

Blizzard followed blizzard. For the men and women on the scatteredranches, it was a period of intense strain and privation; but for thecattle, wandering over the wind-swept world of snow and ice, thoseterrible months brought an affliction without parallel. 

No element was lacking to make the horror of the ranges complete. Thecountry, as Roosevelt had pointed out in July, was over-stocked. Evenunder favorable conditions there was not enough grass to feed thecattle grazing in the Bad Lands. And conditions throughout the summerof 1886 had been menacingly unfavorable. The drought had been intense. A plague of grasshoppers had swept over the hills. Ranchmen, who wereaccustomed to store large quantities of hay for use in winter, harvested little or none, and were forced to turn all their cattle outon the range to shift for themselves. The range itself was barren. Thestem-cured grass which generally furnished adequate nutriment had beenlargely consumed by the grasshoppers. What there was of it was burieddeep under successive layers of snow. The new stock, the "yearlings, "driven into the Bad Lands from Texas or Iowa or Minnesota, succumbedfirst of all. In the coulees or the creek-beds, where they soughtrefuge in droves from the stinging blasts of the driven snow, theystood helpless and were literally snowed under, or imprisoned by theaccumulation of ice about their feet, and frozen to death where theystood. The native stock, in their shaggier coats, faced the irondesolation with more endurance, keeping astir and feeding on sagebrushand the twigs of young cottonwoods. Gaunt and bony, they hung aboutthe ranches or drifted into Medora, eating the tar-paper from thesides of the shacks, until at last they dropped and died. There was nohelp that the most sympathetic humanitarian or the most agonizedcattle-owner could give them; for there was no fodder. There wasnothing that any one could do, except, with aching and apprehensiveheart, to watch them die. 

They died by thousands and tens of thousands, piled one on the otherin coulees and wash-outs and hidden from sight by the snow whichseemed never to cease from falling. Only the wolves and coyotes throvethat winter, for the steers, imprisoned in the heavy snow, furnishedan easy "kill. " Sage chickens were smothered under the drifts, rabbitswere smothered in their holes. 

It was a winter of continuous and unspeakable tragedy. Men rode outinto the storms and never reached their destinations, wanderingdesperately in circles and sinking down at last, to be covered likethe cattle with the merciless snow. Children lost their way betweenranch-house and stable and were frozen to death within a hundred yardsof their homes. The "partner" of Jack Snyder, a pleasant "Dutchman, "whom Roosevelt knew well, died and could not be buried, for no pickcould break through that iron soil; and Snyder laid him outside thecabin they had shared, to remain there till spring came, covered alsoby the unremitting snow. 

Here and there a woman went off her head. One such instance wasproductive of a piece of unconscious humor that, in its grimness, wasin key with the rest of that terrible winter:

 Dear Pierre [wrote a friend to Wibaux, who had gone to France for the winter, leaving his wife in charge of the ranch]. --No news, except that Dave Brown killed Dick Smith and your wife's hired girl blew her brains out in the kitchen. Everything O. K. Here. 

 Yours truly Henry JACKSON

Early in March, after a final burst of icy fury, a quietness came intothe air, and the sun, burning away the haze that lay over it, shonedown once more out of a blue sky. Slowly the temperature rose, andthen one day, never to be forgotten, there came a warm moistness intothe atmosphere. Before night fell, the "Chinook" was pouring down frombeyond the mountains, releasing the icy tension and softening allthings. 

 Last Sunday [the Dickinson _Press_ recorded, on March 5th] the welcome Chinook wind paid us a visit, and before noon the little rills were trickling down the hills and the brown herbage began to appear through the snow in every direction; the soft, balmy wind fanning the cheek brought memories and hopes of spring to the winter-wearied denizens of our community. 

"Within a day or so, " said Lincoln Lang afterward, "the snow hadsoftened everywhere. Gullies and wash-outs started to run withconstantly increasing force, until at length there was a steady roarof running water, with creeks out of bounds everywhere. Then, one day, we suddenly heard a roar above that of the rushing water, coming fromthe direction of the Little Missouri, and hurrying there saw a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. The river was out of banks clear upinto the cottonwoods and out on to the bottom, going down in a raging, muddy torrent, literally full of huge, grinding ice-cakes, up-endingand rolling over each other as they went, tearing down trees in theirpaths, ripping, smashing, tearing at each other and everything intheir course in the effort to get out and away. The spectacle held usspellbound. None of us had ever seen anything to compare with it, forthe spring freshets of other years had been mild affairs as comparedto this. But there was something _else_ that had never been seenbefore, and doubtless never will be seen again, for as we gazed wecould see countless carcasses of cattle going down with the ice, rolling over and over as they went, so that at times all four of thestiffened legs of a carcass would point skyward as it turned underthe impulsion of the swiftly moving current and the grindingice-cakes. Now and then a carcass would become pinched between twoice-floes, and either go down entirely or else be forced out on thetop of the ice, to be rafted along for a space until the cake uponwhich it rested suddenly up-ended or turned completely over in themaelstrom of swirling water and ice. Continuously carcasses seemed tobe going down while others kept bobbing up at one point or another toreplace them. "

And this terrible drama continued, not for an hour or for a few hours, but for days. Only as the weeks went by and the snow retreated was itpossible for the cattlemen to make any estimate of their losses. Thecoulees were packed with dead cattle; the sheltered places in thecottonwood trees in the bottoms along the river were packed with them. Here and there a carcass was discovered high up in a crotch of a treewhere the animal had struggled over the drifts to munch the tendertwigs. 

"I got a saddle horse and rode over the country, " said Merrifieldafterward, "and I'm telling you, the first day I rode out I never sawa live animal. "

The desolation of the Bad Lands was indescribable. Where hundreds ofthousands of cattle had grazed the previous autumn, shambled andstumbled a few emaciated, miserable survivors. Gregor Lang, who hadgone into the winter with three thousand head all told, came out of itwith less than four hundred. The "Hash-Knife outfit, " which had owneda hundred thousand head, lost seventy-five thousand. Not a ranchman upand down the Little Missouri lost less than half his herd. 

The halcyon days of Billings County were over. What had been aflourishing cattle country was a boneyard where the agents offertilizer factories bargained for skeletons. 

XXVI

 Some towns go out in a night, And some are swept bare in a day, But our town like a phantom island, Just faded away. 

 Some towns die, and are dead, But ours, though it perished, breathes; And, in old men and in young dreamers Still, glows and seethes. 

 From _Medora Nights_

Roosevelt returned from Europe on March 28th. 

 The loss among the cattle has been terrible [he wrote Sewall from New York early in April]. About the only comfort I have out of it is that, at any rate, you and Wilmot are all right; I would not mind the loss of a few hundred if it was the only way to benefit you and Will--but it will be much more than that. 

 I am going out West in a few days to look at things for myself. 

 Well, I must now try to worry through as best I may. Sometime I hope to get a chance to go up and see you all. Then I shall forget my troubles when we go off into the woods after caribou or moose. 

There was no merriment this time when Roosevelt arrived in Medora. With Sylvane he rode over the ranges. 

 You cannot imagine anything more dreary than the look of the Bad Lands [he wrote Sewall]. Everything was cropped as bare as a bone. The sagebrush was just fed out by the starving cattle. The snow lay so deep that nobody could get around; it was almost impossible to get a horse a mile. 

 In almost every coulee there were dead cattle. There were nearly three hundred on Wadsworth bottom. Annie came through all right; Angus died. Only one or two of our horses died; but the O K lost sixty head. In one of Munro's draws I counted in a single patch of brushwood twenty-three dead cows and calves. 

 You boys were lucky to get out when you did; if you had waited until spring, I guess it would have been a case of walking. 

"I don't know how many thousand we owned at Elkhorn and the MalteseCross in the autumn of 1886, " said Merrifield afterward. "But afterthat terrible winter there wasn't a cow left, only a few hundredsick-looking steers. "

 I am bluer than indigo about the cattle [Roosevelt wrote his sister Corinne]. It is even worse than I feared; I wish I was sure I would lose no more than half the money I invested out here. I am planning how to get out of it. 

With Sylvane and Merrifield, with whom in other days Roosevelt hadtalked of golden prospects, he gloomily reviewed the tragic situation. The impulse was strong in them all to start afresh and retrieve theirlosses. Most of the cattlemen were completely discouraged and wereselling at ridiculously low prices the stock which had survived thewinter. But Roosevelt resisted the temptation. 

"I can't afford to take a chance by putting in any more capital, " saidRoosevelt. "I haven't the right to do it. "

And there the discussion ended. 

There was a matter beside the wreck of his cattle business whichrequired Roosevelt's immediate attention. George Myers was undersuspicion (honest George Myers, of all men!) of being a cattle-thief. Roosevelt would have jumped to George's defense in any case, but thefact that the man who brought the charges against him was Joe Morrill, whom the forces of disorder had elected sheriff the previous April, added an extra zest to the fight. 

George had, for some years, "run" a few cattle of his own with theMaltese Cross herd. Of these, two steers had, through an oversight, remained unbranded and been sent to Chicago with what was known as a"hair-brand" picked on the hide. Morrill was stock inspector as wellas sheriff and allowed the animals to pass, but when Myers, shortlyafter, went East to visit his family, Morrill swore out a warrant forhis arrest and started in pursuit. 

He found Myers at Wooster, Ohio, arrested him, obtained hisextradition and then, to the amazement of the local judge, releasedhim. 

"You can go now, George, " he said. "When will you be ready to startback?"

"Oh, in a day or two, I guess, " said George. 

"That's a hell of a way to use a prisoner, " exclaimed the judge. 

"Thanks, judge, " Morrill replied coolly, "but he's my prisoner. "

[Illustration: George Myers. ]

[Illustration: The Little Missouri at Elkhorn. ]

They returned West shortly after, living high on the way. The sheriffhad his wife with him, and it dawned on George that Joe Morrill washaving an extraordinarily pleasant vacation at the expense of thetaxpayers and of George's own reputation, and, in addition, wasmaking a tidy sum of money out of the trip. His transportation, reservations, and allowance _per diem_ were paid, of course, by thecounty he represented. George, having brought a load of cattle to thestock-yards, had a pass for his return. But that was the sheriff'sluck, it appeared, not the county's. Morrill treated him most affably. As they were nearing Medora, in fact, he informed his prisoner that hewould appear before the justice of the peace, explain that he haddiscovered that the charge was baseless, and ask for a dismissal ofthe case without a hearing on the ground that a mistake had been made. 

But the sheriff was not taking into account the fact that Medora had, during the past two or three years, emerged from barbarism, and thatthere was such a thing as public opinion to be confronted andsatisfied. To the majority of the citizens, an accusation ofcattle-thieving was almost identical with a conviction, and feelingran high for a time against George Myers. But Packard jumped into thefight and in the columns of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_ excoriated JoeMorrill. 

The affair spilled over beyond the limits of Billings County, for theBismarck _Tribune_ printed Morrill's version of the case, and a day orso later published a stinging letter from Packard, who was nothing ifnot belligerent. It did not hurt his cause that he was able to quote astatement, made by Morrill, that "there's plenty in it if the justiceof the peace and the sheriff work together. "

Myers, backed by Packard, refused to have the case dismissed and itwas put on the calendar at Mandan. There it rested until the followingspring. 

Roosevelt, arriving in Medora in April, saw at once that a largerissue was at stake than even the question of doing justice to a manwrongfully accused. To have a man like Morrill officially responsiblefor the detection of cattle-thieves was a travesty. 

He promptly sought Joe Morrill, finding him at the "depot. " In hiscapacity as chairman of the Little Missouri River Stockmen'sAssociation, he was in a position to speak as Morrill's employer, andhe spoke with his customary directness. Gregor Lang, who happened tobe present, told Lincoln afterward that he had "never heard a man getsuch a scathing" as Roosevelt gave the shifty stock inspector. 

"Roosevelt was taking a lot of chances, " said Lincoln Lang later, "because Morrill was cornered. He was known to be a gunman and a riskyman to mix with. "

Roosevelt ordered Morrill to resign his inspectorship at once. Morrillrefused. 

The annual meeting of the Montana Stock-grower's Association was to beheld in Miles City the middle of the month. Roosevelt knew that theAssociation would not consent to sit in judgment on the case asbetween Myers and Morrill. He determined, therefore, to demand thatthe inspectorship at Medora be abolished on the ground that theinspector was worse than useless. 

Roosevelt presented his charges before the Board of StockCommissioners on April 18th. The Board was evidently reluctant to act, and, at the suggestion of certain members of it, Roosevelt, on thefollowing day, presented the matter before the Executive Committee ofthe Association. He asked that the Committee request the Board ofStock Commissioners to do away with the inspectorship at Medora, butthe Committee, too, was wary of giving offense. He asked twice thatthe Committee hear the charges. The Committee refused, referring himback to the Board of Stock Commissioners. 

That Board, meanwhile, was hearing from other cattlemen in the BadLands. Boyce, of the great "Three-Seven outfit, " supported Roosevelt'scharges, and Towers, of the Towers and Gudgell Ranch near the Big OxBow, supported Boyce. Morrill was sent for and made a poor showing. Itwas evidently with hesitant spirits that the Board finally acted. Morrill was dismissed, but the Board hastened to explain that it wasbecause its finances were too low to allow it to continue theinspectorship at Medora and passed a vote of thanks for Morrill's"efficiency and faithful performance of duty. "

What Roosevelt said about the vote of thanks is lost to history. Hewas, no doubt, satisfied with the general result and was ready to letMorrill derive what comfort he could out of the words with which itwas adorned. 

Through the records of that meeting of the cattlemen, Roosevelt loomswith singular impressiveness. At the meeting of the previous year hehad been an initiate, an effective follower of men he regarded asbetter informed than himself; this year he was himself a leader. During the three years that had elapsed since he had last taken avigorous part in the work of an important deliberative body, he hadgrown to an extraordinary extent. In the Legislature in Albany, and inthe Republican Convention in Chicago in 1884, he had been nervous, vociferous, hot-headed, impulsive; in Miles City, in 1887, there wasthe same vigor, the same drive but with them a poise which the youngerman had utterly lacked. On the first day of the meeting he made aspeech asking for the elimination, from a report which had beensubmitted, of a passage condemning the Interstate Commerce Law. Thehouse was against him almost to a man, for the cattlemen consideredthe law an abominable infringement of their rights. 

In the midst of the discussion, a stockman named Pat Kelly, who wasincidentally the Democratic boss of Michigan, rose in his seat. "Canany gentleman inform me, " he inquired, "why the business of thismeeting should be held up by the talk of a broken-down New York Statepolitician?"

There was a moment's silence. The stockmen expected a storm. There wasnone. Roosevelt took up the debate as though nothing had interruptedit. The man from Michigan visibly "flattened out. " Meanwhile, Roosevelt won his point. 

He spent most of that summer at Elkhorn Ranch. 

Merrifield had, like Joe Ferris, gone East to New Brunswick for awife, and the bride, who, like Joe's wife, was a woman of educationand charm, brought new life to the deserted house on Elkhorn bottom. But something was gone out of the air of the Bad Lands; the glow thathad burned in men's eyes had vanished. It had been a country of dreamsand it was now a country of ruins; and the magic of the old days couldnot be re-created. 

The cattle industry of the Bad Lands, for the time being, was dead;and the pulses of the little town at the junction of the railroad andthe Little Missouri began to flutter fitfully and ominously. Only theindomitable pluck of the Marquis and his deathless fecundity inconceiving new schemes of unexampled magnitude kept it alive at all. The Marquis's ability to create artificial respiration and to make thedead take on the appearance of life never showed to better effect thanin that desolate year of 1887. His plan to slaughter cattle on therange for consumption along the line of the Northern Pacific was toall intents and purposes shattered by the autumn of 1885. But no one, it appears, recognized that fact, least of all the Marquis. He changeda detail here, a detail there; then, charged with a new enthusiasm, hetalked success to every reporter who came to interview him, flinginghuge figures about with an ease that a Rockefeller might envy; and thenewspapers from coast to coast called him one of the builders of theNorthwest. 

His plan to sell dressed beef along the railroad gave way to a projectto sell it at the wholesale stalls in Chicago. That failed. Thereupon, he evolved an elaborate and daring scheme to sell it direct toconsumers in New York and other Eastern seaboard cities. 

"The Marquis actually opened his stores in Fulton Market, " saidPackard afterward, "and there sold range beef killed in Medora. Ofcourse his project failed. It was shot full of fatal objections. Butwith his magnetic personality, with his verbalistic short-jumps overevery objection, with every newspaper and magazine of the land anenthusiastic volunteer in de Mores propaganda, and with the halo ofthe von Hoffman millions surrounding him and all his deeds, bankersand business men fell into line at the tail of the de Mores chariot. We of the Bad Lands were the first to see the fatal weaknesses in hisplans, but we were believers, partly because the Marquis seemed toovercome every difficulty by the use of money, and mainly because wewanted to believe. "

Dozens of shops were in fact opened by the Marquis, but the publicrefused to trade, even at a saving, in stores where only one kind ofmeat could be bought. The Marquis had all the figures in the world toprove that the public should buy; but human nature thwarted him. 

The plan failed, but the Marquis, with his customary dexterity, obscured the failure with a new and even more engaging dream. 

"Our company is to be merged into another very large cattlesyndicate, " he said in March, 1887, "and having abundant capital, wepropose to buy up every retail dealer in this city either by cash orstock. "

The National Consumers' Company was the name of the new organization. 

There was a fine mixture of altruism and business in the firstprospectus which the Marquis's new company issued:

 Crushed, as so many others, by monopoly, we have been looking for the means of resisting it by uniting in a practical way with those who, like ourselves, try to make their future by their work. This has led to the organization of this company. The name of the company shows its aims. It must be worked by and for the people. 

That sounded very impressive, and the newspapers began to speak of theMarquis as a true friend of the people. Meanwhile, the _Bad LandsCowboy_ announced:

 Marquis de Mores has completed contracts with the French Government to supply its soldiers with a newly invented soup. He intends to visit Europe soon to make contracts with Western range cattle companies who have their headquarters there, for the slaughtering of their cattle. 

The soup scheme evidently died stillborn, for history records nothingfurther of it, and less than three months after the NationalConsumers' Company was founded with blare of trumpets, it hadcollapsed. It was characteristic of von Hoffman, whose fortune wasbehind the undertaking, that he paid back every subscriber to thestock in full. If any one was to lose, he intimated, it was vonHoffman. But, having settled with the creditors of his expensiveson-in-law, he explained to that gentleman, in words which could notbe misunderstood, that he would have no more of his schemes. VonHoffman thereupon betook himself to Europe, and the Marquis to Medora. 

His optimism remained indomitable to the last. To reporters he deniedvigorously that he had any intentions "of removing his businessinterests from Dakota. "

"I like Dakota and have come to stay, " he remarked. Thereupon helaunched one more grandiose scheme, announcing that he had discovereda gold mine in Montana and was planning to begin working it for all itwas worth as soon as his prospectors had completed their labors; andsailed for India with his intrepid Marquise to hunt tigers. 

Dakota knew him no more, and under the heading, "An Ex-DakotaDreamer, " the Sioux Falls _Press_ pronounced his epitaph:

 The Marquis is a most accomplished dreamer, and so long as his fortune lasted, or his father-in-law, Baron von Hoffman, would put up the money, he could afford to dream. He once remarked confidentially to a friend, "I veel make ze millions and millions by ze great enterprizes in America, and zen I veel go home to France, and veel capture my comrades in ze French armee, an veel plot and plan, and directly zey veel put me in command, and zen I veel swoop down on ze government, and first zing you know I veel mount the zrone. " One time his agent at Medora, his ranch on the Northern Pacific, wrote him at New York about the loss of three thousand head of sheep, the letter going into all the details of the affair. The Marquis turned the sheet over and wrote, "Please don't trouble me with trifles like these. " He is a very pleasant gentleman to meet, but unfortunately his schemes are bigger than he is. 

Medora was a town whose glory had departed. A pall was on all things, and the _Cowboy_ was no longer present to dispel it with the cheerfuloptimism of old. For, one night, when the cold was most bitter, andthe wind was high, a fire had started in the old cantonment buildingwhere Packard lived with his newly wedded wife, and printed the pagesthat had for three years brought gayety to the inhabitants of Medora, and stability to its infant institutions. The files were burned up, the presses destroyed; the _Cowboy_ was a memory. It was as though thesoul of Medora had gone out of its racked body. The remains lay rigidand voiceless. 

One by one its leading citizens deserted it. Roosevelt came and went, making his long stays no longer in the West, but in the East, where"home" was now. Packard went, then Fisher, then Van Driesche. 

 [J. C. Maunders, ] of Medora [runs an item in the Dickinson _Press_], is talking of moving two or three of his buildings from there to Dickinson. 

It was followed by other items full of mournful import. 

 [J. C. Maunders, ] [Joseph Morrill, ] and John W. Goodall, of Medora, were here Thursday and closed contracts for several lots. They will build. 

Two weeks later, the exodus began. The telling of it has a Shakspereanflavor:

 Medora is coming to Dickinson. On Thursday a train came in from the west with a number of flat-cars on which were loaded the buildings of [J. C. Maunders, ] who recently bought lots here. 

Thus it was that the Pyramid Park Hotel, where Roosevelt had spent hisfirst night in Little Missouri, four years previous, came to Dickinsonto become a most respectable one-family dwelling. Mrs. McGeeney'shotel followed it two weeks later. 

In August came the final blow:

 D. O. Sweet and family have moved from Medora to Dickinson. Mr. Sweet desired to reside where there was some life and prospect of growth. 

Alas, for earthly greatness, when a son of the town that was to rivalOmaha should desert her with such a valedictory!

XXVII

 The range is empty and the trails are blind, And I don't seem but half myself to-day. I wait to hear him ridin' up behind And feel his knee rub mine the good old way. He's dead--and what that means no man kin tell. Some call it "gone before. " Where? I don't know, but, God! I know so well That he ain't here no more!

 Badger CLARK

This, then, is the story of Roosevelt in the Bad Lands. What remainsis epilogue. 

In the autumn of 1887, Roosevelt was again with the Merrifields atElkhorn and with Sylvane at the Maltese Cross, to assist in theround-up of a train-load of cattle which he subsequently sold atChicago (again at a loss, for the prices for beef were even lower thanthe previous year). He went on a brief hunt after antelope in thebroken country between the Little Missouri and the Beaver; he fought araging prairie fire with the split and bleeding carcass of a steer; hewent on another hunt late in December with a new friend named FredHerrig, and was nearly frozen to death in a blizzard, attempting (notwithout success) to shoot mountain sheep; whereupon, feeling very fit, he returned East to his family and his books. 

He was now increasingly busy with his writing, completing that wintera volume of vigorous sketches of the frontier, called "Ranch Life andthe Hunting Trail, " beside his "Life of Gouverneur Morris, " and abook of "Essays on Practical Politics. " In the autumn of 1888, he wasagain at Elkhorn and again on the chase, this time in the Selkirks innorthern Idaho, camping on Kootenai Lake, and from there on foot witha pack on his back, ranging among the high peaks with his old guideJohn Willis and an Indian named Ammal, who was pigeon-toed andmortally afraid of hobgoblins. 

In 1889 he became a member of the Civil Service Commission inWashington, and thereafter he saw the Bad Lands only once a year, fleeing from his desk to the open country every autumn for a touch ofthe old wild life and a glimpse of the old friends who yet lingered inthat forsaken country. 

Medora had all the desolation of "a busted cowtown" whose inhabitants, as one cowpuncher remarked in answer to a tenderfoot's inquiry, were"eleven, including the chickens, when they were all in town. " All ofthe wicked men and most of the virtuous ones, who had lentpicturesqueness to Medora in the old days, were gone. Sylvane Ferrisstill lingered as foreman of the cattle which Roosevelt still retainedin the Bad Lands, and Joe Ferris still ran his store, officiated aspostmaster, and kept a room for Roosevelt on his infrequent visits. Bill Williams shot a man and went to jail, and with him went the gloryof his famous saloon. Of his old cronies, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones onlyremained. He was a man of authority now, for he had been electedsheriff when Joe Morrill moved his _lares et penates_ to Dickinson. His relations with Roosevelt criss-crossed, for, as sheriff, Roosevelt was his deputy, but whenever Roosevelt went on an extendedhunting trip, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was his teamster. He was, incidentally, an extraordinarily efficient teamster. He had certainprofane rituals which he repeated on suitable occasions, word forword, but with an emphasis and sincerity that made them sound eachtime as though he had invented them under the inspiration of theimmediate necessity. He had a special torrent of obscenity for histeam when they were making a difficult crossing somewhere on theLittle Missouri. It was always the same succession of terrifyingexpletives, and it always had the desired effect. It worked betterthan a whip. 

Meanwhile, the devotion of Bill Jones to Theodore Roosevelt was amatter of common report throughout the countryside, and it was saidthat he once stayed sober all summer in order to be fit to go on ahunting trip with Roosevelt in the fall. 

Sylvane married, like his "partners" going for his bride to NewBrunswick, whose supply of delightful young ladies seemed to beinexhaustible. They went to live in a "martin's cage, " as they calledit, under the bluff at Medora, and there Roosevelt visited them, afterJoe moved to Montana and his store passed into other hands. The Langsremained at Yule. After the evil winter, Sir James Pender threw themupon their own resources, and the years that followed were hard. Langhad long recognized the mistake he had made in not acceptingRoosevelt's offer that September of 1883, and the matter remained asore subject for Mrs. Lang, who never ceased regretting the lapse ofjudgment which had made her otherwise excellent husband miss what sheknew, as soon as she met Roosevelt, had been the greatest opportunitywhich Gregor Lang would ever have placed in his hands. Lang, as countycommissioner, became an important factor in the development of thecounty, and his ranch flourished. Lincoln Lang turned to engineeringand became an inventor. He went East to live, but his heart remainedamong the buttes where he had spent his adventurous boyhood. 

[Illustration: Lincoln Lang. ]

[Illustration: William T. Dantz. ]

[Illustration: Margaret Roberts. ]

[Illustration: "Dutch Wannigan". ]

The Eatons forsook the punching of cattle, and engaged in "dude"ranching on a grand scale, and the "Eaton Ranch" began to be famousfrom coast to coast even before they moved to Wolf, Wyoming, in thefoothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Mrs. Cummins drifted away withher family, carrying, no doubt, her discontent with her. Lloyd Robertsdisappeared, as though the earth had swallowed him, murdered, it wassupposed, in Cheyenne, after he had loaned Bill Williams seven hundreddollars. Mrs. Roberts was not daunted. She kept the little ranch onSloping Bottom and fed and clothed and educated her five daughters byher own unaided efforts. The Vines, father and son, drifted eastward. Packard and Dantz took to editing newspapers, Packard in Montana, Dantz in Pennsylvania. Edgar Haupt became a preacher, and Herman Haupta physician. Fisher grew prosperous in the State of Washington;Maunders throve mightily in Dickinson; Wilmot Dow died young; BillSewall resumed his life in Maine as a backwoodsman and guide; Foleyremained custodian of the deserted de Mores property at Medora;"Redhead" Finnegan was hanged. 

Poor "Dutch" Van Zander drank up his last remittance. "There, " hecried, "I have blown in a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, butI've given the boys a whale of a good time!" He gave up drinkingthereafter and went to work for the "Three Seven" outfit as anordinary cowhand. He became a good worker, but when the call of goldin Alaska sounded, he responded and was seen no more in his oldhaunts. A few years later he appeared again for a day, saying that hewas on his way to his old home in Holland. A month or two later newsfiltered into Medora that the brilliant and most lovable Dutchpatrician's son had been found, dead by his own hand, in a cemetery inAmsterdam, lying across his mother's grave. 

Twice Roosevelt's path crossed Joe Morrill's, and each time there wasconflict. Morrill opened a butcher-shop in a town not far from Medora, and it devolved on Roosevelt, as chairman of the Stockmen'sAssociation, to inform him that, unless he changed his manner ofacquiring the beef he sold, he would promptly go to jail. The shiftyswashbuckler closed his shop, and not long after, Roosevelt, who wasat the time serving on the Civil Service Commission in Washington, heard that Morrill was endeavoring to have himself made marshal ofone of the Northwestern States. The "reference" Roosevelt gave him onthat occasion was effective. Morrill was not appointed; and whathappened to him thereafter is lost to history. 

In 1890, Roosevelt was at the ranch at Elkhorn with Mrs. Roosevelt; ayear later he hunted elk with an English friend, R. H. M. Ferguson, atTwo Ocean Pass in the Shoshones, in northwestern Wyoming. That autumnthe Merrifields moved to the Flathead country in northwestern Montana, and Roosevelt closed the ranch-house. A year later he returned toElkhorn for a week's hunting. The wild forces of nature had alreadytaken possession. The bunch-grass grew tall in the yard and on thesodded roofs of the stables and sheds; the weather-beaten log walls ofthe house itself were one in tint with the trunks of the gnarledcottonwoods by which it was shaded. "The ranch-house is in goodrepair, " he wrote to Bill Sewall, "but it is melancholy to see itdeserted. "

Early the next spring Roosevelt took Archibald D. Russell, R. H. M. Ferguson, and his brother-in-law Douglas Robinson into partnershipwith him and formed the Elkhorn Stock Company, transferring his equityin the Elkhorn Ranch to the new corporation. [24]

 [Footnote 24: See Appendix for a statement of Roosevelt's cattle investment. ]

It was at the end of a wagon-trip to the Black Hills, which Roosevelttook with Sylvane and Hell-Roaring Bill Jones in 1893, that Rooseveltmet Seth Bullock. 

 Seth was at that time sheriff in the Black Hills district [wrote Roosevelt in his "Autobiography"], and a man he had wanted--a horse-thief--I finally got, I being at the time deputy sheriff two or three hundred miles to the north. The man went by a nickname which I will call "Crazy Steve. " It was some time after "Steve's" capture that I went down to Deadwood on business, Sylvane Ferris and I on horseback, while Bill Jones drove the wagon. At a little town, Spearfish, I think, after crossing the last eighty or ninety miles of gumbo prairie, we met Seth Bullock. We had had rather a rough trip, and had lain out for a fortnight, so I suppose we looked somewhat unkempt. Seth received us with rather distant courtesy at first, but unbent when he found out who we were, remarking, "You see, by your looks I thought you were some kind of a tin-horn gambling outfit, and that I might have to keep an eye on you!" He then inquired after the capture of "Steve"--with a little of the air of one sportsman when another has shot a quail that either might have claimed--"My bird, I believe?"

In a letter to John Hay, Roosevelt described that meeting. 

 When somebody asked Seth Bullock to meet us, he at first expressed disinclination. Then he was told that I was the Civil Service Commissioner, upon which he remarked genially, "Well, anything civil goes with me, " and strolled over to be introduced. 

During these years, while Roosevelt was working on the Civil ServiceCommission, fighting the spoilsmen and rousing the conscience of theAmerican people with a new ideal of public service, even while hestimulated their national pride with a fresh expression of theAmerican spirit, his old rival, the Marquis de Mores, was noticeablystirring the Old World. A year in India had been succeeded by a longstay in China, where the Marquis had conceived a scheme to secureconcessions for France, which somehow went the way of all theMarquis's schemes; nothing came of it. 

He returned to France. The French people were in a restless, unhappystate. More than once, war with Germany seemed imminent. TheGovernment was shot through with intrigue and corruption. The Marquis, with all the faults of his temperament, was an idealist, with a noblevision for his country. He saw that it had fallen into the hands ofbase, self-seeking men, and he grasped at every means that presenteditself to overthrow the powers that seemed to him to be corrupting andenfeebling France. He became an enthusiastic follower of Boulanger;when Boulanger fell, he became a violent anti-Semite, and shortlyafter, a radical Socialist. Meanwhile, he fought one duel afteranother, on one occasion killing his man. More than once he came intoconflict with the law, and once was imprisoned for three months, accused of inciting the populace to violence against the army. Therewere rumors of plots with the royalists and plots with the anarchists. It did not apparently seem of particular importance to the Marquis bywhom the Government was overthrown, so it was overthrown. 

His plans did not prosper. Anti-Semitism grew beyond his control. TheDreyfus affair broke, and set the very foundations of Francequivering. What the Marquis's part in it was, is obscure, but it wassaid that he was deeply involved. 

His attention was turning in another direction. France and Englandwere struggling for the possession of Central Africa, and the Marquisconceived the grandiose dream of uniting all the Mohammedans of theworld against England. He went to Tunis in the spring of 1896, commissioned, it was said, by the French Government to lead anexpedition into the Soudan to incite the Arabs to resist the Englishadvance in Africa. 

Whether the Marquis actually had the support of the Government is morethan dubious. When he set out on his expedition to the wild tribes ofthe Tunisian desert, he set out practically alone. At the last moment, the Marquis changed his Arab escort for a number of Touaregs, whooffered him their services. They were a wild, untrustworthy race, andmen who knew the country pleaded with him not to trust himself tothem. But the Marquis, who had prided himself on his judgment inLittle Missouri in 1883, had not changed his spots in 1896. Hiscamel-drivers led him into an ambush near the well of El Ouatia. Hecarried himself like the game fighting man that he had always been, and there was a ring of dead men around him when he himself finallysuccumbed. 

Nineteen days later an Arab official, sent out by the French militarycommander of the district, found his body riddled with wounds andburied in the sand near a clump of bushes close to where he hadfallen. His funeral in Paris was a public event. 

It was a tragic but a fitting close to a dreamer's romantic career. But the end was not yet, and the romance connected with the Marquis deMores was not yet complete. The investigation into his death which theFrench Government ordered was abandoned without explanation. TheMarquis's widow protested, accusing the Government of complicity inher husband's death, and charging that those who had murdered theMarquis were native agents of the French authorities and had beenacting under orders. 

The Marquise herself went to Tunis, determined that the assassins ofher husband should be brought to justice. There is a ring in herproclamation to the Arabs which might well have made the strippedbones of the Marquis stir in their leaden coffin. 

 In behalf of the illustrious, distinguished, and noble lady, the Marquise of Mores, wife of the deceased object of God's pity, the Marquis of Mores, who was betrayed and murdered at El Ouatia, in the country of Ghadames, salutations, penitence, and the benediction of God!

 Let it herewith be known to all faithful ones that I place myself in the hands of God and of you, because I know you to be manly, energetic, and courageous. I appeal to you to help me avenge the death of my husband by punishing his assassins. I am a woman. Vengeance cannot be wreaked by my own hand. For this reason I inform you, and swear to you, by the one Almighty God, that to whosoever shall capture and deliver to the authorities at El-Qued, at Ouargia, or at El-Goleah one of my husband's assassins I will give 1000 douros ($750), 2000 douros for two assassins, 3000 douros for three assassins. As to the principal assassins, Bechaoui and Sheik Ben Abdel Kader, I will give 2000 douros for each of them. And now, understand, make yourselves ready, and may God give you success. 

 Marquise de MORES

The murderers were captured, convicted, and executed. Then the littleAmerican woman, with her hair of Titian red, whom the cowboys ofLittle Missouri had christened "The Queen of the West, " quietlywithdrew from the public gaze; and the curtain fell on a greatromantic drama. 

Theodore Roosevelt was just coming into national eminence as PoliceCommissioner of New York City when the Marquis de Mores died besidethe well of El Ouatia. As a member of the Civil Service Commission inWashington he had caught the imagination of the American people, and agrowing number of patriotic men and women, scattered over the country, began to look upon him as the leader they had been longing for. Hecame to Medora no more for the round-up or the chase. 

In May, 1897, Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Lessthan a year later the Spanish War broke out. The dream he had dreamedin 1886 of a regiment recruited from the wild horsemen of the plainsbecame a reality. From the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, the menhe had lived and worked with on the round-up, and thousands of otherswhose imaginations had been seized by the stories of his courage andendurance, which had passed from mouth to mouth and from camp-fire tocamp-fire through the cattle country, offered their services. TheRough Riders were organized, and what they accomplished is history. There were unquestionably more weighty reasons why he should becomeGovernor of New York State than that he had been the successful leaderof an aggregation of untamed gunmen in Cuba. But it was that fact inhis career which caught the fancy of the voters, and by a narrowmargin elected him a Republican Governor of his State in what, aseverybody knew, was a "Democratic year. "

The men and women of the Bad Lands, scattered far and wide over theNorthwest, watched his progress with a glowing feeling in their heartsthat was akin to the pride that a father feels at the greatness of ason whom he himself has guided in the way that he should go. There wasnone of them but felt that he had had a personal share in the makingof this man who was beginning to loom larger and larger on thenational horizon. They had been his mentors, and inasmuch as they hadshown him how to tighten a saddle cinch or quiet a restless herd, theyfelt that they had had a part in the building of his character. Theyhad a great pride, moreover, in the bit of country where they hadspent their ardent youth, and they felt assured that the experienceswhich had thrilled and deepened them, had thrilled and deepened himalso. In their hearts they felt that they knew something of what hadmade him--"the smell, the singing prairies, the spirit that thrilledthe senses there, the intoxicating exhilaration, the awful silences, the mysterious hazes, the entrancing sunsets, the great storms andblizzards, the quiet, enduring people, the great, unnoted tragedies, the cheer, the humor, the hospitality, the lure of fortunes at the endof rainbows"--all those things they felt had joined to build America'sgreat new leader; and they, who had experienced these things with him, felt that they were forever closer to him than his other countrymencould ever possibly be. 

Roosevelt was nominated for the vice-presidency in June, 1900, and inJuly he began a campaign tour over the country which eclipsed evenBryan's prodigious journeyings of 1896. Early in September he came toDakota. 

Joe Ferris was the first to greet him after he crossed the border at away-station at six o'clock in the morning. [25]

 [Footnote 25: The account of Roosevelt's triumphant return to Medora is taken verbatim from contemporary newspapers. ]

"Joe, old boy, " cried Roosevelt exuberantly, "will you ever forget thefirst time we met?"

Joe admitted that he would not. 

"You nearly murdered me. It seemed as if all the ill-luck in the worldpursued us. "

Joe grinned. 

"Do you remember too, Joe, " exclaimed Roosevelt, "how I swam theswollen stream and you stood on the bank and kept your eyes on me?The stream was very badly flooded when I came to it, " said theGovernor, turning to the group that had gathered about them. "I forcedmy horse into it and we swam for the other bank. Joe was very muchdistressed for fear we would not get across. "

"I wouldn't have taken that swim for all of Dakota, " said Joe. 

At Dickinson, a gray-faced, lean man pushed his way through the crowd. It was Maunders, who had prospered, in spite of his evil ways. "Why, "exclaimed Roosevelt, "it does me good to see you. You remember when Ineeded a hammer so badly and you loaned it to me? You loaned me arifle also. I never shall forget how badly I needed that hammer justthen. "

Maunders, who had always been affable, grinned with delight and joinedthe Governor's party. 

The train moved on to Medora. Roosevelt and Joe Ferris sat by thewindow, and it seemed that every twisted crag and butte reminded themof the days when they had ridden over that wild country together. 

As the train neared Medora, Roosevelt was palpably moved. "The romanceof my life began here, " he said. 

There were forty or fifty people at the station in Medora. They hungback bashfully, but he was among them in an instant. 

"Why, this is Mrs. Roberts!" he exclaimed. "You have not changed abit, have you?"

She drew his attention to George Myers, who was all smiles. 

"My, my, George Myers!" exclaimed Roosevelt, "I did not even hope tosee you. " Roosevelt turned to the crowd. "George used to cook for me, "he said, with a wry expression. 

"Do you remember the time I made green biscuits for you?" askedGeorge, with a grin. 

"I do, " said Roosevelt emphatically, "I do, George. And I remember thetime you fried the beans with rosin instead of lard. The best proof inthe world, George, that I have a good constitution is that I ate yourcooking and survived. "

"Well, now, Governor, " exclaimed George, "I was thinking it would be agood idea to get that man Bryan up here and see what that kind ofbiscuit would do for him. "

Roosevelt looked about him, where the familiar buttes stretched grayand bleak in every direction. "It does not seem right, " he exclaimed, "that I should come here and not stay. "

Some one brought a bronco for Roosevelt. A minute later he wasgalloping eastward toward the trail leading up to the bluff that rosea thousand feet behind Medora. "Over there is Square Butte, " he criedeagerly, "and over there is Sentinel Butte. My ranch was at ChimneyButte. Just this side of it is the trail where Custer marched westwardto the Yellowstone and the Rosebud to his death. There is the churchespecially erected for the use of the wife of the Marquis de Mores. His old house is beyond. You can see it. "

For a minute he sat silent. "Looking back to my old days here, " hesaid, "I can paraphrase Kipling and say, 'Whatever may happen, I canthank God I have lived and toiled with men. '"

Roosevelt was inaugurated as Vice-President in March, 1901. Six monthslater he was President of the United States. From a venturesomecowpuncher who made his way shyly into the White House, the gladtidings were spread to the Bad Lands and through the whole Northwestthat Roosevelt was the same Roosevelt, and that everybody had bettertake a trip to Washington as soon as he could, for orders had goneforth that "the cowboy bunch can come in whenever they want to. "

Occasionally one or the other had difficulty in getting past theguards. It took Sylvane two days, once, to convince the doorkeeperthat the President wanted to see him. Roosevelt was indignant. "Thenext time they don't let you in, Sylvane, " he exclaimed, "you justshoot through the windows. "

No one shot through the windows. It was never necessary. The cowboysdined at the President's table with Cabinet ministers and ambassadors. 

"Remember, Jim, that if you shot at the feet of the British Ambassadorto make him dance, " Roosevelt whispered to one of his cowboy guests onone occasion, "it would be likely to cause internationalcomplications. "

"Why, Colonel, I shouldn't think of it, " exclaimed Jim. "I shouldn'tthink of it!"

The cowpunchers were the only ones who refused to take altogetherseriously the tradition that an invitation to the White House wasequivalent to a command. John Willis on one occasion came down fromMontana to discuss reclamation with the President, and Roosevelt askedhim to take dinner at the White House that night. Willis murmured thathe did not have a dress-suit, and it would not do to dine with thePresident of the United States "unless he were togged out proper. "

"Oh, that needn't bother you, " exclaimed the President. 

"It makes a heap of difference, " said Willis. "I may not always do theright thing, but I know what's proper. "

"You would be just as welcome at my table if you came in buckskintrousers. "

"I know that's true, " Willis replied, "but I guess I will have toside-step this trip. If you are taking any horseback rides out on thetrail here to-morrow, I'm your man, but I guess I will get my grubdowntown at the hashery where I'm bunking. "

That was all there was to it. John Willis could not be persuaded. 

Once more, for the last time, Roosevelt in 1903 went back to Medora. As they came into the Bad Lands, he stood on the rear platform of hiscar, gazing wistfully over the forbidding-looking landscape. 

"I know all this country like a book, " he said to John Burroughs, whowas beside him. "I have ridden over it and hunted in it and trampedover it in all seasons and weather, and it looks like home to me. "

 As soon as I got west of the Missouri I came into my own former stamping-ground [he wrote to John Hay, describing that visit]. At every station there was somebody who remembered my riding in there when the Little Missouri round-up went down to the Indian reservation and then worked north across the Cannon Ball and up Knife and Green Rivers; or who had been an interested and possibly malevolent spectator when I had ridden east with other representatives of the cowmen to hold a solemn council with the leading grangers on the vexed subject of mavericks; or who had been hired as a train-hand when I had been taking a load of cattle to Chicago, and who remembered well how he and I at the stoppages had run frantically down the line of the cars and with our poles jabbed the unfortunate cattle who had lain down until they again stood up, and thereby gave themselves a chance for their lives; and who remembered how when the train started we had to clamber hurriedly aboard and make our way back to the caboose along the tops of the cattle cars. 

 At Mandan two of my old cow-hands, Sylvane and Joe Ferris, joined me. At Dickinson all of the older people had known me and the whole town turned out with wild and not entirely sober enthusiasm. It was difficult to make them much of a speech, as there were dozens of men each earnestly desirous of recalling to my mind some special incident. One man, how he helped me bring in my cattle to ship, and how a blue roan steer broke away leading a bunch which it took him and me three hours to round up and bring back; another, how seventeen years before I had come in a freight train from Medora to deliver the Fourth of July oration; another, a gray-eyed individual named [Maunders], who during my early years at Medora had shot and killed an equally objectionable individual, reminded me how, just twenty years before, when I was on my first buffalo hunt, he loaned me the hammer off his Sharp's rifle to replace the broken hammer of mine; another recalled the time when he and I worked on the round-up as partners, going with the Little Missouri "outfit" from the head of the Box Alder to the mouth of the Big Beaver, and then striking over to represent the Little Missouri brands on the Yellowstone round-up; yet another recalled the time when I, as deputy sheriff of Billings County, had brought in three cattle-thieves named Red Finnegan, Dutch Chris, and the half-breed to his keeping, he being then sheriff in Dickinson, etc. , etc. , etc. 

 At Medora, which we reached after dark, the entire population of the Bad Lands down to the smallest baby had gathered to meet me. This was formerly my home station. The older men and women I knew well; the younger ones had been wild tow-headed children when I lived and worked along the Little Missouri. I had spent nights in their ranches. I still remembered meals which the women had given me when I had come from some hard expedition, half famished and sharp-set as a wolf. I had killed buffalo and elk, deer and antelope with some of the men. With others I had worked on the trail, on the calf round-up, on the beef round-up. We had been together on occasions which we still remembered when some bold rider met his death in trying to stop a stampede, in riding a mean horse, or in the quicksands of some swollen river which he sought to swim. They all felt I was their man, their old friend; and even if they had been hostile to me in the old days, when we were divided by the sinister bickering and jealousies and hatreds of all frontier communities, they now firmly believed they had always been my staunch friends and admirers. They had all gathered in the town hall, which was draped for a dance--young children, babies, everybody being present. I shook hands with them all, and almost each one had some memory of special association with me he or she wished to discuss. I only regretted that I could not spend three hours with them. 

Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was supposed to be at Gardiner, Wyoming, andRoosevelt, arriving there a few days later for a camping trip throughthe Yellowstone, asked eagerly for his old friend. Bill Jones was downin the world. He had had to give up his work as sheriff in Medorabecause he began to lose his nerve and would break down and weep likea child when he was called upon to make an arrest. He was driving ateam in Gardiner outside the Park, and during the days precedingRoosevelt's arrival took so many drinks while he was telling of hisintimacy with the man who had become President of the United States, that he had to be carried into the sagebrush before Roosevelt actuallyarrived. Roosevelt left word to keep Bill Jones sober against hisreturn, and when Roosevelt emerged from the Park, they met for thelast time. It was a sad interview, for what was left of Hell-RoaringBill Jones was only a sodden, evil-looking shell. 

[Illustration: Joe and Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield. Overlooking thesite of the Maltese Cross Ranch (1919). ]

[Illustration: Rough Riders Hotel, 1919. Known as the "Metropolitan"during the Eighties. ]

"Bill Jones did not live long after that, " said Howard Eaton. "Thelast I saw of him was two or three miles from Old Faithful. He said, 'I'm going to the trees. ' We went out to look for him, but couldn'tfind a trace. This was in March. He wandered way up one of thoseravines and the supposition is that he froze to death. Some fellowfound him up there in June, lying at the edge of a creek. The coyoteshad carried off one of his arms, and they planted him right there. Andthat was the end of old Bill Jones. "

Years passed, and bitter days came to Roosevelt, but though otherfriends failed him, the men of the Bad Lands remained faithful. 

In 1912, four of them were delegates to the ProgressiveConvention--Sylvane Ferris from North Dakota, where he was presidentof a bank; Joe Ferris, George Myers, and Merrifield from Montana. Even"Dutch Wannigan, " living as a hermit in the wilderness forty mileswest of Lake MacDonald, became an ardent Progressive. "I can't affordto go to Helena, " he wrote in answer to an appeal from Merrifield toattend the State Progressive Convention, "but if you think there'll bea row, I'll try to make it. " Packard and Dantz gave their pens to thecause. 

George Myers was the last of the "cowboy bunch" to see him. They metin Billings in October, 1918. The town was filled with the crowds whohad come from near and far to see the man who, everybody said, wassure again to be President of the United States. 

"Have you got a room, George?" cried Roosevelt, as they met. 

Myers shook his head cheerfully. 

"Share mine with me, " said Roosevelt, "and we'll talk about oldtimes. "

Three months later to a day, the man who had been Little Missouri's"four-eyed tenderfoot" was dead. 

 * * * * *

The Bad Lands are still the Bad Lands, except that the unfencedprairies are fenced now and on each bit of parched bottom-land a"nester" has his cabin and is struggling, generally in vain, to dig aliving out of the soil in a region which God never made for farming. The treacherous Little Missouri is treacherous still; here and there aburning mine still sends a tenuous wisp toward the blue sky; thebuttes have lost none of their wild magnificence; and dawn and dusk, casting long shadows across the coulees, reveal the old heart-rendingloveliness. 

Medora sleeps through the years and dreams of other days. SchuylerLebo, who was shot by the Indians, delivers the mail; "Nitch" Kendleyoperates the pump for the water-tank at the railroad station; anonogenarian called "Frenchy, " who hunted with Roosevelt and has losthis wits, plays cribbage all day long at the "Rough Riders Hotel. "These three are all that remain of the gay aggregation that made lifea revel at the "depot" and at Bill Williams's saloon. And yet, even inits desolation, as the cook of the "Rough Riders Hotel" remarked, "There's something fascinating about the blinkety-blank place. I don'tknow why I stay here, but I do. "

The ranch-house of the Maltese Cross has been moved to Bismarck, whereit stands, wind-beaten and neglected, in the shadow of the capitol. The Elkhorn ranch-house is gone, used for lumber, but the greatfoundation stones that Bill Sewall and Will Dow laid under it remain, and the row of cottonwoods that shaded it still stand, without a gap. Near by are the ruins of the shack which Maunders claimed andRoosevelt held, in spite of threats. The river flows silently beneatha grassy bank. There is no lovelier spot in the Bad Lands. 

THE END

APPENDIX

ROOSEVELT'S FIRST CONTRACT WITH SYLVANE FERRIS AND A. W. MERRIFIELD. 

 (A copy of this contract, in Mr. Roosevelt's handwriting, is in the ranch-ledger, kept, somewhat fitfully, by Mr. Roosevelt and his foremen. This ledger, which contains also the minutes of the first meeting of the Little Missouri River Stockmen's Association, held in Medora on December 19, 1884, is now in the possession of Mr. Joseph A. Ferris, of Terry, Montana. )

We the undersigned, Theodore Roosevelt, party of the first part, andWilliam Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris, parties of the second part, doagree and contract as follows:

1. The party of the first part, Theodore Roosevelt, agrees andcontracts with the parties of the second part, William Merrifield andSylvanus Ferris, to put in on their ranch on the Little MissouriRiver, Dakota, four hundred head of cattle or thereabouts, the costnot to exceed twelve thousand dollars ($12, 000) and the parties of thesecond part do agree to take charge of said cattle for the party ofthe first part; said cattle to be thus placed and taken charge of forthe term of seven years. 

2. At the end of said seven years the equivalent in value of said fourhundred head of cattle, as originally put in, is to be returned to theparty of the first part; provided that the parties of the second partare to have the privilege of paying off at any time or times prior tothe expiration of said seven years, in sums of not less than onethousand dollars at any one time, said claim of the party of the firstpart to the equivalent in value of the original herd of cattle. 

3. Any additional cattle put into the herd by said party of the firstpart are to be put in on the same terms as the original herd, and areto remain in the herd for as much of the seven years mentioned in thiscontract as is unexpired at the time they are put in. 

4. One half of the increase of value of said herd is to belong to theparty of the first part and one-half to the parties of the secondpart. 

5. The parties of the second part are to have the power from time totime to make such sales as they in the exercise of their best judgmentshall deem wisest, provided that no sale shall be made sufficient inamount to decrease the herd below its original value except by theconsent of all parties in writing. 

6. All monies obtained by such sales of cattle from the herd shall bedivided equally between said party of the first part and said partiesof the second part. 

7. During the continuance of said contract the parties of the secondpart agree not to take charge of nor have interest in any other stockthan that of said party of the first part without his consent inwriting. 

8. Said parties of the second part are to keep accurate and completeaccounts in writing of the purchases and sales of stock and of theexpenditures of all monies entrusted to their care, which accounts areto be submitted to said party of the first part whenever he may desireit. 

9. Any taxes upon said cattle are to be paid half by the party of thefirst part, half by the parties of the second part. 

10. Said cattle are to be branded with the maltese cross on the lefthip and are to have the cut dewlap, these brands to be the property ofthe owner of the cattle; the vent mark to be the letter R under themaltese cross. 

 Witness: Signed:

 Roger S. KENNEDY Theodore ROOSEVELT M. HANLEY (_party of the first part_) William MERRIFIELD Sylvanus FERRIS (_parties of the second part_)

 _St. Paul, Minn. , September 27th, 1883. _

ROOSEVELT'S CONTRACT WITH WILLIAM W. SEWALL AND WILMOT S. DOW

 LITTLE MISSOURI, DAKOTA _June 20, 1885_

We the undersigned, Theodore Roosevelt, party of the first part, andWilliam Sewall and Wilmot S. Dow, parties of the second part, do agreeand contract as follows:

(1) The party of the first part having put eleven hundred head ofcattle, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars ($25, 000) on theElkhorn Ranche, on the Little Missouri River, the parties of thesecond part do agree to take charge of said cattle for the space ofthree years, and at the end of this time agree to return to said partyof the first part the equivalent in value of the original herd(twenty-five thousand dollars); any increase in value of the herd oversaid sum of twenty-five thousand dollars is to belong two-thirds tosaid party of the first part and one-third to said parties of thesecond part. 

(2) From time to time said parties of the second part shall in theexercise of their best judgment make sales of such cattle as are fitfor market, the moneys obtained by said sales to belong two-thirds tosaid party of the first part and one-third to said parties of thesecond part; but no sales of cattle shall be made sufficient in amountto reduce the herd below its original value save by the direction inwriting of the party of the first part. 

(3) The parties of the second part are to keep accurate accounts ofexpenditures, losses, the calf crop, etc. ; said accounts to be alwaysopen to the inspection of the party of the first part. 

(4) The parties of the second part are to take good care of thecattle, and also of the ponies, buildings, etc. , belonging to saidparty of the first part. 

 Signed:

 Theodore ROOSEVELT (_party of the first part_) W. W. SEWALL W. S. DOW (_parties of the second part_)

ROOSEVELT'S DAKOTA INVESTMENT

Mr. Roosevelt's accounts were kept by Mr. Frank C. Smith, confidentialclerk in the office of his brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson. Theledgers reveal the following facts concerning his Dakota investments:

 Expended from September, 1884, to July, 1885 $82, 500. 00 Returns from cattle sales, from September, 1885, to December, 1891 42, 443. 32 Estimated value of cattle on the range, December, 1891 16, 500. Loss, not considering the interest on the investment 23, 556. 68

On March 28, 1892, Roosevelt formed the Elkhorn Stock Company, incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, with ArchibaldD. Russell, R. H. M. Ferguson, and Douglas Robinson, and on December5, 1892, transferred his cattle holdings to this Company at avaluation of $16, 500. Subsequently he invested a further sum of$10, 200. 

 Investment, Elkhorn Stock Company $26, 700. 00 Returns in capital and dividends from January, 1893, to February, 1899 29, 964. 05 Profit, not considering interest 3, 264. 05 Loss on two ventures 20, 292. 63

The computation of Roosevelt's loss in interest on his investment of$82, 500. 00 figured at 5 per cent from September 1884, to February, 1899, the author gladly leaves to any class in arithmetic which maycare to grapple with it. It approximates $50, 000. 

INDEX

 Axelby, Mr. , 140, 141. 

 Bad Lands, the, their appearance, 5-7, 18, 23; the name, 6; the opening up of, 24, 25; the lawless element in, 54, 126-30, 136; horse and cattle thieves in, 139-42; winter in, 223-28, 236-38; spring in, 248-50; styles in, 321, 322; religion in, 325-28; law and order enter, 328-30; obtain organized government, 387; a hard winter in, 430-39; to-day, 474. 

 _Bad Lands Cowboy, The_, 76, 77, 131-33, 329; burned out, 451. 

 Bear-hunting, 185-88. 

 "Ben Butler, " 276, 289-91. 

 Bennett, Hank, 252, 253. 

 Benton, Thomas Hart, Roosevelt's _Life_ of, 371, 397-99. 

 Bernstead, 375, 386 _n. _

 Berry-Boyce Cattle Co. , 94. 

 Big Horn Mountains, hunting in, 168, 175-88. 

 "Big Jack" and "Little Jack, " 141, 142. 

 Bismarck, Dakota, 73. 

 Bismarck _Tribune_, on Roosevelt, 341. 

 Black Jack, 135. 

 Blaine, James G. , nomination of, 88. 

 Blizzard, a, 431-33. 

 Boice, Henry, 25. 

 Bolan, Pierce, 143, 197, 198. 

 Bronco-busting, 225-27. 

 Buffalo, hunting, 23, 24, 28-39, 44, 45; extermination of, 29. 

 Bullock, Seth, 459. 

 Buttes, 6, 7, 13, 18, 202, 203. 

 Carow, Edith, engagement to Roosevelt, 426; marriage of, 430. 

 Cattle, trailing, 268-70. 

 Cattle companies, 242. 

 Cattle torture, 266, 267. 

 Chicago _Tribune_, on Roosevelt, 350. 

 Chimney Butte, trail to, 13; account of, 15. 

 Coeur d'Alênes, 419. 

 County organization, 55, 133-35, 324, 387. 

 Cowboys, talk of, 100; their attitude toward Roosevelt, 101, 102; reading of, 228; a song of, 280; diversions of, 281; character of, 282; profanity of, 283; practical jokes of, 283, 284. 

 Cummins, Mr. , 111, 323. 

 Cummins, Mrs. , and Mrs. Roberts, 111, 112; her views, 259, 260; Roosevelt dines with, 293, 294; and Mrs. Ferris, 361, 362; the last of, 456. 

 "Custer Trail, " 13, 109, 110. 

 Dantz, Bill, 56; a singer of songs and a spinner of yarns, 281; made Superintendent of Education at Medora, 319; elected superintendent of schools, 390; the last of, 456, 473. 

 Day, Chancellor, 289 _n. _

 Deadwood stage-line, the Marquis's project of, 77, 78, 120-24, 170, 209-14. 

 "Devil, The, " 271-75. 

 Dickinson, first Fourth of July celebration of, 405-11; growth of, 452. 

 Dickinson _Press_, the, helps county organization, 133, 134; fashion notes in, 321, 322. 

 Dow, Wilmot, 88, 159, 163; Roosevelt's contract with, 156, 157, 481; as a cowhand, 189, 190, 206, 225; and the vigilantes, 191, 192, 195; good company, 217; his andirons, 240; goes East to get married, 307; character of, 313, 314; on a thief hunt, 372-80; terminates engagement with Roosevelt, 424-28; the last of, 457. 

 Dow, Mrs. , 313. 

 Dutch Chris, 386 _n. _

 "Dutch Wannigan. " _See_ Reuter. 

 Dynamite Jimmie. _See_ McShane. 

 Eaton, Howard, 8, 13; and the Marquis de Mores, 60, 61; his appearance, 110; calls on Roosevelt, 164, 165; neighbor of Roosevelt, 315. 

 Eaton Ranch, 456. 

 Eatons, the, 25, 109, 110, 260, 263, 456. 

 Elkhorn, ranch, 202, 240; life at, 310-17; to-day, 475. 

 Elkhorn Stock Co. , 458. 

 Ferguson, R. H. M. , 458. 

 Ferris, Joe, 10, 11; his career, 14-16; and the extra saddle horse, 17; brings down a buck, 24; on the buffalo hunt, 28-39, 44, 45; firm for law and order, 55, 56, 328; becomes storekeeper, 80, 81; prophesies Presidency for Roosevelt, 258; removes to Medora, 319; banker of Bad Lands, 347; gets married, 360; in Medora in its desolation, 454; greeted by Roosevelt in 1900, 465; delegate to Progressive Convention, 473. 

 Ferris, Mrs. Joe, 360-64. 

 Ferris, Sylvane, 12; his career, 14-16; becomes partner of Roosevelt, 42-44; for law and order, 55, 56; signs contract with Roosevelt, 69, 70, 479, 480; and the Marquis's cattle, 84-86; confident of success in cattle raising, 255; rides Ben Butler, 290, 291; gets involved in the law, 300-04; in Medora in its desolation, 454; marries, 455; delegate to Progressive Convention, 473. 

 Finnegan, Redhead, 368-86, 457. 

 Fisher, John C, and Roosevelt, 102-04; for county commissioner, 134; and horse thieves, 143; and Maunders, 199; and Medora's Great White Way, 319; at Medora's first election, 390, 391; the last of, 456. 

 Fitzgerald, Mrs. , 52. 

 Fitz James, Count, 59. 

 Flopping Bill, 195. 

 Foley, 457. 

 Frazier, George, 417. 

 Frenchy, 474. 

 Gentling the Devil, 271-75. 

 Goat hunting, 419-24. 

 Goodall, Johnny, 334, 390. 

 Gorringe, H. H. , 8, 9, 20, 23, 25. 

 Hainsley, Jake, 85. 

 Haupt brothers, the, 61, 67-69, 79, 456. 

 Herrig, Fred, 453. 

 Hewitt, Abram S. , 20. 

 Hobson, H. H. , 394. 

 Hoffman, Baron von, 210, 450. 

 Hoffman, Medora von, 59. 

 Hogue, Jess, 7, 9, 51, 55, 420-23. 

 Hollenberg, Carl, 258 _n. _

 Horse-thieves. _See_ Thieves. 

 Huidekoper, A. D. , 25, 110. 

 Indians, shooting-match with, 183, 184; trouble between whites and, 351-54, 357, 358; Roosevelt's view of, 355; the psychology of, 356. 

 Jameson, Mr. , 146. 

 Jones, Hell-Roaring Bill, 113-16; Roosevelt makes friends with, 116; of the gay life of Medora, 128, 322; expresses his opinion on the scions of British aristocracy, 261, 262; and "Deacon" Cummins, 323; and the Elk Hotel, 360; watches at the polling-places, 389, 390; in later years, 454, 455; the last of, 472, 473. 

 Jones, Three-Seven Bill, 246, 247, 278. 

 Kelly, Pat, 446. 

 Kendley, Nitch, 264, 265, 474. 

 La Pache, Louis, 195. 

 Lang, Gregor, 11, 12; his cabin, 19; enjoys talks with Roosevelt, 19, 24-28; how he established himself at Little Missouri, 20-22; ranching offer made by Roosevelt to, 41; makes prophecy concerning Roosevelt, 46; refuses to make friends with Marquis de Mores, 62; the Marquis braves grudge against, 118; his ranch, 160; his love of argument, 263, 264; dogmatic in his theories, 264; relations with Roosevelt and the Marquis, 338; in later years, 456. 

 Lang, Mrs. Gregor, 160, 161. 

 Lang, Lincoln, 23, 27, 28, 41; biscuits made by, 34; his description of Bill Williams, 50; refuses Roosevelt's shot-gun, 96; his description of Bill Jones, 115 _n. _; on grudge of Marquis for Gregor Lang, 118 _n. _; on anecdote concerning Roosevelt and Mrs. Maddox, 150 _n. _; on the round-up, 277 _n. _; in later years, 456. 

 Langs, the, on the "Three Seven" ranch, 93, 94, 261-63. 

 Lebo, Norman, 175, 176, 180, 185. 

 Lebo, Schuyler, 353, 474. 

 Little Missouri, 7, 8; society in, 47-57; proceedings of Marquis de Mores at, 58-65; begins to flourish, 65, 66; continues to grow, 70-73; setback for, 77; the jail in, 135; to-day, 474. 

 Little Missouri Land and Stock Co. , the, 20, 61, 77. 

 Little Missouri Stock Association. _See_ Stockmen's Association. 

 Luffsey, Riley, 63, 64, 119. 

 Macdonald, 214 _n. _

 Mackenzie, Dan, 390. 

 MacNab, 49. 

 Maddox, Mrs. , 95, 96, 150, 356. 

 Maltese Cross, the, 15, 91, 148; outfit of, 92; first year of, 255; callers at, 264, 265; to-day, 474. 

 Mandan _Pioneer_, the, 65, 154, 158. 

 Marlow, Pete, 84, 85. 

 Matthews, 84-86. 

 Maunders, Archie, 53, 54. 

 Maunders, Jake, 7, 9, 12, 49, 54-57; disliked Roosevelt, 58; and the Marquis de Mores, 62-65; cleans out Johnny Nelson, 80, 81; clings to the Marquis, 126; and horse and cattle thieves, 142; marked for hanging, 198; his discreetness, 199; visits Sewall in the dugout, 199-201; threatens to shoot Roosevelt, 207, 208; a _bona-fide_ "bad man, " 320; in Dickinson, 457; greets Roosevelt, 466. 

 McFay, 345. 

 McGee, Chris, 110, 165. 

 McGeeney, Pete, 52. 

 McGeeney, Mrs. Pete, 7, 52, 55, 56. 

 McShane, Jimmie, 347. 

 Medicine buttes, 202, 203. 

 Medora, 8, 48; founded by Marquis de Mores, 61; blossoms forth, 77; life of, dominated by the Marquis, 116-18; gay life of, 127; notorious for its iniquity, 128-30; attempts at reform in, 131-35; in need of a jail, 135; mass meeting at, 136, 137; police force and fire department of, 137, 138; growth of, 170, 318-20; possessed deputy marshal, 221; the coming of law in, 323, 328; religion at, 325; first election at, 389-91; its glory departed, 451, 452, 454; visited by Roosevelt as nominee for vice-presidency, 466; Roosevelt's last visit to, 469; to-day, 474. 

 Merrifield, A. W. , 12; his career, 14-16; becomes partner of Roosevelt, 42-44; tries to establish law in Little Missouri, 56; signs contract with Roosevelt, 69, 70, 479, 480; and the Marquis's cattle, 84-86; tries out Roosevelt on the Sully Trail, 103, 104; on hunting trip, 175-88; confident of success in cattle raising, 255; carries news of Mrs. Ferris's adherence to cowboys, 361, 362; marries, 447; delegate to Progressive Convention, 473. 

 Mexico, flurry over, 413, 414. 

 Miles City, 392-95. 

 Mingusville, 151-54, 242-47. 

 Montana Live Stock Association, 219. 

 Montana Stockgrowers' Association, 392-95, 444-46. 

 Mores, Marquis de, 25; arrival at Little Missouri, 58-60; his views, 60, 61; and the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Co. , 61, 79; founds Medora, 61; tries to win supporters, 62; and Maunders, 62-65; and Riley Luffsey, 63, 64, 119; in business, 67-69; extends his business, 70-72; and _The Bad Lands Cowboy_, 76; and the Deadwood stage, 77, 78, 120-24, 170, 209-14; loss of his sheep, 78; his cabbage project, 79, 80; removes his cattle from the Roosevelt bottom-land, 84-86; description of, 116; dominates life of Medora, 117; his grudge against Gregor Lang, 118; lacked judgment, 119; and Roosevelt, 124; on the side of violence, 125, 130; tries to join Stuart's vigilantes, 147; claims Roosevelt's range, 165, 191; member of stockmen's association, 234; his idea of the Western climate, 236; and his abattoir, 331-34: and kaoline, 334; without friends in Medora, 334; liked the Bad Lands, 335; his genealogy, 335, 336; relations with Roosevelt, 336-42, 345-49; indicted for murder, 342, 343; in jail, 344; his trial, 345, 346; goes to France, 359; new schemes of, 447-50; leaves for India, 450; article in Sioux Falls Press on, 450; later career and death of, 460-63. 

 Mores, Marquise de, 462, 463. 

 Morrill, Joe, 143; deputy marshal in Medora, 221, 222; stock inspector, 324; sheriff, 390; vs. George Myers, 442-44; dismissed from inspectorship, 444, 445; later encounters with Roosevelt, 457. 

 Mountain sheep, hunting, 228-32. 

 Mugwumps, the, 88, 172, 208. 

 Myers, George, cowpuncher, 93; his cookery, 106, 107, 232; invests in cattle, 255; accused of cattle stealing, 442-44; in later years, 467, 473. 

 Nelson, Johnny, 7, 80, 81. 

 Nesters, 194-96. 

 Newburyport Herald, quoted, 384. 

 Nolan, Mrs. , 242, 245-47. 

 Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Co. , 61, 79, 117. 

 Nugent, Lord, 25. 

 O'Donald, Frank, 63, 64, 66, 67. 

 O'Hara, Johnny, 329. 

 Olmstead, Mrs. , 96 _n. _

 Osterhaut, 278, 324. 

 Packard, A. T. , arrival in Little Missouri, 73; and the cowboy, 73-75; starts a newspaper, 76; and the Deadwood stage-line, 123, 124, 170, 209-14; a civilizing influence, 130, 131; endeavors to introduce law and order in the Bad Lands, 131-35; issues call for mass meeting, 136; chief of police at Medora, 137-39; announces demise of horse-thieves, 193, 194; enthusiastic over the Bad Lands, 254; his account of Roosevelt and the Devil, 271-75; tries again for county organization, 324, 387; firm for order and decency, 328, 329; realizes bigness of Roosevelt, 411; excoriates Morrill, 443; supports Progressive cause, 473. 

 Paddock, Jerry, 51, 52, 62. 

 Paddock, Mrs. , 52. 

 Pender, Sir John, 20-22, 25, 455. 

 Prairie fires, 351, 357, 358. 

 Presidential Convention, the, 1884, 88. 

 Putnam, George Haven, 359. 

 Ranges, cattle, 91, 92; claims on, 219; need of law of, 220. 

 Religion, in the Bad Lands, 325-28. 

 Reuter, John, 16; and Riley Luffsey, 63, 64; returns to old occupations, 169; one of Roosevelt's scow-hands, 338, 339; and the Marquis, 347; becomes Progressive, 473. 

 Roberts, Lloyd, 456. 

 Roberts, Margaret, in, 112, 258-60, 456. 

 Robins, Captain, 160, 189; his bout with Sewall, 161-64. 

 Robinson, Douglas, 458. 

 Roderick, Mrs. , 52. 

 Roosevelt, Anna, 104-06. 

 Roosevelt, James, 40, 70. 

 Roosevelt, Theodore, arrives in Little Missouri, 3-5; his reason for going to the Bad Lands, 8; starts on buffalo hunt, 12-14; gets an extra saddle horse, 16, 17; enjoys talks with Gregor Lang, 19, 24-28; hunting buffalo, 28-39; desirous of buying a large farm, 39; interested in ranching projects, 40, 41; secures two partners, 42, 43; gives check for fourteen thousand dollars without receipt, 43; kills his buffalo, 44-46; relished things blood-curdling, 47; signs contract with Sylvane and Merrifield, 69, 70, 479, 480; his cattle venture is disapproved of by family, 70; enters upon third term in New York Legislature, 81, 82; death of mother and wife, 82; of public activities of, 82, 83, 87, 88; refuses to join Mugwumps, 88, 172, 208; description of, 89; describes Presidential Convention, 90, 91; makes new contract, 94; gets buckskin suit, 95, 96; shoots antelope, 97; enters into life of ranchman, 97, 98; on the round-up, 99, 275-307, 400-03; attitude of cowboys toward, 101, 102; tried out on the Sully Trail, 103, 104; his life as cowboy, 104, 105; on solitary hunting trip, 105, 106; tries cooking, 107; his reading and writing, 108, 109; a good mixer, 112; and Bill Jones, 115, 116; and the Marquis, 124; tries to join Stuart's vigilantes, 146; determines upon spot for home-ranch, 149; and Mrs. Maddox, 150; adventures at Mingusville, 150-54, 244-47; editorial on, in the Mandan _Pioneer_, 154; on the Bad Lands, in the New York _Tribune_, 156; contract with Sewall and Dow, 156, 157, 481; interviewed by the _Pioneer_, 158, 159; on the ranch, 159-65; prepares for hunting trip, 168, 169, 173, 174; demanded as first Congressional representative of Dakota, 171; his political standing in the East, 172; always wanted to make the world better, 174, 219; his hunting trip in the Big Horn Mountains, 175-88; shoots a grizzly, 185-88; returns to Elkhorn, 202-05; threatened by Maunders, 207, 208; makes campaign speeches in New York, 208; night ride of, 216, 217; depression of, 217-19; starts a reform, 219, 222; in winter on the ranch, 223-28; hunts mountain sheep, 228-32; forms stockmen's association, 231-34. Returns to New York and works on "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, " 235, 239; his derby hat, 239; illness of, 240, 241; swims the Little Missouri, 249-52; and his ranching companions, 252, 253; a capable ranchman, 255; intolerant of dishonesty and ineffectiveness, 256, 257; how esteemed by the ranchmen, 257, 258; and the buttermilk, 259; and the neighbors, 260-64; tries cooking again, 265; trailing cattle, 268-70; his horsemanship, 270, 271; gentles the Devil, 271-75; on the round-up, 275-307; breaks bronco, 287-89; tries Ben Butler, 289-91; breaks point of shoulder, 290, 291, 293; attends dinner at Mrs. Cummins's, 293, 294; in the stampede, 295-97; rescues Englishman with lasso, 297, 298; his enjoyment of the cowboy life, 305, 306; interviewed at St. Paul, 308, 309; his life at Elkhorn, 310-12, 316, 317; adventure with Wadsworth's dog, 315, 316; relations with the Marquis, 336-42, 345-49; did not intend to enter Dakota politics, 350, 351; adventure with Indians, 353, 354; his attitude toward the Indians, 355, 356; breaks his arm, 359; writes articles for press, 359; and Mrs. Ferris, 363, 364; anger at theft of boat, 365-71; undertakes _Life_ of T. H. Benton, 371; on a thief hunt, 372-86; representative of stockmen's association, 392-95; his cattle prospects, 395-97; continues his _Life_ of Benton, 397-99; his enjoyable summer of 1886, 401, 402; his influence over the cowboys, 403; Fourth of July oration, 407-11; restlessness of, 412; feelings at prospect of war with Mexico, 413-15; what he got from the Western life, 416; his human sympathy, 417; holds up train, 418, 419; goes goat hunting with John Willis, 419-24; terminates engagement with Sewall and Dow, 424-28; becomes engaged to Edith Carow, 426; nominated for Mayor of New York City, 429; marriage, 430; his losses, 440, 441; assumes leadership in stockmen's association, 446; later visits to Bad Lands, 453, 454, 458; books of, 453, 454; member of Civil Service Commission, 454; later encounters with Morrill, 457, 458; meets Seth Bullock, 459; member of Civil Service Commission, Police Commissioner, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 463; in Spanish War, 463, 464; Governor of New York, 464; goes to Dakota as nominee for vice-presidency, 465-68; becomes President, 468; entertains cowboys at White House, 468, 469; visits Medora for last time, 469-72; death, 473; Dakota investment, 482. 

 Rough Riders, the, 464. 

 Round-up, the, 99, 220, 275-307, 403-03. 

 Rowe, 313, 314. 

 Russell, Archibald D. , 458. 

 St. Paul _Pioneer Press_, its version of the Roosevelt-Mores bargain, 341. 

 Sewall, Bill, 87; Roosevelt's contract with, 156, 157, 481; his opinion of the West as a cattle-raising country, 159, 160, 206, 238, 240, 254, 306, 307, 396; his bout with Captain Robins, 162-64; his description of the Bad Lands, 167, 168, 190; begs off on hunting trip, 175; as a cowhand, 189, 190, 206, 225; and the vigilantes, 191, 192, 195; visited by Maunders in the dugout, 199-201; had good knowledge of the ways of cattle, 206, 207; consoles Roosevelt, 217-19; refuses to ride broncos, 225-27; on the cold of the Bad Lands, 236, 238; describes "cattle torture, " 266, 267; superintends the house at Elkhorn, 312; level-headed, 313; helps clean up country of thieves, 324; lectures Roosevelt, 359; on a thief hunt, 372-80; terminates engagement with Roosevelt, 424-28; in later years, 457. 

 Sewall, Mrs. , 310-13. 

 Simpson, John, 25, 385. 

 Sioux Falls _Press_, on Roosevelt, 429. 

 Smith, "Vic, " 9 _n. _

 Snyder, Jack, 436. 

 Stage-line, the Deadwood, 77, 78, 120-24, 170, 209-14, 334. 

 Stampede, 295-97. 

 Starr, Western, 303, 304, 385. 

 Stickney, Dr. , 291-93, 325, 382, 383. 

 Stockmen's association, Roosevelt makes move to form, 222, 223; formation of, 232-34; activity of, 323, 324; its action on prairie fires, 358; Roosevelt representative of, 390. 

 Stranglers, the, 192-94. 

 Stuart, Granville, 144-46; his vigilantes, 146, 147, 157-59, 192-94. 

 Styles in the Bad Lands, 321, 322. 

 Sully Trail, the, 102-04. 

 "Tepee Bottom, " 111. 

 Thieves, horse and cattle, 139-47; rounding up of, 157-59, 192-94. 

 "Three Seven, " the, 94. 

 "Tolu Tonic, " 22. 

 Trimble, Richard, 40. 

 Truscott, J. L. , 390. 

 Valentine scrip, 61. 

 Vallombrosa, Antoine de. _See_ Mores. 

 Van Brunt, 110. 

 Van Driesche, 334, 390. 

 Van Zander, 128, 322, 363, 457. 

 "V-Eye, " 110. 

 Vigilantes, Stuart's, 146, 147, 157-59, 192-94; other, 192, 194-96. 

 Vine, Captain, 10, 21. 

 Vine, Darius, 21, 53, 54. 

 Vine, Frank, 10, 22-24, 56, 61; his joke on Packard, 73-75. 

 Vines, the, 456. 

 Wadsworth dog, the, 315, 316. 

 Wadsworth family, 15, 25. 

 Walker, J. B. , 360. 

 Wannigan. See Reuter. 

 Watterson, Walter, 275. 

 Wharfenberger, 375. 

 Wibaux, Pierre, 242. 

 Williams, Bill, 7, 9; description of, 50, 51; thief, 54, 81; starts freight-line, 120; and stage-line, 122; in the gay life of Medora, 128; hissaloon, 319, 320; a _bona-fide_ "bad man, " 320; and the preacher, 325 _n. _; the last of his saloon, 454. 

 Willis, John, 419-24. 454, 469. 

 Wister, Owen, _The Virginian_, 214 _n. _

 Young, Farmer, 315.