Roosevelt in the Bad Lands

GHTS R

BOYCE

N OF I

AMER OF

ss riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or death. In that land we led a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burnt our faces. There were mon

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who were the leading actors in it. But my contact with it has not been only vicarious. In the course of this most grateful of labors I have myself come to know something of the life that Roosevelt knew thirty-five years ago-the hot desolation of noon in the scarred butte country; the magic of dawn and dusk when the long shadows crept across the coulees and woke them to unexpected beauty; the solitude of the prairies, that have the vastness without the malignancy of the sea. I ha

bout his life on the ranch and the range. "If you want to know what I was like when I had bark on," he said, "you ought to talk to Bill Sewall and Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris and his brother Joe." I was writing a book about him

he four years of Roosevelt's active ranching life. In the deserted bar-room of the old "Metropolitan Hotel" at Medora (rechristened the "Rough Riders"); on the ruins of the Maltese Cross cabin and under the murmuring cottonwoods at Elkhorn, they spun their joyous yarns. Apart from what they had to tell, it was worth traveling two thirds across the Continent to come to know these figures of an heroic age; and to sit at Sylvane Ferris's side as he drove his Overland along the trails of the Bad Lands and through the quicksands of the Little Missouri, was in itself

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 (which may, of course, themselves be mendacious), but with what is, in a sense, "raw material." One highly dramatic story, dealing wi

tive of rejecting the story in question or changing the names, I chose the latter course without hesitation. It is quite unessential, for instance, what the real name was of the lady known in this book as "Mrs. Cummins"; but her story is an important element in the narrative. To those who may recognize themselves under the light veil I have thrown over their

ally useful, though scarcely more useful than those of the Bismarck Tribune, the Minneapolis Journal, and the Dispatch and Pioneer Press of St. Paul. The cut of Roosevelt's cattle-brands, printed on the jacket, is reproduced from the Stockgrowers' Journal of Miles City. I have sought high and low for

rs, likewise, for permission to reprint certain verses as chapter headings: Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company ("Riders of the Stars," by Henry Herbert Knibbs, and "Songs of Men," edited by Robert Frothingham); the Macmillan Company ("Cowboy Songs," edited by Professor John A. Lomax); and Mr. Richard G. Badger ("Sun and Saddle Leather," by Badger Clark). I am especially indebted to Mr. Roosevelt's sisters, Mrs. W. S. Cowles and Mrs. Douglas Robinson, and to the Honorable Henry Cabot Lodge

hington) who were Roosevelt's companions and friends. It is difficult to express adequately my gratitude to them for their unfailing helpfulness; their willingness to let themselves be quizzed, hour after hour, and to answer, in some cases, a very drumfire of

s; 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. George Myers, of Townsend, Montana; to Mr. John Reuter, to Mr. John C. Fisher, of Vancouver, British Columbia, and to Mr. John Willis, of Glasgow, Montana, Roosevelt's companion of many hunts, I am indebted to a scarcely less degree. Others who gave me important assistance were Mr. Howard Eaton, of Wolf, Wyoming, and Mr. "Pete" Pellessier of Sheridan, Wyoming; Mr. James Harmon, Mr. Oren Kendley, Mr. Schuyler Lebo, and Mr. William McCarty, of Medora, North Dakota; Mr. William G. Lang, of Baker

sident John Grier Hibben, of Princeton; and Professor William A. Dunning, of Columbia, who generously consented to serve as a committee of the Rooseve

m Boyce Thompson, President of the Roosevelt Memorial Association, whose quick imagination and eff

.

ld, Con

20,

TEN

ducti

country - Joe Ferris - The trail to Chimney Bu

ing of the buffalo - Pursuit - The charge of the buffalo - Broken slumbers - Failure - "It's dogge

en" - Archie the precocious - County or

Marquis in business - Roosevelt returns East - The Marquis's idea - Packard - Frank Vine's little joke - Medora blossoms fort

he Maltese Cross - On the round-up - "Hasten forward quickly there!" - T

- A good man for "sassing" - The master of Medora - The Marquis's s

public opinion - The "Bastile" - The mass meeting - The thieves - The underground r

he bully - Dakota discovers Roosevelt - Stuart's vigilantes - Sewall

n" - Political sirens - "A

t writes home - A letter to Lodge - Indians - Cam

rs" - The band of "Flopping Bill" - Fifteen marked men

lkhorn - Maunders threatens Roosevelt - Packard's stage

marshal - Winter activities - Breaking broncos - A tenderfoot holds h

Illness and recovery - Mingusville - "He's dru

mpanions - Golden expectations - The boss of the Maltese Cross - The butter

hip - Gentling the Devil - The spring round-up - The first encampment

- Dinner with Mrs. Cummins - The stampede - Roping an ear

rview at St. Paul - The womenfolks - The

Lands" - The coming of law - The preacher

evelt and the Marquis - Hostility - The first clash - Indictment of

od Indian, dead Indian - Prairie fires - Sewall delivers a

r pursuit - Departure - "Hands up!" - Capture of the thieves - Marooned

tle prospects - "His upper lip is stiff" - Completing "Benton" - The summer of 1886 - Influence

rouble - The hold-up - The C?ur d'Alênes - Hunting white

t blizzard - Destruction of the cattle

s - Roosevelt takes a hand - A country of ruins - N

- Roosevelt's progress - Return as Governor - Medora celebrates - The "cowboy

ndix

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Bad Lands C

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ation at Medic

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North Dakota Hist

Roosevelt

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nes, unless otherwise indica

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ODUC

l Association the opportunity of a first reading of his book. The duty of considering the manuscript and making suggestions has been merg

er of history must make himself an explorer in the materials out of which he is to build. To the usual outfit of printed matter, public records, and private papers, Mr. Hagedorn has added an unexp

and citizen of a tumultuous commonwealth. All the essential facts are here, and also the incidents which gave them l

oader horizon of the Far West in making, and from it drew a knowledge of his kind which became the bed-rock of his later career. The writer's personal a

m A. D

Bushn

Hibben[Back

IN THE B

not from looking at them, but from having been one of them. When you have worked with them, when you have lived with them, you do not have to wonder how they feel, because you feel it yourself. Every now and 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 on a certain issue, and then finding out that I am right, express acid wo

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1910.[Back

IN THE B

firelight, bac

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he blackness for something to land on, would find a platform, he was doomed to disappointment. The "depot" at Little Missouri did not boast a platform. The young man pulled his duffle-bag and gun-case down the steps; somebody wave

stward to celebrate the completion of the road, amply anticipated any passion for entertainment which the passengers on the Overland might have possessed. As the engine came to a stop, a deafening yell pierced the night, punctuated with pistol-shots. Cautious investigation revealed figures dancing wildly around a bonfire; and the passengers remembered the worst they had ever heard about Indians. The flames shot upward, setting t

t dragged his belongings through the sagebrush toward a huge black building looming northeastwa

those of a man who might have been drinking, with inconsiderable interruptions, for a very long time. He was short and stout and choleric, with a

e second story of the Pyramid Park Hotel, and which, Roosevelt heard subsequently

ashed. He was, in fact, not a sight to awaken sympathy in the minds of such inhabitants as Little Missouri possessed. He had just recovered from an attack of cholera morbus, and though he had written his mother from Chicago that

of sluggish water in a wide bed, partly sand and partly baked gumbo, 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 to aff

reat lake, holding in its lap the rich clays and loams which the rains carried down into it. The passing of ages brought vegetation, and the passing of other ages turned that vegetation into coal. Other deposits settled over the coal. At last this vast lake found an outlet in the Missouri. The wear and wash of the waters cut in time through the clay, the coal, and the friable limestone of succeedin

ver, the railroad section-foreman, Fitzgerald, had a shack and a wife who quarreled unceasingly with her neighbor, Mrs. McGeeney. At a corresponding place on the other side of the track, a villainous gun-fighter named Maunders lived (as far as possible) by his neighbors' toil. A quarter of a mile west of him, in a grove of cottonwood trees, stood a group of gray, log buildings known as the "cantonment," where a handful of soldiers had been quartered under a major named Coomba, to guard the construction crews on the railroad from the attacks of predatory Indians seeking game in their ancient hunting-grounds. A few huts in the sagebrush, a half-dozen miners' shacks un

to his side. Gorringe was a man of wide interests and abilities, who managed, to a degree mysterious to a layman, to combine his naval activities with the work of a consulting engineer, the promotion of a shipyard, and the formation of a syndicate to carry on a cattle business in Dakota. He had gained

price into the heart of the fantastic and savage country. The region was noted for game. It had been a great winter range for buffalo; and elk, mountain-sheep, blacktail and whitetail deer, antelope and beaver were plentiful; now and then even an occasional bear strayed to the river's edge from God knows whence. Jake Maunders, with his sinister face, was the center of information for tou

ck that morning to the Pyramid Park Hotel. The Captain, as he was called, refused to admit that he knew any one who would under

Frank's hostelry, and spoke of him as "a jolly, fat, rosy-cheeked young man, brimming over with animal spirits." He habitually wore a bright crimson mackinaw shirt, tied at the neck with a gaudy silk handkerchief, and fringed buckskin trousers, which Roosevelt, who had a weakness for "dressing up," no doubt envied him. He was, it seemed, the most obliging soul

sed for trading and the rest for storage. Single window lights, set into the wall here and there, gave the place t

a friendly pair of eyes. He did not accept the suggestion that he take Roosevelt on a buffalo hunt, without debate. The "dude" from the East did not, in fact, look at first sight as though he would be of much comfort o

bound with a wagon-load of supplies. He was a Scotchman, who had been a prosperous distiller in Ireland, until in a luckless moment the wife of his employer had come to the conclusion that it was wicked to manufacture a product which, when taken in

on, Joe and his buckboard, laden to overflowing, picked Roosevelt up at the hotel and started for the ford a hundred yards north of the trestle. On the brink of the bluff they stopped. The hammer of Rooseve

tious man would care to ask many favors. His face was villainous and did not pr

and dreadful under the straight noon sun, at dusk took on a magic more enticing, it seemed, because it grew out of such forbidding desolation. The buttes, protruding like buttresses from th

-house known as the "Custer Trail," in memory of the ill-fated expedition which had camped in the adjacent flat seven years before. Howard Eaton and his brothers lived there and kept open house for a continuous stream of Eastern sportsmen. A mile beyond, they forded th

yness that had a way of slipping into good-natured grins; Merrifield, the shrewder and more mature of the two, was by nature reserved and reticent. They did not have much to say to the "dude" from New York until supper in the dingy, one-room cabin of cottonwood logs, set on end, gave way to cards, and in the excitement of "Old Sledge" the ice began to break. A sudden fierce squawking

nd all that winter worked together up the river at Sawmill Bottom, cutting timber. But Merrifield was an inveterate and skillful hunter, and while Joe took to doing odd jobs, and Sylvane took to driving mules at the Cantonment, Merrifield scoured the prairie for buffalo and antelope and crept through the underbrush of countless coulees for deer. For two years he furnished the Northern Pacific dining-cars with venison at five c

he shadow of the bold peak that was a landmark for miles around, started a ranch which they called the "Chimney Butte," and every one else called, after their brand, the "Maltese Cross." A man named Bly who had kept a hotel in Bismarck, at a time when Bismarck was wild, and had drifted west with the railroad, was, that season, cutting logs for ties a hundred and fifty miles south in the Short

half-breed named O'Donald and a German named Jack Reuter, known to the countryside as "Dutch Wannigan," who had built the rough log cabin and used it as their headquarters. Buffalo at that time had been plentiful there, and the three Canadians had sho

Cross Ra

r Of The Maltese

the buckboard, but Roosevelt protested. He saw the need of the buckboard to carry the suppl

they did not have a

ecame suspicious and announced more firmly than be

he could not possibly sit still in

it. Why, we didn't know him from Job's off ox. We didn't know but what he'd ride away with it. But, say, he want

all turned into their bunks that night, Roosevelt had acquired a buckskin mare nam

I

t rains an' it's hot

real folks which

dark was before t

sun was before God

butte-tops an' the lon

hat Adam knew on his

edora

oosevelt on his new acquis

Little Missouri; a region of green slopes and rocky walls and stately pinnacles and luxuriant acres. Twenty miles south of the Maltese Cross, they topped a ridge of buttes and suddenly came upon what might well have seemed, in the hot mist of noonday, a billowy ocean, held by some magi

southward once more. They met the old Fort Keogh trail where it crossed the river by the ruins of the stage station, and for three or four miles followed its deep ruts westward, then turned south again. They came at last to a crossing where the sunset

longer trail over the prairie to the west in order to avoid the uncertain river crossings which had a way of proving fatal to a heavily laden wagon. His welcome was hearty. With h

a man of education with views of his own on life and politics, and i

he object of making them the headquarters of a trading corporation which they called the Little Missouri Land and Stock Company. The details they left to the enterprising naval officer who had proposed the scheme. Gorringe had meanwhile struck up a friendship with Frank Vine. This was not unnatural, for Frank was the social center of Little Missouri and was immensely popular. What is almost incre

ntendent promptly established as manager of the Pyramid Park Hotel, had been a Missouri steamboat 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 with a cavalry saber, and once, during the course of a "spree," hearing that a great Irishman named Jack Sawyer had beaten up his son Frank, was seen emerging from the hotel in search of the oppressor of his offspring with a butcher-knife i

er, a man who had authority on his side. "And, by jinx, if he w

nker of the West," having the engaging gift of being able to consume untold q

s the term was understood, was above question, but his bookkeeping, Lang found, was largely in his mind. When he received a shipment of goods he set the selling-price by multiplying the cost by two and adding the freight; which saved much calculating. Frank's notions of "mine" and "thine," Lang discovered, moreover, were elastic. His depredations were particularly heavy against a certain shipment

ort which was not favorable to Frank Vine's régime. Sir John withdrew from the syndicate in disgust and ordered Lang to start a separate ranch for

statistics. Roosevelt asked question after question. The Scotchman answered them. Joe Ferris, Lincoln, and a bony Scotch Highlander named M

reason for unnecessarily courting misery, suggested to Roosevelt that they wait until the weather cleared. Roosevelt insis

tortuous divides. It was a wild region, bleak and terrible, where fantastic devil-carvings reared themselves from the sallow gray of erode

on a single buck. They crept to within two hundred yards. Roosevelt fired, and missed. There was every reason why he should miss, for the distance was great and the

Godfrey!" he exclaimed. "I'd give anythin

hat Joe, being tender-hearted, was a

y; and returned to Lang's aft

ately after supper and went to sleep. Roosevelt, apparently as fresh and vigorous as he had

leaming rails; then the thundering and shrieking engines. Eastern sportsmen, finding game plentiful in the Bad Lands, came to the conclusion that where game could survive in winter and thrive in summer, cattle could do likewise, and began to send short-horned stock west over the railroad. A man named Wadsworth from Minnesota settled twenty miles down the river from Little Missouri; another named Simpson from Texas established the "Hash-Knife" brand sixty or seventy miles above. The Eatons and A. D. Huidekoper,

hunt, anyway. Joe protested, almost pathetically. Roosevelt was obdurate, and Joe, admiring the "tenderfoot" in spite o

ost in conversation. They talked cattle and America and politics; and again, cattle. The emphatic Scotchman was very

tions. He had had considerable opportunity to do both, for he had been an enthusiastic liberal in an arch-conservative family, frankly expressing his distaste for any form of government, including the British, which admitted

Gregor Lang had known many reformers in his time, and some had been precise and meticulous and some had been fiery and eloquent, but none had possessed the overwhelming passion for public service that seemed to burn in this amazingly vigorous and gay-spirited American of twenty-four. Roosevelt denounced "boss rule" until the rafters rang, coupling his denunciation of corrupt politicians with denunciat

regor Lang and Theodore Roosevelt

r weather before plunging again into the sea of gumbo mud, but Roosevelt, who had not come to Dakota to twiddl

incoln remarked afterwards. "H

ead, into his buffalo robe and Roosevelt talked cattle and politics with Gregor Lang until one and two

Cannonball," he said, a long time after, "that I first came to understa

from these nocturnal discussions, but

am thinking seriously of going into the cattl

d. "I myself am prepared to follow it out to the end. I have every faith in it. If it's a q

re about the ma

no misgivings whatever now. He confided in Lincoln, not without a touch of pride in his ne

nic-stricken herd, slaughtering hundreds without changing his position, were gone. In the spring of 1883 the buffalo had still roamed the prairies east and west of the Bad Lands in huge herds, but moving in herds they were as easy to shoot as a family cow and the profits even at three dollars a pelt were great. Game-butchers swarmed forth from Little Missouri and fifty other frontier "towns," slaughtering buffalo for their skins or for their tongues or for the mere

r could, without recourse to Baron Munchausen, boast an average of eighty per cent of "kills." There was always the possibility that the bison, driven to bay, might charge the sportsman who drove his horse close in for a sure shot. With the great h

t sun. They rode for an hour cautiously up the ravine. Suddenly, as they passed the mouth of a side coulee, there was a plunge and crackle through the bushes at its head, and a shabby-looking old bull bison galloped out of it and plunged over a steep bank into a patch of broken ground which led around the base of a high butte. The bison was out of sight before they had time to fire. At the risk of the

blurred distance. Here and there it was broken by a sunken water-course, dry in spite of a week of wet weather, or a low bluff or a cluster of small, round-topped buttes

ry pool, where a clump of cedars under

ate before they caught another glimpse of game. Then, far off

hands and knees. Roosevelt blundered into a bed of cactus and filled his hands with the spines; but he came within a hundred and fifty feet or less of the buffalo. He drew up and fired. T

and again they saw the quarry far ahead. Finally, when the sun had just set, they saw that all three had come to a stand in a gen

the horizon. The pony plunged to within sixty or seventy yards of the wounded bull, and could gain no more. Joe Ferris, better mounted, forged ahead. The bull, seeing him coming, swerved. R

pony was pitching like a launch in a st

t The Edge Of

en Co

d he wheeled suddenly and

fle which Roosevelt was holding in both hands and knocking it violently agai

y. "All right?" he calle

without turning an instant from th

, uncomfortably close to the tired pony'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 him out of a slow trot. Ferris, swerving suddenly and dismounting,

all certain where they were, but they knew they were a long way from the mo

pool was like thin jelly, slimy and nauseating, and they could drink only a mouthful. Supper consisted of a dry biscuit, previously baked by Lincoln under direction of his father, who insisted that the use of a certain kind of grease whose name is lost to history would keep the

e for their horses, and perhaps their scalps, for the Indians, who were still unsettled on their reservations, had a way of stealing off whenever they found a chance and doing what damage they could. Stories he had heard of various bands of horse-thieves that operated in the region between the Little Missouri and the Black Hills likewise returned to mind to plague him

ht moonlight they saw the horses madly galloping off, with the saddles bounding and trailing behind them. Their first thought was that

out a shadowy, four-footed shape. It was a wolf who

s, taking the broad trail made by

e exclaimed plaintively. Then, turning straight to Roosevelt, evidently suspecting that he had a Jonah on his hands

answered solemnly

," Joe remarked, "why we

ris grinned and chuckled; and after that the savag

once more and went to sleep. But rest was not for them that night. At three in the morning a thin rain began to fall, and they awoke

to the skin, they made breakfast of Lang's adamantine biscuits, mounted

o a chilly desolation of its own. They traveled by compass. It was only after hours that the mist lifted, revealing the world

cold rain blew up-wind straight in their faces and made the teeth chatter behind their blue lips. The rain was blowin

Roosevelt himself remarked afterwards, "which a man to his dying day always looks back

ts and rainwater, and privation had thoroughly lost whatever charm it might have had for an adventurous young man in

ris remarked long after, "like

and men. Shortly after, Roosevelt's horse stepped into a hole and turned a complete somersault, pitching his rider a good ten feet; and he had scarcely recovered his composure and his seat in the saddle, when the earth gave w

enderfoot" would begin to worry about catching cold and admit at last that the game was too much fo

f sorts. He was entertaining, too, and I liked to listen to him, though, on the whole, he wasn't much on the talk. He said that h

ng up a rubber pillow which he carried with him, casually remarked one night that his doctors back East ha

self that it was "dogged that does it," and ready t

hunt had dampened Roosevelt's enthusiasm for the

sely practical and thrifty as Dutch uncles should be, and his sisters, who were, at least, very much more practical in money matters than he was, nearly frantic the preceding summer by declaring his intention to purchase a large farm adjoining the estate of his brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, in the Mohawk Valley; for his kin knew, what he himself failed to recognize, that he was not made to be a farmer and that he w

res that any man could want, a

d Debillier Cattle Company, which "ran" some thousands of head of cattle fifty or sixty miles north of Cheyenne; and he had invested ten thousand dollars in it. Commander Gorringe, seeking to finance the enterprise in which he was involved, in the course of his hunting accounts doubtlessly spoke glowingly to

atically informed Theodore that he would not at all advise him to do anything of the kind.

ht. Joe and the Highlander were asleep, but Lincoln heard the two men talking

business. I want somebody to run cattle for me on shares or to take the management of

uch precipitancy. He told Roosevelt that he appreciated his offer. "Unf

ld recommend. Without hesitation, Lang suggested Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merri

gain luck was far from them. For two days they hunted in vain. When they return

ng's cabin with the two ranchmen and asked them how much in t

"But my guess is, if you want to do it right, tha

u need right off?"

d would mak

s handle the c

, quiet drawl, "I guess we could take ca

so!" ejacula

will yo

and Halley. We've got a bunch of cattle with them on shares. I guess we'd like to do business with y

y those

go to Minnesota an' see those men an' get released from our contract.

will s

e contemplated five thousand dollars, but for fourteen, and handed it to Sylvane. Merrifield and Sylvane, he directed, were to p

receipt?" asked

elt. "If I didn't trust you men, I

upon they dropped the subject from

ed Cannonball Creek. He handed us a check for fourteen thousand dollars, handed it

for his money," added S

nary ability to read the faces of men, evi

ligation which for the time bound them. It was determined that Ferris and Merrifield should go at once to Minnesota to confer with Wadsworth and Halley. Roosevelt, meanwhile, would continue his buffalo hunt, remaining in the Bad Lands until he receiv

ters of the Little Cannonball west of Lang's camp over the Montana line, when suddenly both ponies threw up their heads and snuffed the air, turning their muzzles toward a coulee that sloped gently towar

the valley. Both wind and shelter were good, and he ran close

a yellow spot on the buffalo, just back of the shoulder. "If you hi

iberately and fired. With amazing agility the buffalo bounded up the opposite

saw blood pouring from the bison's mouth and nostrils. The great

xt gully, dead, as Joe Ferris

the Indian war-dance he executed around the prostrate buffalo left nothing

or more reasons than one. I was plumb tired out, and, besides, he was so eager to shoot his first buffalo th

n and there presented him with a hundred dollars

returned with Joe to the place where they had left the buffalo and with endle

g Roosevelt too

is the most extraordinary man I have ever met," he said to Lincoln. "I shall be s

I

lungs, and s

booze at Bi

h cattle, so

vision, som

ews and som

faro, som

joy of a ga

prairie's s

orget a f

umb the he

each and s

ab and som

nger, som

ste, befor

d hot and

dodge a ne

edora

ad departed for Minnesota a day or two previous. Possibly it occurred to him that a few d

a tone of injured morality on Roosevelt's frank regard for a certain desperate character, that "Roosevelt had a weakness for murderers." The reproach has a delightful suggestiveness. Whether it was merited o

of them, outcasts of society, reckless, greedy, and conscienceless; fugitives from justice with criminal records, and gunmen who lived by crooked gambling and thievery of every sort. The best of those who had come that summer to seek adventure and fortune on the banks of the Little Missouri were men who cared little for their personal safety, courting danger wherever it beckoned, careless of lif

elt In

The Winter

mpany-store of th

east there was a sheriff. Neither Medora nor Little Missouri had any representative of the law whatsoever, no governmen

the frontier settlement, Jake Maunders, the man who had lent Roosevelt a hammer a

ning his shack, Maunders claimed it with the surrounding country, and, when a settler took up land near by, demanded five hundred dollars for his rights. A man whom he owed three thousand dollars had been opportunely kicked into oblivion by a horse in a manner that was mysterious to men who knew the ways of horses. He had

him reap the benefits"; but his friends said that "once Jake was your friend, he was your friend, and that was all th

into Little Missouri while the railroad was being built, and, recognizing that the men who made money in frontier settlements were

hich he sought to cover it. When he got mad over something or other and swept the grin aside, I do not think that an uglier countenance ever existed on earth or in hell. He was rather short of stature, bullet-headed and bull-necked, with a sloping forehead a

active quality, and when he was slightly drunk he was brilliant. He was deathly afraid of being alone, and had a habit on those infrequent occasions when his bar was for th

r field than that of either of his associates, for it began with a sub-contract on the New York water system, involved him with the United States Government in connection with a certain "phantom mail route" between Bismarck and Miles City, and started him on the road

ike Buffalo Bill and something like Simon Legree. He conducted the local livery-stable with much profit, for his rates were what was known to the trade as "fancy," and shared with Maunders whatever glory there wa

rk Hotel; Mrs. Paddock, wife of the livery-stable keeper; Mrs. Pete McGeeney who kept a boarding-house next to Johnny Nelson's store; and her neighbor and eternal enemy, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Pete McGeeney was a section-boss on the railroad, but what else he was, except the husband of Mrs. McGeeney, is obscure. He was mildly famous in Little Missou

as Archie Maunders, his father's image and proudest achievement. At the age of twelve he held up Fitzgerald, the roadmaster, at the

hie Maunders to him before he could grow into the fullness of his powers. He was only thirteen or fourteen years old when he died, but even the guidebook of

one of the "dudes" who h

you please," respon

ank!" remarked Archie, "you'll

de" too

to thrash him. Archie promptly drew his "six-shooter," and as Darius, who was not conspicuous for courage, fled toward the Cantonment, Archie followed, shooting about his ears and hi

rchie finally began to shoot at his own brother, Jake Maunders mildly protested. "Golly, golly," he excla

tion is lost in the dust of the years. But the aphorism that the good

too much of a coward to steal, too politic not to realize the disadvantage in being caught red-handed. Bill Williams was not above picking a purse when a reasonably safe occasion

f his hogs wandered south across the railroad track and invaded Mrs. McGeeney's vegetable garden; whereupon, to discourage repetition, she promptly scalded it. Maun

!" she exclaimed. "Come

nvitation, and thereafter gav

cure some form of organized government, for they had no sympathy with the lawlessness that made the settlement a perilous place for honest men. But they were wise enough to see that the aim of Jake Maunders and his crew in organizing the county was not the establishment of law and order, but the creation of machinery for taxation on which they could wax fat. The Maltese Cross group therefore objected strenuously to any attempt on the part of the other group

that were not altogether lawful, but were well

aid Merrifield, years after. "That's the way we had of getting rid of people we didn't like. There was

s employers and was drunk more than half the time, had an equable temper which nothing apparently could ruffle, and a good heart to which no one in trouble ever seemed to appeal in vain. Mrs. McGeeney was a very "Lady of the Lamp" when

V

not like

Acre (what'

somehow go

dred year

hat he hitc

o wild to h

old Sir Smit

g he was

when the ta

d prices, se

e was drea

here, gran

edora

crooked means or another and looked with uneasiness upon the coming of the cattlemen. There were wails and threats tha

im, but he disliked him for what he represented. Maunders had prospered under the loose and lawless

rengthen the lawless elements. For the Marquis was attracted by Jake's evident power, and, while he drew the crafty schemer

ores. He was a member of the Orleans family, son of a duke, a "white lily of France," remotely in line for the throne; an unusually handsome man, tall and straight, black of hair and moustache, twenty-five or twenty-six years old, athletic, vigorous, and commanding. He had been a French officer, a graduate of the French military school of Saint Cyr, and had come to America following his marriage abroad with Medora von Hoffman, the daughter of a wealthy New York banker of German blood. His cousin, Count Fitz James, a

Howard Eaton in his pocket. The letter, from a prominent business man in the East, ended, it seemed to Eaton, rather

I am going to buy all the beef, sheep, and hogs that come over the Northern Pacific

how much stock comes over the N

en million dollars and can borrow ten million dollars more. I'v

t unquestionably the Marq

My intuition tells me so. I pride myself on having a natural intuition. It takes me only a few seconds to understand a situation that other men

wonder if the Marquis isn't

y to him for twenty-five thousand dollars, and when the Marquis, discovering that Frank had nothing to sell except a hazy title to a group of ramshackle buildings, refused to buy, Frank's employers intimated to the Marquis that there was no room for the de Mores enterprises in Little Missouri. The Marquis responded by

ruck at the heart of their free and untrammeled existence. As long as they could live by what their guns brought down, they were independent of the machinery of civilization. The coming of cattle and sheep meant the flight of a

f wisdom to conciliate Little Missouri's hostile population. He began with the only man who, in that unstable community, looked solid, and

cerity which was attractive and disarming

too crooked to sleep in a roundhouse." Whether he set about deliberately to secure a hold on the Marquis, which the Marquis could never shake off, is a secret locked away with Maunders underground. If he did, he was more successful than wiser men have been in their endeavors. Insidiously he drew the Marquis into a quarrel, in which he himself was involved, with a hunter named Frank O'Donald and his two friends, John

ders, unhappily, when Maunders reported t

d Maunders, "and ha

cal magistrate for advice. "There is the

" was the ju

tilities. A friend protested. "You'll get

ed his shoulders. "B

do you h

t. His father was my father's valet, and his grandfather was

ngaging smile, he boarde

track, the Marquis and his men fired at the hunters from cover. O'Donald and "Wannigan" were wounded, Riley was kille

n" (Left) And

Killing Of

26,

ey. The better element in Little Missouri snorted in indignation and disgust, but for the moment there was nothing to be done about it. The excitement subsided. Riley Luffsey slept undisturbed on Graveyard Butte; the Marquis took up again the amazing activities which the

s in the su

the settlements on both sides of the river, roughly known as Little Missour

as published forty miles to the east and which as a rule regarded Little Missouri as an ou

sent time, one of the most prosperous and rapidly growing towns along the line of the Northern Pacific. New buildings of every description are going

o the Little Missouri of which Roosevelt was a

O

ess b

er is righ

alker are doing

k is doing a ru

takes a good

aurant refreshe

the soldiers' qua

have a fine hotel w

uis de Mores a pl

l double her popula

e soon completed and

l conducted bars of one description or another. The "business" which is "booming" in the firs

urther item in

m a hunting expedition with Frank O'Donald. Frank is

uis lost his head. There had been a "reconciliation." When O'Donald had returned to Little Missouri from his sojourn in the Mandan jail, he had been without money, and, as the Mandan Pioneer explained, "the Marquis helped him out by

re, for the stately house he was building, on a grassy hill southward and across the river from his new "town," was not yet completed, and he was, moreover, never incl

them at too high a price; he bought cows and found that the market would not take cow-meat at all. Thereupon (lest the cold facts which he had acquired concerning cattl

ed that he intended to raise sheep also. The Haupt bro

tempered their indignation somewhat by offering a number of them a form of partnership in his enterprise. "His plan," says the guidebook of the Northern Pacific, published that summer of 1883, "is to engage experienced herders to the number of twenty-four, supply them w

d not have claimed that he knew all that it was necessary for any man to know. The Marquis had no difficulty in finding the desired twenty-four. Each signed a

that they had no teeth to nibble with and were bound to die of starvation. Haupt rode from ranch to ranch examining the herds and came to the conclusion that six

eginning, one by one, to perish. But by this time the Marquis was absorbed in a new undertaking and was making arrangements to ship untold quantities of buffalo-meat and other game on his r

had given them a release and that they were prepared to enter into a new partnership. Roosevelt started promptly for St. Paul, and on September 27th signed a contract[3] with the two Canadians. Sylvane and Merrifield thereupon went East to Iowa, to purchase three hundred head

he was doomed to disappointment. Those members of it whom he could count on most for sincere solicitude for his welfare were most emphatic in their disapproval. They considered his investment foolhardy, and said so. Uncle James and the other

sleep for a

in a way to stir the imagination of any community. In Miles City he built a slaughter-house, in Billings he built another. He established

Portland was sheer waste of the consumer's money in freight rates. 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, the scheme appeared to

he appeared in hotel corridors in Washington and St. Paul and New York, with a lady whose hair was "Titan-red," as the Pioneer Press of St. Paul had it, and who,

go into this sort of

ething to do,

e had spent upwards of three hundred thousand dollars, an impartial o

Dakota bosom. The Marquis promised telephone lines up and down the river and other civic improvements that were dazzling to the imagination and stimulating to the price of building lots; and implanted firmly in the minds of the inhabitants of Med

s the gist of countless "Notes" in the Dickinson Press, "and

izedek. But from somewhere some one procured a teacher, and in the saloons the cowboys and the hunters, the horse-thieves and gamblers and fly-by-nights and painted ladies "chipped in" to pay his "board and keep." The charm of

ing a taste for things literary, became managing editor of the Bismarck Tribune. Bismarck was lurid in those days, and editing a newspaper there meant not only writing practically everything in it, including the advertisements, but also persuading the leading citizens by main force that the editor ha

Frank Vine, who had by that time been deposed as agent of the Gorringe syndicate, was running the Pyramid Park Hotel. He had met Packard in Mandan and g

st-to-goodness cowboy," he whispered. "See that fellow at

there was something in his attitude and in the look in his eye that suggested that he was on the watch

ps, his loosely hanging belt with the protruding gun. He looked up and studied the man; he looked down and wrote. The m

r to mail it on the east-bound train that passed through Little Missouri at three. He open

of his artistic efforts of the night before joined him and for an hour loped along at his side. He was not slow in discoverin

n funny. But I guess it's so if you say so. You see," he added, "Frank

his hair rise

last night when you

telegrap

ind you was goi

going to mai

d gone I'd hav

was a joker with a vengeance. They r

ld be a good deal of a lark, and possibly a not unprofitable venture, to start a weekly newspaper in the Marquis de Mores's budding metropolis. He had, at the tender age of thirteen, been managi

atronizing, but agreed that a special organ might prove of

started a paper it would be an organ for nobody. He intended to financ

sement for the Company. Packard ordered his type and his presses and betook himself to the solitude of the wintry but

884. It was greeted with interest even by so

is de

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 say

he officials of the Northern Pacific and before the winter was well advanced the stop for express trains was on the eastern side of the river, and Little Missouri, protest as she would, belonged to the past. When the Cowboy appeared for the first time, Medora was in the full blaze of national fame, having "broken into the front page" of the New York Sun. For the Marquis was bubblin

souri Rivers was almost a natural roadway that led directly toward Deadwood. He gave this roadway needed artificial improvements, and

would have dreamed that the stage-line in ques

od," it remarked editorially, "nor has the roadway ever been improved. The Marquis should p

things on which a nat

had turned loose on the range during the preceding summer, half were dead by the

or on no other ground. It is supposed that malicious motives prompted the de

thers, did not. They knew that it was a physical impossibility to poison six t

e Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company in St. Paul, in the course of which the Haupt brothers told their distinguis

ied. "My honor is at stake. I have told my friends in France that I would do so and s

ds of the Company in exchange for their stock, and retired with inner jubilation at

n eyes of Experience, in the radiant emanations of a

der 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 ow

ave materialized even to the point of being a so

stock. Of Roosevelt's three friends, Joe was the only one who was really busy. Joe, it happened, was no longer working for Fra

ter into the guileful hands of Jess Hogue, were infrequent and finally stopped altogether. Johnny received word that his creditor in St. Paul was coming to investigate him. He became frantic and confided the awful news to every one he

e Maunders, "and I'll see that t

leaned it out. They did not leave a button or a shoestring. It was said afterwards that Jake Maunders did not have t

t wailing to Kati

my goods and I can't get more. I've lost my reput

at's all right, Johnny," she said c

was that Joe Ferris, to save his hundred dollars

into his work with a new vigor and a more solid self-reliance. He became the acknowledged leader of the progressive elements in the Legislature, the

. Roosevelt took his publicity with zest, for he was human and enjoyed the sensation of being counted with those who made the wheels go around. Meanwhile he worked all d

on his third term in the Legislature. He was happily married, he had wealth, he had a notable book on the

e gave birth to a daughter. At five o'clock the followin

es of New York City official life, and carried through the Legislature a bill taking from the Board of Aldermen the power to reject the Mayor's appointments. He was chairman and practically the only active member of another committee to investigate living conditions in the tenements of New York, and as spokesman of the worn and

nd Merrifield had bought in Iowa, were doing well in spite of a hard winter. Roosevelt, struck by Sylvane's enthusiasti

"Don't put in any more money until you're sure we've scattered the other

lt as good advice,

tangles and snares in Albany, he was unconsciously

s but his; and with that point of view had directed his superintendent, a man named Matthews, to drive fifteen hundred head of cattle over on an unusually fine piece of bottom-land northwestward across the river from t

light," said Merrifield, "or we'll move

p the cattle here," answered Matthews. "Tha

w along as witness, "for the Marquis is a hard man to deal with," remarked Merrifield. To Pete it was all th

were told that he might still be at his of

who dearly loved a fight, came running with a rifle in his hand. "I've got forty men myself," he cried, "and I've Winc

ing with Van Driesche, his valet and secretary. He asked what the three men

u to write an order to mov

I re

They would take tin pans and stampede the herd. They were under no illusions concerning the probabilities i

n't move those cattle, I guess there's nothing t

ound for a compromise. But "the boys" were not inclined to compromise with a man who was patently in the wrong. Finally, the Marqu

days. They knew something else. "After we had made our statement," Merrifield explained later, "no matter how much he had offered us we wou

a saying of the frontier,

for all. If you don't see fit to write that order there w

and Sylvane themselves carried it to the offending superintendent. Matthews was furious; but he moved the cattle at dawn. The whol

the Assembly and the pre-convention campaign for presidential candidates completely absorbed his energies. He was eager that a reform candidate should be named by the Republicans, vigorously opposing both Blaine and Arthur, himself preferring Senator Edmunds of Vermont. He fought hard and up

e axe, and born to the privations of the frontier, 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 his guide on frequent occasions when as a boy in col

Henry Cabot Lodge and a group of civil service reformers that included George William Curtis and Carl Schurz,

inted darkly at "bolting the ticket." He took the first train t

hat and big spu

of fancy fri

his boots and th

y in all kind

horse, it's a b

can ride li

is years and he

who's lived

an cook, yet his

t to fear is

quiet nerve wil

life of dut

to eat, and he

on, oh well!

gay steer when

of two-for

boy

on his way to the Bad Lands. A reporter of the Pioneer Press interviewed him and

ures betoken a hidden strength. He is not at all an ideal Harvard alumnus, for he lacks that ingrained conceit and grace of manner that

m. They all adjourned to Packard's printing-office, since that was the only place in town of a semi-public

rial sanctum. It was built of perpendicular boards which let in the wintry blasts in spite of the two-inch strips which covered the joints on the outside. It had, in fact, originally served as the Marquis's blacksmith shop, and the addition

ath to unburden his soul. For an hour he told of the battles and the manipulations of the convention, of the stubborn fight a

ow Roscoe Conkling attempted to dominate the situation and override the wishes of a large portion of the New York delegation that the fire really began to flash in his eyes. I can see him now as plainly as I did

shingle roof and a cellar, both luxuries in the Bad Lands. An alcove off the one large room on the main floor was set aside for Roosevelt's use as combined bedroom and study; the other men were quartered in the loft above. East of the ranch-house

t buildings or land. The ranges on which his cattle grazed were owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and by the Government. It was the custo

o crowd his cattle onto your range and starve out both outfits. So each man claims as much land as he needs. Of course, that doesn't mean that the other fellow doesn't get over on your range-that's the reason we brand our cattle; it simply means that a certain given number of cattle will have a certain given amount

thward to the crossing just below what was known as "Sloping Bottom," covering a territory that had a frontage of four miles on both

and Sylva

h-house As It Was When

ut twenty-five head during the winter, partly from the cold, partly from the

wn the river from Lang's. Roosevelt had purchased five hundred dollars' worth of barbed wire and George was digging post-holes. He was a boyish and at

old Sylvane and Merrifield to get ready to ride to Lang's with him the next day for the purpose of drawing up a new contract. He had determined to

t work on the house, and Gregor Lang suggested that they ride five miles up the river to a cabin of his on what was known as "Sagebrush Bottom," where he and Lincoln had spent the winter. They had moved out of the shack on the Little Cannonball for two reasons. One was that a large cattle outfit from New Mexico, named the Berry-Boyce Cattle Company, had started a ranch, known as the "Three Seven," not half a mile down the river; the other was that Gregor Lang was by disposition not one wh

ork next morning drawing up a new contract. It called for further investment on his part of twenty-six thousand dollars to cover

there are two things I want to do. I want to get

d handled the old reprobate who was her husband; and by her skill in making buckskin shirts. She was a dead shot, and it was said of her that even "Calamity Jane," Deadwood's "first lady

nder the stimulus of some whiskey he had obtained from an outfit of Missouri "bull-whackers" who were driving freight to Deadwood, had picked a quarrel with his wife and attempted to beat her. She knocked him down with a stove-lid l

inner that they remembered. A vigorous personality spoke out of her

elated when he saw the first drop to his rifle that he was totally incapacitated from aiming at the second when that animal, evidently bewildered, began

ther one!" L

gh. "I can't," he called b

good if somebody had not been here to see it," Roosevelt exclaimed. "Do you

m that Roosevelt, in the excitement of the moment, was giving away a thing of great value and might regret it on sober se

taking the position of humble pupil. The nex

in their gray and green for eyes to gaze upon. Westward, not a quarter of a mile from the house, behind a hedge of cottonwoods, the river swung in a long circle at the foot of steep buttes crested with scoria. At the ends of the valley were glades of cottonwoods with grassy floors where deer hid among the buckbrush by day, or at dusk fed silently or, at the sound of a step, bounded, erect and beautiful, off into deeper shelter. In an almost impenetrabl

ogether novel to him; at no point had his work or his play touched any phase of it. He had ridden to hounds and was a fair but by no means a "fancy" rider. His experience in the M

p it. Sylvane, who could ride anything in the Bad Lands, was wedded to the idea that any animal which by main force had been saddled and ridden was a "broke horse," and when Roosevelt woul

mb gentle,'" remarked Roosevelt, on one

June, and Roosevelt had determined to set forth on the same day for a solitary camping-trip on th

ry his own pack." Sylvane found, to his surprise, that the "dude" learnt quickly. He showed Roosevelt once how to saddle his horse, and thereafter Roosevelt sa

aving been on the range, most of them, only a few months. The different "outfits," however, held their own round-ups, at each of which a few hundred cattle might be

and at the same time as apprentice. It gave him an opportunity to get acquainted with his own men and with the cowpunchers of half a dozen other "outfits." He found the work stirring and the men singularly human and attractive. They were free and reckless spirits, who di

ighthawk'll be corralin' the cavvy in the mornin' 'fore the white crow squeals, so we kin be cuttin' the day-he

of the earth, so full of startling imagery, that a stranger might stare, bewildered, unable to extract a particle of meaning. And through it blazed such a continual shower of

vard English. The cowboys bore up, showing the tenderfoot the frigid courtesy they kept for "dudes" who

ich had been rounded up with their calves made a sudden bolt out of the h

y there!" Roosevelt sh

rase became a part of the vocabulary of the Bad Lands. That day, and on many days thereafter when "Get a git on yuh!" grew stale

Bad Lands who wore glasses. Lang's glasses, moreover, were small and oval; Roosevelt's were large and round, making him, in the opinion of the cowpu

superintendent of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, asking Fisher as he was departing whether he did not want to meet Roosevelt. Fisher

sher saw was "a slim, an?mic-looking young fellow dressed in the exaggerated style which new-comers on the frontier affected, and which was considered indisputable evidence of the rank tenderfoot

but a day or two after he dropped in on Fisher again and said, "Get your horse and we'll take the young

Medora, and, being old and little used, had almost lost the little semblance it might originally have had of a path where four-fo

and secured it. In the most perilous places there was always something about his saddle which needed adjustment, and he took care not to

t as his horse could go. Roosevelt followed at the same speed. He and Merrifield arrived at the bottom at the identical moment; but with a difference. Roosevelt was still on his horse,

," he exclaimed as that individual, none the worse for his tumble, drew himself

er's education as for Roosevelt's. He was quite ready to admit that his first impression had been imperfect. M

h the relish of a gourmand a

ant call Monday in full cowboy regalia. New York will certainly lose him for a time at least, as he i

first experiences as an actual ranchman. "Bamie" or "Bye," as he affectionately called her, was living in New York. She had take

nds 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 re

in the round-up of the cattle, or else hunting antelope (I got one the other day; another good head for o

e 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

ver the prairie by myself. I intend to take a two months' trip in the fall, for hunting; and may, as polit

d Roosevelt set out on his solitary hunting trip, half to test out

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

horses and cattle and acting as general factotum and cook. He was successful in everything except his cook

gether welcome. George was rather proud of his biscuits and set to work with energy, adding an extra bit of baking powder from the can on the shelf beside the stove to

cal transformation. But investigation proved that there was no imp involved. It was merely tha

with dry rice, poured on what looked like a reasonable amount of 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 out what seemed to him a sufficient quantity, and returned to his work. The smell of burn

l of the kitchen back to Ge

I

an ocean lap

ultures sail, shi

ruised about w

here's queer fish

Lands

Marvel's breezy pages and the quaint, pathetic character-sketches of the Southern writers-Cable, Craddock, Macon, Joel Chandler Harris, and sweet Sherwood Bonner." Wherever he went he carried some book or other about him, solid books as a rule, though he was not averse on occasion to what one cowpuncher, who later became super

ttle Missouri Near

nto books to extract from them whatever facts or philosophy they might hold which he needed to enrich his personality and his usefulness, so he plunged into the life of the Bad Lands seeking to comprehend the emotions and the mental processes, the personalities and the so

t mail route between Fort Abraham Lincoln and Fort Keogh. Custer had passed that way on his last, ill-fated expedition, and the ranch bore the name of the Custer Trail in memory of the little army that had camped beside it one night on the way to the Li

ky light in the murk of Pennsylvania politics, went into partnership with Charles, at another ranch six miles up Beaver. The Custer Trail was headquarters for them all, and at the same time for an endless procession of Eastern friends who came for the hunting. The Eatons kept open house. Travelers wrote about the hospitality that even strangers were certain to find there, and carried away with them the picture of Howard Eaton, "who sat his horse as though he were a centaur and looked a picturesque and n

under thirty, with hair that curled attractively and had a shimmer of gold in it. She was utterly fearless, and was bringing up numerous children, all girls, with a cool disr

, why, no one exactly knew, since he was a designer of stoves, and, so far as any one 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 attention to 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 good woman, but captious, cri

t was not long before Mrs. Roberts hated Mrs. Cummins as Jeremiah hated Babylon. For Mrs. Cummins was bent on s

hen he first came out there, he was a quiet sort of a fellow, with n

loons but established friendly relations with the men who did not. When he rode to town for his mail or to make purchases at Joe Ferris's new store, he

e came to know Hell

oral standards in the wild little towns of the frontier, and men talked of him with an awe which they scarcely exhibited toward any symbol of virtue and sobriety. He said things and he did things which even a tolerant observer, hardened to the aspect of life's seamy side, might have felt impelled to call depraved,

her good stock, and in the course of an argument with an uncle of his with whom he lived had knocked the uncle down. Whether he had killed him the rumors failed 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 na

added, "but the Superintendent of

The neck was a brute's, and the square protruding jaw was in keeping with it. His lips were thin, his nose was hooked like a pirate's, and his keen black eyes gleamed from under the bushy black eyebrows like a grizzly's from a cave. He was not a thing o

hitectural completeness of a turreted castle, created out of smoke by some imaginative minstrel of hell. His language on all occasions was so

was "an awfully good man to have on your

sobriquet of "Foul-mouthed Bill"; but he rather liked Bill Jones.[6] It happened one day, in the Cowboy offic

dured the flow of indescribable English as long as he could. Then, suddenly, in a p

and speaking in a low, quiet voice, "I can't tell why in the wo

e in the room was absolute. Gradually a sheepish look crept around the enormous and altogether hideous mouth of Bill Jones. "I don't belong to your outfit,

friends fr

to needle-points, the heavy eyelids, the cool, arrogant eyes, made an impression which, against that primitive background, was not easily forgotten. His costume, moreover, was extraordinary to the point of the fantastic. It was the Marquis who always seemed to wear the widest sombrero, the loudest neckerchief. He went armed like a battleship. A corresp

e like "Puss in Boots." His town was really booming and was crowding its rival on the west bank completely out of the picture. The clatter of hammers on new buildings sounded, in the words of the editor of the Cowboy, "like a riveting machine." The slaughter-house had already been expanded. From Chicago came a score or more of butchers, from the range came herds of cattle to be slaughtered. The side-track was filled with empty cars of the Northern

hoever drifted into his office, next to the company store, and generally "something for the snake-bite," as he called it, that was enough to bring benedictions to the lips of a cowpuncher whose dependence for stimulants was on Bill Williams's "Forty-Mile Red-Eye." To the men who worked for him he was extraordinarily generous, and he was without vindictiveness toward those who

ss one day for a chat with Sylvane. He was dilating on his projects, "spreading himself" on his dreams, bu

w now," he said rather sadly, "Riley

ims of the men who gave it. He was constantly pouring out the tale of his grandiose plans to Tom and Dick and Abraham, asking for guidance in affairs of business and finance from men whose knowledge of business was limited to frontier barter and whose acquaintance with finance

er of three hundred miles. The distance to Medora was a hundred miles shorter. Millions of pounds of freight were accumulating for lack of proper transportation facilities to Deadwood. That hot little mining town, moreover, n

ng somewhat on the state of Medora's thirst, on the number of "suckers" in town who had to be fleeced, and on the difficulty under which both Williams and Hogue seemed to suffer of keeping sober when they were released from their ob

h which it would have to go was impassable 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 our features. From our experience in the Bad Lands we know that after a slight rain a man can carry a whole quarter-section off on his boots,

k they led it across the headwaters of the Heart River and the countless affluents of the Grand and the Cannonball, past Slim Buttes and the Cave Hills, across the valleys of the Bellefourche and the Moreau, two hundred and twenty-five miles into the Black Hills and Deadwood.

o organize the stage company, buy the coaches, the horses and the freight outfits, improve the high

's partner in freighting and faro and asked Jess Hogue to take charge. Hogue, who was versatile and was as willing to cheat a man in one way as in another, consented and for a time neglected the card-tables of Williams's "liquor-parlor" to enter into negotiations for the construction of the line. He was a clever man and had had business experience of a sort, but his interest in th

owboy, was amazed to see the Marq

n the stage-line for

answered, "I never saw a stage or a sta

," cried the Frenchman.

n up. It specified, in brief, that A. T. Packard was to be sole owner of the Medora and Black Hills Stage and Forwarding Company when it should have paid for itself from its net earnings, which left nothing to be desired, especially as the total receipts from sales of building lots in Medora and elsewhere were to be considered

ntrol, Packard heard of the thousands that were taking the roundabout journey by way of Pierre or Miles City. He might, he knew, be running every north-bound coach full from front to hind boot an

s, who was rather solitary in his grandeur and possibly a bit lonely, jumped at the opportunity Roosevelt's presence in Medora offered for companionship with his own kind. Roosevelt did not l

I

etween us-I was pa

ler, killer-so the

liente that he'd cr

hailed him-"Riding c

ave got me, but my voi

ld him steady; then he

nd fanned it in the bri

lit Rio up the trai

Herber

a position in which he appeared, and in which in fact he was, the protector of the disciples of violence. This was due partly to Maunders's astute manipulations, but largely also to the obsession by which apparently he was seized that he was the lord of the manor in the style of the ancien régime, not to be bothered in his beneficent despotism with the restrictions that kept the common man in his place. As a foreigner he naturally ca

criminal along the Little Missouri. Montana was a step or two to the west, Wyoming was a haven of refuge to the southwest, Canada was within easy reach to the north. A needle in a haystack, moreover,

Butchers and cowboys, carpenters and laborers, adventurous young college graduates and younger sons of English noblemen, drank and gambled and shouted and "shot up the town together" with "horse-rustlers" and faro-dealers and "bad men" with notches on their guns. "Two-gun men" appeared from God-knows-whence, generally well supplied with money, and disappeared, the Lord knew whither, appearing elsewhere, possibly,

life, as Pack

trains come in was all the scenery we had," plumbed the depths of Medora's hunger "for something to happen." A train (even a freight) came to stand for excitement, not because o

ll Jones; and if they were fertile in invention, they were no less energetic in carrying their inventions into execution. To shoot over the roofs of the cars was a regular pastime, to shoot through the windows was not unusual, but it was a genius who thought of the notion of crawling under the dining-car and sho

le the engine was taking water. Bill Jones, spying the hat, gave an indignant exclamation and promp

Bill Jones, "we don't want the

e found no relenting there. Deeply humiliated, he walked over to

ed little hamlet on the west bank, the passengers in the sleeping-car, which was standing opposite the Pyramid Park Hotel, heard shots, evidently fired in the hotel. They were horrified a minute later to see a man, apparently dead, being carried out of the fr

and round, and only the wise ones surmised that the shooting was a vo

any cattle of your own, you kept an eye on the comings and goings of everybody who sold beef or veal. The annoying element in all this vigilance, however, was that, even if you could point your finger at the man who had robbed you, it did not profit you much unless you were ready to shoot him. A traveling salesman, whose baggage had been looted in Medora, swore out a warrant in Morton County, a

he regarded the lawlessness merely as part of frontier life, and took no steps to stop it. Roosevelt was too young and untested a member of the community to exert any open influence during those first weeks of his act

. Pa

he "Bad Lan

it, a somewhat shy and wraithlike civilization, but yet a thing made in the image and containing in itself the germ of that spirit which is the antithesis of barbarism, based on force, being itself the visible expression of the potency of ideas. The Bad Lands Cowboy brought the first tenuous foreshadowing of democratic gove

; his independence of spirit, on the other hand, kept him from becoming the Frenchman's tool. He was altogether fearless, he was a crack shot and a good rider, and he was not without effectiveness with his fists. But he was also tactful

sonal responsibility was absolute. There was no one behind whom he could hide. If any one objected to any statement in Medora's weekly newspaper, he knew whom to reproach. "Every printed word," said Packard, a lon

drunk was not responsible for what he did, and accidents which happened while he was in that condition, though unfortunate, were to be classed, not with crimes, but with tornadoes and hailstorms and thunder bolts, rather as "acts of God." The general expression of the editor's opposition to this amiable theory brought only rumblings, but the specific applications brought indignant citizens with six-shooters. Pac

ility to defend himself simplified the pro

ut in any event something from which a club could be developed. But the elements of disorder, which had been repulsed when they had suggested the organization of Billings County a year previous, now

hey will get it. If there is any place along the line that needs a criminal court and a jail it i

e would stand a better chance away from Medora than in it. A word from him to Maunders and from Maunders to his "gang" would unquestionably have served to bring about the organization of the county; a word spoken against the move would also have served effectually to block it. There was, however, a certain opposition to the movement for organization on the part of the most sober elements of the population. Some of the older ranchmen suggested to Packard and to F

when a man called Black Jack had come into Little Missouri on a wrecking train. He had a reputation that extended from Mandan to Miles City for his ability to carry untold quantities of whiskey without showing signs of intoxication; but Little Missouri proved his undoing. The "jag" he developed was something phenomenal, and he was finally locked up in the Bastile by common consent. The train crew, looking for Black Jack at three in the morning, located him after much searching

se of outraged individuals. There was no court, no officer of the law. Each man was a law unto himself, and settled his own quarrels. The wonder, under such circumstances, is n

ad friendly dealings with the outlaws and were open to suspicion. Then there was the indeterminate and increasing number of men whose sources of revenue were secret, who toiled not, but were known to make sudden journ

t time a territory the size of Massachusetts, there lived exactly one hundred and twenty-two males and twenty-seven females. There was a certain hesitancy on the part even of the law-abiding to assert too loudly their opposition to the light-triggered elements which were "frisk

constant topic of conversation among the recognized law-and-order men and all of us agreed the thieves must be checked. I don't even remember how the decision came about to hold the meeting. It was decided to hold it, however, and I gave the notice wide publicity in th

give him instructions. With a large liberality, characteristic of the frontier, the "mass meeting" had left to his own discretion the demarcation of his "au

on rather than of regret. He devoted his attention mainly to those "floaters" whom he suspected of being in league with the outlaws, or who, by their recklessness with firearms, made themselves a public nuisance. He seldom, if ever, made an arrest. He merely drew his man aside and told him that "it had been decided" that he should leave town at once and never again appear in the round-up district of the Bad Lands. In no case was his warning disobeyed. On the few occasions when it was necessary for him to interfere publicly, there were always

g resembling order; but it scarcely touched the main problem with which the law-abidi

ier life. They were in every saloon and in almost every ranch-house. They rode on the round-ups, they sat around the camp-fire with the cowpunchers. Some of the most capable ranchmen were in

ogether in the tacit fellowship of outlawry. The most tangible bond among them was that they all bought each other's stolen horses, and were all directors of t

w, and who were scattered over a territory greater than New England, served him with absolute 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 averse to buying horses under the market price. With the aid of these men, Axelby created his smooth-ru

me had reached the East, and even

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

dora, in the wildest part of the Bad Lands, and "worked the country" from there north and south. They seldom stole from white men, recognizing the advisability of not irritating their neighbors too much, but drove off Indian ponies in herds. Their custom was to steal Sioux horses from one of the reservations, keep them in the Scoria Hills a month or more until all danger of pursuit was over, and then drive them north over the prairie between Belfield and Medora, through the Killdeer Mountains to the

n. It was rumored, further, that when the thieves had horses to sell, Maunders had "first pick." His own nephew was said to be a confederate of Big Jack. One day that spring, the Jacks and Maunders's nephew, driving a herd of trail-weary horses, stopped for a night at Lang's Sage Bottom camp. They told Lincoln Lang that they had bought the horses in Wyoming. Maunders sold the herd himself, and the news that came from

was little that the individual could do except pocket his losses with as good grace as po

s's "outfit" called one of the cowboys one day into his office. His name was Pierce

Fisher. "Can't you give me a line on the fe

he answered, "I wouldn't dare tell you. My toes would

- are we g

on't get 'em sore on you. When one of them comes up

ed a similar answer. The reputable stockmen were very much in the minority, it see

in the future of the region as a part of the American commonwealth to be willing to temporize with outlaws. Roosevelt was one of th

on nerve, and when the time came for a law-abiding minority to rise against a horde of thieves and desperadoes, he naturally became one of the leaders. He played an importa

nd cattle thieves, which were actually threatening to destroy the cattle industry. The officers of the law had been helpless, or worse, in dealing

tress. There was not one of them who was not a dead shot and all were armed with the latest model firearms and had an abundance of ammunition. No "general clean-up" on a large scale could, Stuart contended, be succe

led. A number of them, who "stood in" with the thieves in the hope of thus buying immunity, carried the report of the meet

an. When the spring round-up was over, late in June, he called a half-dozen representative ranchmen from both sides of the Dakota-Montana

eputable ranchmen in western Montana into a company of vigilantes similar to the company which had wiped out the Plummer band twenty years previous. Groups of indignant citizens who called themselves vigilantes had from time to time attempted to conduct what were popularly known as "necktie

ny years later to stir the world with a raid of another sort). Roosevelt and young Jameson, who shared a hearty dislike of seeing lawbreakers triumphant, and were neither of them averse to a little danger in confounding the public enemy, annou

and would get themselves killed for no reason; above all, they were all three of prominent families. If anything happened to them, or if merely the news were spread abroad t

ll the precision of phrase that a life in the wild country had given him. Roosevelt and the Englishman saw the justice of the veteran's contentions and accepted the situation

I

on the prai

dog to trot

le with chips

boil without

pool and wip

wardrobe al

oven I cook b

he ground for

he sky, my floo

lowing of the he

e brooks, my se

wolf on his p

boy

the best place in the world to do literary work. The trail south led directly through his dooryard, and loquacious cowpunchers stopped at all hou

terary work. On one of his exploring expeditions down the river, he met Howard Eaton riding south to the railroad from his V-Eye Ranch at the mouth of the Big Beaver, to receive a train-load of cattle. He told Eaton the object of his journeying, and Eaton, who knew the country better possibly than any other man in the Bad Lands, advised him to look at

wound through a narrow defile; then over a plateau, whence blue seas of wild country stretched northward into the haze; then sharply down again into a green bottom, walled on the west by buttes scarred like the face of an old man. He forded the stream once more, swung round

tless and indefatigable. On one of his solitary rides he stopped at Mrs. Maddox's hut to call for the buckskin suit he had ordered of her. She

the cabin. He had a habit of carrying a book with him wherever he went and he was r

s attached to it," as one of his cowboy friends explained subsequently, waiting outside until the call for dinner cam

ssouri Just A

nt 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 rolling country on the west bank of Beaver Creek. Along the east side of the creek were high, steep, cream-colored buttes, gently rounded and capped w

e in a shed behind the "ho

ng out from

disturbance such as this, but the night was chilly and th

n by men who are making-believe to like what they don't like." The exception was a shabby-looking individual in a broad-brimmed hat who was walking up and down t

he really dangerous, man-killer type; but a would-be "bad man,

shouted as he sp

ther men who were evidently sheepher

to treat!" shouted t

evelt walked quickly to a chair behind the stov

ty to make capital as a "bad man" at the expense of a harmless "dude

going to treat

over Roosevelt, swinging his guns, and ordered him, in language

re significant to his future than the mere question whether or not he should let a drunken bully have his way. If he backed down, he said to himself, he w

ared, "Set u

r, with his heels together. "Well, if I've got to, I've got

to one side of the point of the jaw, hitting with his le

lt that it was not a case in which one could afford to take chances, and he watched, ready to drop with his knees on the man's ribs at the first

to bed without a light. But the man in the shed made no move to recover his shattered prest

ppenings and much conversation. It was the kind of story that the Bad Lands liked to hear, and the spectacles and the fr

after the saloon incident," said Frank Greene, a local official of t

er published an editorial about him which expressed, in exuberant Dakota

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 glorio

Roosevelt's own words. No doubt, Roosevelt was beginning

sely connected with the memories of his brief married life. Everywhere the reporters tried to extract from him some expression on the political campaign, but on that subject he was reticent. He i

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

s enthusiasm over his own manly valor and

ewall appeared in New York with his stalwart nephew in tow. The contract they entered into with Roosevelt was merely verbal. There was to be a t

k of that, Bill?"

way, "I think that's a one-sided trade.

ing of the contract. On the 28th

there, where the thieves, singly or in groups, made their headquarters, the masked riders appeared and held their grim proceedings. There was no temporizing, and little mercy. Justice was to be done, and it was done with all the terrible relentlessness that always characterizes a free citizen

de, and snatches of humor that was terrible against the background of black tragedy. Some of the stories were false, some were fantastic exaggerations of actual fact sifted through excited imaginations. Those that were bare truth were in all conscience grim enough for the most morbid mind. The yarns flew from mouth to mouth, from ranch to ranch. Cowboys were hard to hold to their work. Now that

desperadoes remained undisturbed. There were rumors that Maunders was on the books of Stuart's men, but under the wing of the

uly 31st. A reporter of the Pioneer interviewed h

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 cou

all, nearing forty, with tremendous shoulders a little stooped as though he were accustomed to passing through doorways that were t

sevelt that night, "what d

the country well enough. But I don't bel

y, "you don't know anything abou

ything about it," he said. "I realize that. But it's the

, which had become accustomed to the country, he had already set apart for the lower ranch, and the day after his arrival he sent the two backwoodsmen north with them, under th

when it had been under masculine control. The new ranch-house was completed, and though it was not large it was vastly more homelike than any other cabin on the river with the possible exception of the Eatons'. It stood in an open flat, facing north, with a long butte behind it; and before

. There was wistfulness in the delicate but firm mouth and chin; there was vigor in the broad forehead and the well-proportioned nose; and humor in the shrewd, quiet eyes set far apart. She belonged to an old Border family, and had lived all her life amid the almost perfect adjustments of

iver was high and they were forced to take a roundabout trail over the prairie; the cattle, moreover, could be driven only at a slow pace; but even twenty-odd miles a day was more than a Maine backwoodsman enjoyed as initiation in horsemanship. Dow was mounted

etely covering his face, a "seafaring man" who had got his experience with cattle in South America; "a man of many orders" as Sewall curtly des

ed why he thought it necessary to

all's side. "Why in hell don't you r

back seat for any one" when feats that demanded physical strength and skill were to be done. Robins was very close to him, and Sewall's first

g about what I'm trying to do and I think I've got a horse as green as I am. Bu

his teeth that were like tombstones, his vigorous, brown beard, his eye

of quick-tempered fello

is," said the yo

apped

g to him, for he ain't in th

ed the subject fo

rned to the Maltese Cross and then rode n

"That Sewall don't calculate to bear anything. I spoke to him the other day, and he snapped me up so short

the gruff apology to Sewall, and there was harmony after that between the l

om the river, and be lost in the open prairie. The seafaring man determined, therefore, that they should be "close-herded" every night and "bedded down" on the level bottom where the cabin stood which was their temporary ranch-house. So each dusk, Roosevelt and his men drove the cattle down from the side valleys, and each night, in two-hour "tricks" all night

rn Bo

river's edge directly in

h at the mouth of Big Beaver Creek was only five miles down the Little Missouri from the place where Roosevelt had "staked his claim." Eaton brought Chris McGee, h

t here and make ranching

annot get up any enthusiasm for the Republican candidate, and it see

ood in the East. "Roosevelt is a nice fellow," rem

addle with a day on foot after grouse when the larder ran low. It was all joyous sport, which w

orming him that he himself claimed the rang

found nothing but dead sheep on the range, he wr

e matter

ewall and Dow, as he was making ready to return to the Ma

urselves," announced Bill with a

X

Zander, drunka

door and let th

daybreak on a

heaven, Bill

nds Ru

d to the upper ra

fun in bringing my two backwoods babies out here. Their absolute astonishment and delight at everything

is 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,

he folks back East," and the opinions he expresse

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

I had enough money to start here I never would come, think the country

put himself out of reach of importunate politicians in various parts of the country, who were endeavoring to make him commit himself in favor of the Republican candidate in a way that would make his pre-convention utterances appear

s. 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,

r man was Jack Reuter, otherwise known as "Dutch Wannigan." For "Wannigan," like his fellow "desperado," Frank O'Donald, had returned long since to the valley of the Little Missouri and taken up again the activities which the Marquis had rudely interrupted. But, being a simple-hearted creature, h

migration westward which the laments of the disappointed seemed to have no power to check. "City-boomers," with their tales of amazing fortunes made overnight, lured men to a score of different "towns" along the Northern Pacific that were nothing but two ruts and a section-house. From the sout

his thumbs, and the Marquis, plagued by the citizens of the Black Hills whom he had promised the stage- and freight-line months pr

Spearfish with the ponies, for Packard, knowing that every hour was precious, was rushing frantically to and fro, buying lumber and feed, pegging out the si

e Cross, he was back at Elkhorn again, forty miles away, and the next day he was once more on his travels, riding south. Sewall went with him, for he

cquaintances in friendly fashion, but tending strictly to business. It seems, however, that he had already made a deep impression on his neighbors up and down the

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 ne

the Pioneer, "he will give our po

him. His political position in the East was, at the moment, hopeless. Before the convention, he had antagonized the "regular" Republicans by his leadership of the Independents in New York, which had resulted in the complete defeat of the "organization" in the struggle over the "Big Four" at Utica; after the convention, he had antagoni

onvention of the Republicans of Billings County was held in the hall over Bill Williams's new saloon in Medora on August 16th. Roosevelt did not attend it. S

orning 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 s

's costume fascinated him. It was,

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

roan pony, or rather horse; he looks well with his beautifully carved saddle

ounded 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 the

at "Roosevelt was always thinkin' of makin' the world better, instead of worse," and Merrifield remembered that even in those early days the "Eastern tenderfoot" was dreaming of the Pr

ut the word he sa

, but silence

lence, restless

orest-creatures

the topsy-tu

dise

terward. "I had picked that out as a happy hunting ground for years and years, and I never wanted to go anywhere so much as I wanted to go along with Theodore on that trip." But the memory of the lonely look in Will D

xtraordinary stock of miscellaneous mis-information upon every conceivable subject." He was a short, stocky, bearded man, a born wanderer, who had left his family once for a week's hunting trip and remained away three years, returning at last only to depart again, after a week, for further Odyssean wanderings. "If I had the mone

riously the "prairie schooner" lumbered along the uneven route. The weather was sultry, and as they crossed the high divide which separated the Little Missouri basin from the valley of the Little Beaver they saw ahead of them the towering portents of s

Bad Lands

m is Hell-Roaring Bill Jones; James Harmon is behind Huidekoper; at the right of the group (standing) is Schuyler Lebo; at the left, s

n 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 fl

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, press

by sharp showers. Next morning the weather was no better, and after a morning's struggle with the wagon along the slippery trail of gumbo mud, they made what would under other circumstances have been a "dry camp." They c

prairie schooner made their slow and creaking way, and Roosevelt and Merrifield, to whom the pace was torture, varied the monotony with hunting expedition

d started off with his shot-gun to bring in a meal of them

hoot!" cried

e beyond where he had seen the prairie fowl go to covert, a mountain lion sprang out of the

ot dissimilar. "Now, whenever I hold up my hand," he

in the wrong, meekly bore the hunter's wrath, knowing that Merrifield was in the right; and thereafter on the expedition

last they did come upon a lonely rider, Roosevelt instantly pre

as to his s

d ponies are grazing round about me. I am going to trust it to the tender mercies of a stray cowboy whom we have just me

king 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 hav

al 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

Lodge, who was in the midst of a sti

tly 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

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 d

il had their charm, and their perils also. There was one excursion, while the wagon was cr

as not favorable for game, and Roosevelt and Merrifield started forth

rse, plunging in his attempt to clamber up the steep bluff, overbalanced himself, and for a second stood erect on his hind legs trying to recover his equilibrium. As Roosevelt, who was directly beneath him, made a frantic leap with his horse to one side, Merrifield's pony rolled over backwards, turned two complete somersaults and landed with a crash at the bottom of the wash-out, feet uppermost. They did not dare to

osevelt, suspecting that they would reappear when they had recovered from their terror, elevated his sights to four hundred yards and waited. It was not long before one of the three stepped out. Roosevelt raised his rifle. The shot, at that distance, was almost impossib

that they discovered a band of Indians camped a short distance

Indians," remarked Merrifie

o go over there for

the hunter dryly, "you always wan

n game. He consequently suggested a shooting-match. The Indians agreed. To Roosevelt's astonishment they proved to be very bad shots, and not only Merrifield, but Roosevelt himself, completely outclassed them i

finds out that you are a good shot, he will leave you absolutely alone to go and come as you like. India

t of the first steep rise, on the banks of Crazy Woman Creek, a few miles south of the army post at Buffalo, they

em was the music of running water, where clear brooks made their way through deep gorges and under interlacing boughs. Groves of g

e dark waters of the mountain tarns, and now and again slight snowfalls that made the forest gleam and glisten in the moonlight like fairylan

ill of the chase, but he loved no less the companionship of the majestic trees and the shy wild creatures which sprang across his path or ran wit

ld Lebo provided was excellent, and to the three men, who had for weeks been accustomed to make small fires from dried bru

ed the quaint old teamster with satisf

ast, after a week Merrifield, riding into camp one dusk, with a shout announced tha

t seemed as though the elk might constitute a day's satisfactory achievement. But Roosevelt was indefatigab

that a grizzly had been feeding on it. They crouched in hiding for the bear's return. Night fell, owls began to hoo

uring the night. His tracks were clear, and they followed them noiselessly over the yielding c

round, his face aflame with excitement. Roosevelt

s. He had heard the hunters and reared himself on his haunches. Seeing them, he dropped again

between the small, glit

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 stru

file, with the pack-ponies laden with the trophies of the hunt, moved down through the woods and across the canyons to the edge of the great table-land, then slo

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

over, I have at last been able to sleep well at night. But unless I was bear-hunting all the time

I

bites you, the

lights you with

prevail, and

down need half-sol

boy

own the river to rejoin his nephew. Will Dow was watching the cattle on the plateau a few mil

to Sewall that night, "as you did when I

ut on the plains because of a marriage that had gone on the rocks. He was an excellent man with the horses, and good company about a camp-fire, for somewhere he had picked up an education and was well-informed. He gave the two tenderfeet a good training in the rudiments of "cattle-

ying Sewall's opinion of the regi

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

ertook to put in livable shape a dugout that stood on the river-bank some thirty or forty yards from the place which Roosevelt had, on a previous visit, selected as

elt's

is claim to the territory on which Roosevelt had established "squatter's rights." Dow overheard one of t

," he drawled, "if there's going to be any dead men he

e hundred yards from the river, keeping a weather eye open for trouble. A day or two after Do

asually. "You haven't seen anything of 'em yet hereabouts, ha

moky." They consulted Captain Robins, who agreed that "smoky" was the

red in part by less lofty motives than those which impelled the president of the Montana Stockgrowers' Association and his friends. On the border between Dakota and Montana a company of rough characters who called themselves vigilantes began to make themselves the topic of excited conversatio

want the land these white and red settlers are taking up. Vast tracts-uncultivated ranges, not settlements-are what they desire. The small ho

eir guns near them while they were at

, on the one hand, that they included the biggest ranch-owners in the Northwest; on the other hand, it was stated that they were bands of lawless Texans driven out of the Panhandle and hired by the ranchmen at thirty dollars a month "to clean up the country." Whoever they were,

hey provided. They designated, moreover, certain responsible men in the different round-up districts, to whom subordinate bands of the "stranglers" reported from time to time for orders. Each subordinate band operated independently of the others,

as informed that two notorious characters were to be done away with on the following Thursday. The operations of the stranglers were as a rule terrifyingly punctual,

passengers and he disposed of an edition of seven or eight hundred weekly with them in excess of his regular edition. As he

they stay in Medora, or would they go on to where frontier justice was awaiting them?

hem. The train started.

t they we

personal scores. The captain of the band was a man called "Flopping Bill," a distinctly shady character, and the band itself was made up of irresponsible creatures who welcomed the opportunity to do, in the cause of righteousness, a number of things for which under ordinary circumstances they would have been promptly hanged. Their first act a

he vigilantes had marked them for destruction, and descended upon the 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; and spent their enthusiasm for order in "allowing the Englishman to feel t

the horse-thieves posed as "nesters," hiding in underground stables by day the horses they stole by night. Each registered his own brand and sometimes more than one; but the brands were carefully contrived. If you intended, for instance, to prey on the great herds of the "Long X outfit," thus , you called your brand "Four Diamonds," marking it thus . A quick fire and a running iron did the trick. It was all very simple and very profitable and if you were caught there was always

evidently of destroying the pasture of the small stockmen, and were in consequence vitally affecting the interests of every man who owned cattle anywhere in the valley. That these acts of vandalism were the work of a body fr

hand, for they suddenly veered in their course and troubled the Bad Lands no more. But before they went they droppe

aiders 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 thereupon threw a rope around his neck and drew him up in such a way that his feet just touched the ground. The victim continued to proclaim his innocenc

all that is lost to history. All that we know is that there was a great scattering during the succeeding days, and cer

going on until two of them came to me about the matter. They found that I was really ignorant and then asked wh

souri could never definitely solve. Rumor suggested this man and that whose ways had been devious, but only one name was ever mentioned with

Marquis, calmly remained in Medora, refusing by flight to present his enemies with evidence of an uneasy conscience. To his friends he declared that F

of Maunders's determination to kill him at the first opportunity

isks, and told him so. "You're taking a big chance in

lways make certain that one or the other of you fellows sees us

sher unharmed and turned his attention to the two backwoodsmen from Maine who wer

ome, when he suddenly heard hoof-beats punctuated with shots. He went to the door. Six rough-looking characters on horseback were outside with smoking ri

ook and in the ashes of the hearth was a pot of baked beans, intended for their own midday meal. Sewall, keeping caref

and directly began to sing the praises of the bea

up any racket we should have to see what the end would be. I knew that if they were well filled, it would have a tendency to mak

mind that if there were to be any dead men thereabouts Maunders was to be the first

enthusiasm that they had "got things fixed up in very fine shape," and departed. He treated Sewall most affably thereafter, but the backwoodsmen were made aware in one

I

the stars, the lit

dreamed of Ede

nor gay, but just wo

lot of space c

a spark; dot of re

fire an awful

ging air was as

up and froze the

Herber

mation At Med

ine B

addle ponies in his place. Night was coming on fast as they crossed the final ridge and came in sight of as singular a bit of country as any of them had ever seen. Scattered over a space not more than three quarters of a mile square were countless isolated buttes of sandstone, varying in height from fifteen to fifty feet. Some of them rose as sharp peaks or ridges or as connected chains, but the greater number by far were topped with diminutive table-lands, some thir

d strange-looking escarpments of the rock. Beyond the circle that the firelight brought luridly to life, the buttes in the moonlight had their own still magic. Against the shi

a country se

teady rain, as the gale gave place to a hurricane. They spent a miserable day and night shifting from shelter to shelter with the shifting wind; another

ings were, grumbling and bad temper can always be depended upon to make them worse, and

ight some forty miles southwest of Lang's. They were still three days from home, three days of c

and wake the boys up for br

Roosevelt. "I'll

t had been in the saddle all day and i

d up this trip myself," said Roose

out of the circle of firelight. The October air was cool in their f

described that

m 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

ouse, which was to stand in the shade of a row of cottonwood trees overlooking the broad, shallow bed of the Little Missouri. They were both migh

l cut down fifty-three," answered Dow. "I cut forty-nine, and the boss," he added dryly

e-stumps he had seen gnawed

es admirably to their strange surroundings. Dow was already an

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

insisted that the country

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

country. His experience had taught him that when a cow is allowed to have one calf after another without special feeding, she is more than likely to d

ve to be fed," he said to

. "No one hereabouts seems to think there's any danger

d Bill; and there

and demanded five hundred dollars for his rights. Roosevelt had from the first scouted the claim, for Maunders had a way of claiming any shack which a hunter deserted anywhere. Vague threats which Maunders was making filled the air, but did no

unders was known as a good shot an

nders's shack stood on the west bank a few hundred yards from the Py

on sight. I have come over to see when you want to begin the killing and to let you

at Maunders did not after all want to shoot him. He had been "misq

ominations of the Republican Party, on the other; but the "Mugwumps," those Republicans who, with a self-conscious high-mindedness which irritated him almost beyond words, were supporting the Democratic nominee, he absolu

route" drivers, among the sixteen relay-stations that lined the wheel-tracks which the Marquis was pleased to call the "highway" to the Black Hills. The horses which he had purchased in a dozen different places in the course of the summer were not such as to allay the trepidation of timid travelers. They had none of them been broken to harness before Packard's agents had found them and broken them in their own casual and none too gentle fashion. Packard

bought?" he asked; Packa

ed and s

you using on t

red and

doing with t

out on

Baron in despair. "Ea

n their own walls, and there was nothing but a growing querulousness in the voice of the man who held the purse-strings to reveal to the world that Baron von Hoffman was beginning to think he was layin

with minute regard for sensitive nerves, for if any part of it struck a horse except with the pressure of its own weight, the devil was loose again, and anything might happen. But even when the harness was finally on the refractory backs, the work was not half done. Still blindfolded, the horses had to be driven, pulled, pushed, and hauled by main force to their appointed places in front of the coach. Nois

man at the head o

nswered the

o!" called

er and the near swing-horse from their feet. The off leader, unable to forge ahead, made a wild leap for the off swing horse, and fairly crushed him to earth with his feet, himself tripping on the harness and rolling at random in the welter, his snapping hoofs flashing in every direction. The wheel team, in the meantime,

ckard remarked later, "that George Myers w

e process was repeated with the other horses. The damage proved to be negligible. A few small harness straps had snapped, and a single-tree was broken. A second trial resulted no better than the first. After the half-crazy animals had been a second time disentangled and a third time

quis De Mores's D

d ended in an invitation ride to Lead City with Mayor Seth Bullock at

e more proved the undoing of what might have been a profitable venture. The mail contract, which the easy-going Frenchman had thought that he had secured, proved illusory. Packard, who had been glad to leave that part of the business to his principal, discovered, as soon as he began to i

n Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Packard told the last chapter of his conne

iminary expenses of putting on the line, and finally with no chance, under my contract, of getting a cent from the stage-line before that nebulous time when it had paid for itself. The Marquis soon returned and I told him I could not consider myself bound by the contract. The delay

re was enough in all conscience to keep him occupied in his duties as Chief of Police. But for the

I

the morning ere

's busy, the fl

stir o'er hil

ders rounding the

ur cinches, come sh

ld bronco and bre

our steers from t

is off to the r

ilroad

o Elkhorn. The day was bitterly cold, with the mercury well down toward zero, and the pony, fresh and impatient, went along at a good rate. Roosevelt had not gone many miles before he became conscious that darkness was falling. The trail followed along the bottom for a half-dozen miles and then turned off into the bad lands, leading up and down through the ravines and over the ridge crests of a rough and broken country. He crossed a wide plateau where the w

ch had been closing round him where he rode in the narrow valley, crept over the tops of the high bluffs and shut out from his vision everything but a dim track in the snow faintly illuminated by the stars. Roosevelt hurried his pony. Clouds were gathering overhead, and soon, Roosevelt knew, eve

underbrush. It was hard enough to find in the day-time, but in the darkness of that wintry nig

an for something of which to make supper. The place was stripped bare. He went down to the river with an axe and a pail and br

wild plums. As the dawn deepened, the sharp-tails began to fly down from their roosts to the berry bushes. Up among the bare limbs of the trees, sharply outlined against the sky, they offered as go

ilosophizing. Roosevelt himself was much depressed. His virtual elimination from politics, together with the tragic breaking-up of his home life, had left him for the moment aimless and without ambition. There is a wistful note in a letter he wrote, that week to Lodge. "The statesman (?) of the past has been merged, alas, I fear for good, in the cowboy of t

to feel that way," he insisted. "

an," Roosevelt responded. "She never would know anything a

ays be willing to stay here and drive cattle, because, when you get to feeling differently, you will want to get back among your friends where you can do more and be more benefit to the world th

ss of his existence. An amusing angle of the whole matter was that "

he cattle industry; but actually with the higher aim in view of furnishing a rallying point for the scattered forces of law and order. Montana had such an organization in the Montana Live Stock Association and more than one ranchm

ht have been found. No ranchman by himself, or with the aid only of his own employees, would ever have been able to collect his widely scattered property. It was only by the co?perative effort known as "the round-up" that it was possible once or twice a year for every man to gather his own. The very

unwritten laws which you were supposed to obey; but if you were personally formidable and your "outfit" was impressive, there was nothing in heaven or earth to force you to obey them. It was comparatively simple, moreover,

rt of authority which men would recognize and accept because it was an outgrowth of the life of which they were a part. Sheriffs and marshals were imposed from without, and an independent person might have argued that in a ter

n suspected, by law-abiding folk between Medora and the Black Hills, of being "in cahoots" with everything that was sinister in the region. He had for years been stationed at Deadwood for the purpose mainly of running down deserting soldiers,

inted out, altogether too noisy in denouncing the wicked when they were not present and too effusive in greeting them when they were. He gravitated naturally toward Maun

ividual whom the Federal authorities might impose on the Bad Lands, but only in an organization which w

dently restless, was again under way, riding south through a snowst

November 23d], and the thermometer was twenty degrees below zero. As

nd in a day or two, unless the weather is too bad, I

d during the week that followed, to persuade fifteen or twenty stockmen along the valley of the Little Missouri of th

arck Weekly Tribune in an editorial on December 12th], calls a meeting of the stockmen of the West Dakota region to meet at Medora, December

the eye under the clear weather; by night, the trees cracked and groaned from the strain of the biting frost. Even the stars seemed to snap and glitter. The river la

rmometer had a way of going fifty degrees below zero, and for two weeks on end never rose above a point of ten below. It was not always altogether pleasant to be out of doors; but wood had to be chopped, and coal had to be brought in by the wagon-load. Roosevelt had a mine on his own ranch some three or four miles south of Chimney Butte. It was

rost somewhere about him. When the wind was at his back, Roosevelt found it was not bad to gallop along through the white weather, 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 keen knife, and the thickest furs seemed only so much paper. The cattle were obviously unhappy, standing humped up under the bushes, except for an hour or two at midday when they ventured out to feed. A very weak animal they woul

December his genial foreman returned, bringing fifty-two head. They were wild, unbroken "cayuses," and had to be broken then and there. Day after da

ation of the frantic animals. Will Dow had become an excellent horseman, but Sewall had come to the conclusion that you could not teach an old dog new tricks, and refused to be

y would get the men from Maine "on those wild horses and have some fun with them." "I

lice aforethought led the subject to Sewall's

ride any of those h

ve to," said

ow so much

he cowboy, "you will have

ewall answered quietly. "If I were

other lightly, "you w

ke a fool of myself trying to do what I know I can't

feeling his blood rise to his head, became

s," he said, "but you cannot ride me,

cowboy remark, not too pleasantly, "I suppose it is no use to sa

picked one who ultimately proved to be one of the worst in the herd. For all the time that Sewall was on his back, he acted like a model of the virtues. It was only when

the saddle-band; and it gave a sense of quiet satisfaction to manly pride later to crowd around the fire where the cowboys were stamping and beating their numbed hands together and know that you had borne yourself 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, there was a sense of real achievement when night fell, and

ed the book back to me to-day, after reading the "Puritan Pepys," remarking meditatively, and with, certainly, very great justice, that early Puri

n. The abattoir was closed for the season, the butchers (who did their part in enlivening the neighborhood) had gone East, the squad of carpenters

all hands in the "outfit" in the arduous undertaking of preparing their free spirits for the obligations of civilization. It was well toward the middle of December before they were able to

us 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 differen

the cliffs or cautiously groping along narrow ledges, peering long and carefully over every crest. But they found no sheep. The cold was

s of the crazy old hut it invaded their shel

e great bulk of Middle Butte loomed against the sunrise. They hunted carefully through the outlying foothills and toiled laboriously up the steep sides to the level top. It was a difficult piece of mountaineering, for the edges

ew more intense. All sig

ays. The ice made the footing perilous, and in the cold thin air every quick burst they made up a steep hill caused them to pant for breath. But they were not unrewarded. Crawling cautiously over a sharp ledge they came suddenly upon two mountain rams not a hundred yards away. Roosevelt dropped on his knee, raising his rifle. At the report, the largest of t

had no time to lose. They hurried back to the cabin, packed up their bedding and provisions, and started northward. Roosevelt rode ahead with Merrifield, not sparing the hors

n one of his unaccountable culinary lapses, he baked the beans that night in rosin.

d on the offender, "I can eat green biscuits and most of your other

not let the memory of them die e

wrote to "Bamie" on December 14th], and after tramping over the most awful country that can be

tart home and shall be in New York the evening of December 23d. I have just had fifty-two horses brought in by Ferris, and Sewa

he Bad Lands. It was Roosevelt's distinction that having observed the problems he determined to solve them, and having made this determination he sought a solution in the principles and methods of democratic government. The stockmen had confidence in him. He was direct, he was fearless; he was a good talker, sure of his ground, and, in the language of the Bad Lands, "he didn't take backwater from any one." He was self-reliant and he mi

plications and no more exciting than a sewing-circle. The Marquis de Mores was present; so also was Gregor Lang, his most merciless critic; but whatever drama was inherent in that situation remained beneath the surface. By-laws were adopted, the Marquis was appointed "as a Committee of One to work with the committee appointed by the Eastern Montana Live Stock Association in the endeavor to procure legislation from the Territorial Legislature of Dakota favorable to the interests of the cattlemen"

e end of lawlessness in the

I

r come No

s the sun

ever mo' tha

don't freeze

ain't like

nd ain't lik

on't stray fro

you on r

edora

servation of scientific natural history. It is worth noting that, in order to provide a frontispiece for his work, he solemnly dressed himself up in the buckskin shirt and the rest of the elaborate costume he had described with such obvious delight to his sister; and had himself photographed. There is something hilariously funny in the visible records of that performance. The imitation grass, not quite concealing the rug beneath, th

re Roo

88

rcoat"; but also that he "felt the cold much more severely in New York, and in Washington even." Other landowners maintained the same delusion, and it was considered almost treason to speak of the tragedies of the cold. The fact remained, however, that a snowfall, which elsewhere might scarcely make good sleighing, in the Bad Lands became a foe to human life of inconceivable fury. For with it generally came a wind so fierce that the stoutest wayfarer could make no progres

t they must eat their way through the snow to the sustenance beneath. They stood huddled together at every wind-break, and in the first biting storm of the new year even sought the shelter of the towns, taking possession of the streets. The cows, curiously enough, seem

a "chinook" which brought a prompt return of comfort and sleekness to the most unhappy steer; but wise men knew bet

one; it was a different matter, however, if they drifted east and southeast to the granger country and the Sioux Reservation, where there were flat, bare plains which offered neither food nor shelter, and where thieves were many and difficult to apprehend. Along the li

he bleak country with a home

sported 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 die

led to think he would. There are lots of bleeders here,

he death." It was presumably in the first days of April that he arrived at Medora. If tradition may be trusted, he came in all the glory of what were known as "store clothes." The Pittsburgh Despatch, which sent out a reporter to the train to interview him as he passed through that city, westward-bound, refers to "the high expanse of white linen which enclosed his neck to the ears," which sounds like a slight exaggeration. T

rom north to south. Roosevelt's bedroom, on the southeast corner, adjoined a large room containing a fireplace, which was to be Roosevelt's study by day and the general living-room by night. The fireplace, which had been built by an itinerant Swedish mason whom Sewall looked upon with dis

to Sewall, remembering the backwoodsman's pessimism, "you were m

. "You wait until next spring," he

ob's troubles the one hardest to bear with equanimity. Douglas Robinson wrote Sewall telling him that Theodore's sisters were worried abou

e to you," he exclaimed. "The

ew you wouldn't write about how you were get

hundred yards or more westward, he renewed his acquaintance with the bizarre but fascinating country. The horses which the men from Maine had missed the previous autumn, and which Roosevelt had feared had been stolen, had been reported "running wild" forty or fifty miles to the west. Sewall and Dow had made one or

l its glory, could not compete with it, for the cattle trails through the Bad Lands were difficult, and space was lacking on the small bottoms near the railroad to hold herds of any size preparatory to shipping. About Mingusville all creation stretched undulating to the hazy horizon. The great southern cattle companies which had recently established the

hed cowboys hungering and thirsting for excitement as no saint ever hungered and thirsted for righteousness; and celebrations had a way of lasting for days. The men were Texans, most of them, extraordinary riders, born to the saddle, but reckless, given to heavy drinking, and utterly wild and irresponsible when drunk. It was their particular delight to make life hideous for the station agent and the telegraph operator. For some weeks Mingusville, it was said, had a new telegraph operator every night. About ten o'clock the cowboys, celebrating at the "hotel," would drift over to the board shack which was the railroad station, and "shoot it full of holes." They had no particular reason for doi

take a room at the nefarious hotel where he had chastised the bully a year previous. Possibly to prevent the recurrence of that experience, he reti

s evidently very drunk. He thumped loudly on the door, and after some delay the host opened it. The stranger showed no appreciation; on the contrary, he seized

ost's agonized appeals. "Jim, don't! Don

you, it'll go off! I'll learn you! Who in hell

t into vociferous demands for a bed. A minute later Roosevelt heard st

ut there's a man I'll have to

sevelt answered coolly, "and I'm n

drunk and he's on the shoot," he sai

ution. "I'm going to lock my door," he remarked firmly, "and p

here the unwelcome guest was lodged that

e, knocking at the door of Mrs. Nolan's boarding-house late in the evening. Mrs. Nolan, who greeted him, was a tough, wiry Irishwoman of the type of Mrs. Maddox, with a fighting jaw and a look in her eye that had been known to be as potent as a "six-s

asked for a bed. Mrs. Nolan answered that he could have the la

. 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

A lantern was flashed in his face, and, as he came to full consciousness, he found

moment his bedfellow was "covered" with two "guns." "Now, Bill,

elf," responded Bill. "I'm no

r friends. We don't want to hurt you; we j

ousers and boots and

her bed. Now a match was scratched and a candle w

ey took Bill," R

was what he later termed an "alkali etiquette in such mat

m," and blew out the candle. That night there was no more conversatio

V

ong for the s

game with its

always in s

trength like t

sweet ardor t

that tested

springs and t

rue-love, youn

er C

now buntings came in March, flocking familiarly round the cow-shed at the Maltese Cross, now chittering on the ridge-pole, now hovering in the air with quivering wings, warbling their loud, merry song. Before the snow was off the ground, the grouse cocks could be heard uttering their hollow booming. At the break of morning, their deep, resonant calls came from f

ater-holes where the cattle congregated became bogs that seemed to have no bottom. Cattle sank in them and perished unless a saving rope was thrown in time about their horns and a gasp

ts, a dozen feet deep or thirty, ran "bank-high" with swirling, merciless waters, and the Little Missouri, which was a shallow trickle in Au

ed his horse across its slippery surface. It happened one day early in April that Fisher was at the river's edge, with a number of men, collecting certain tools and lumber which had been used in the cutting and hauling of the ice, when Roosevelt, riding Manitou, drew up, with the evident intention of making his way over t

e dam start?"

" exclaimed Fisher, "when you can go and c

m," Roosevelt replied, "he'll keep t

," said Fisher, "that there'

y. Manitou's a good swimm

ere the dam began. Roosevelt turned his hor

owboy on the farther bank who might stand ready with a ro

atching the amazing performance. He saw a rider coming from the direction of the Maltese Cross, and it seeme

on the east bank and the west saw horse and rider disappear, swallowed up by the brown waters. An instant later they came in sight again. Roosevelt flung hi

h the stream, Roosevelt would never get ashore. The next landing

sses. He laughed and waved his hand to Fisher, mounted and rode to Joe's store. Having just risked his life in the wildest s

tion and amazement. "Landsake, man

aimed Joe later, "as though Manitou was a steam engine." He bough

y after and accused h

red reckless," Roosevelt admit

le. The headquarters of his cattle business was at the Maltese Cross where Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield were in command. Elkhorn was, for the time being, mer

Buildings Fr

by Theodore

Bennett. Roosevelt liked them all immensely. They possessed to an extraordinary degree the qualities of manhood which he deemed fundamental,-courage, integrity, hardiness, self-reliance,-combining with those qualities a warmth, a humor, and a humanness that opened his understanding to many things. He had come in contact before with men whose opportunities in life

h Roosevelt found himself swiftly and effectively squelched. He himself entered with enthusiasm into the work of administration. He regarded the ranch as a most promising business venture, and felt assured that, with ordinary luck, he should make his livelihood from it. On ev

o 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 B

uld not let it. The Cowboy editor's exultant optimism has an aspect of terrible irony in the light o

Will Dow alone r

e 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

at they were about to make their everlasting fortunes; George Myers invested every cent of his savings in cattle, "throwing them in," as the phrase went, with the herd of the Maltese Cross. In their first year the Maltese Cross "outfit" had branded well over a hundred calves; the

was naturally progressive; that he cared little for money, and yet was thrifty; that, although conferring in all matters affecting the stock with Sylvane and Merrifield, and deferring to their experience e

n they came upon a "maverick," a two-year-old steer, which had never been br

nd. This particular steer, therefore, belonged, not to Roosevelt, but to Gregor Lang, who "claimed" t

rand-a thistle,

s," answered the cowbo

imed an instant later, "yo

. I always put on

tly, "and go to the ranch and get you

"Say, what have I done? D

for me will steal fr

or so later the story w

omptly and thoroughly. He brooked no slack work and he had no ear for what were known as "hard-luck stories." He gave his orders, knowing why he gave the

oy seemed instantly to grow into a cautious and level-headed man, dependable in hardship and cool in the face of danger. He was, as one of them put it, "courageous without recklessn

t his temper in good control. As a rule, when he had anything to say, he'd spit it out. His temper would show itself in the first flash in some exc

ound frontiersman," said "Dutch Wannigan." "Wasn't a

red to a crowd at his store one day, "I wouldn'

" remarked one of them at his own ranch that night

eld his g

e a long green slope met a huge semi-circle of gray 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

ad the only milch cow in the Bad Lands, had been churning, and offered Roosevelt a glass of buttermilk. He drank it

he exclaimed, "don't

was amazed.

re I have to drink butter

did you d

ould have hurt her feelings if I hadn't. But

equent occasions consequently when "the boys from the Maltese Cross" foregathered in the Roberts cabin, and other occasions, notably Sundays (when Sylvane and Merrifield and George Myers had picked u

ors. She was in many ways an admirable woman, but she seemed incapable of extending the conception of gentility which a little Pennsylvania town had given her, and she never caught a gleam of the real meaning of the

such of their offspring as were over-addicted to strong drink. Why any parent should send a son to the Bad Lands with the idea of putting him out of reach of temptation is beyond comprehension. The Eatons did their part nobly and withheld intoxicating drinks from their guests, but Bill Williams and the dozen or more other saloon-keepers in Medora were und

o was exuberantly glad to be a cowboy, this had its moments of comfort after weeks of the rough frontier existence. Cultivated Englishmen were constantly appearing at the Langs', sent over by their fathers, for reasons sometimes mysterious, to stay for a week or a year. Some of them proved very bad cowboys, but all of them were delightful conversationalists. Their efforts to enter into the life of the Bad Lands were not always successful, and Hell-Roaring Bill Jones on one notable occasion, when the son of a Scotch baronet undertook to criticize him for misconduct, expressed his opinion of the scions of British aristocracy that drifted into Medora,

ano which Lincoln Lang had brought out through the gumbo against all the protests of nature. Mrs. Lang was

t's visits were notable events. "We enjoyed having him," said Lin

g and Gr

im that he loved a good argument so much that it did not always make much difference to him which side of the argument he took. On one occasion he 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 all night long. To Eaton, his Republicanism wa

ho loved rocking-chairs, had a way of rocking all over the room in his excitement. The debates were long, but always friendly; and neither party ever admitted defeat. The best that Gregor Lang would say was, "Well, Mr. Roosevelt,

Dakota too late in life altogether to adapt a mind, steeped in the manners and customs of the Old World, to the new conditions of a country in almost every way alien to his own. He was dogmatic in his theories of popular government and a little stubborn in his conviction that there was nothing which the uneducated range-rider

hawk-eyed, hawk-nosed cowpuncher named "Nitch" Kendley, who was one of t

bake biscuits, but I can cook meat. If you can make the biscuits,

what was left of a saddle of venison and put it in a pan to fry. Then the

talk also with a fluency which was not customary, for he was naturally a taci

"you could not," as "Nitch" subsequently remarked, "have told your wife from your mother-in-law three f

ll afternoon in vain for the two men to return. At last, toward evening, Roosevelt m

reflected "Nitch," "we'

a meal. "Nitch" was quite positive that he was well r

V

high abov

om Jerusa

r we part

came do

terra

n's heels s

a bunch of

in fron

boy

r to his brother, Sewall describes what he terms the "Cattle Torture," in which he had been engaged

s 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 ru

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

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

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

I don't see. John Bean would liked to have bought me by the cord, and if

ad turned the Little Missouri into a raging torrent and its bottom into a mass of treacherous quicksands. The river valley would consequently have been dangerous even for mature stock. For the young cattle the d

Roosevelt placed him in charge. It was not long, however, before he discovered that this man, who was a first-rate cowhand, was wholly incapable of acting as head. Cattle and cowpunchers, chuck-wagon and sa

dy animals in the van and the weak and sluggish ones inevitably in the rear. Roosevelt put two of his men at the head of the column, two more at the back, and himself with another man rode constantly up and down the flanks. In the tangled mass of rugged hills and winding defiles through which

al rapidity which characterizes atmospheric variations on the plains." The second day out, there was a light snow falling all day, with a wind blowing so furiously that early in the afternoon they were obliged to dr

long northern spring dusk had given way at last to complete darkness, the thirsty animals of one accord rose to their feet and made a break for liberty. Roosevelt knew that the only hope of saving his herd from hopeless dispersion over a hundred hills lay in keeping the cattle close together at the very start. He rode along at their side as they charged, as he had never ridden in his life before. In the darkness he could see only dimly the shadowy outline of the herd, as with whip and spur he

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

t 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 Marqu

with broncos had taught him much, and though Sylvane remained indisputably the crack rider of the Maltese Cross outfit, Roosevelt

ch he was dealing, but he never ceased his efforts to make a friend instead of a suspicious servant of a horse. Most of Roosevelt's horses became reasonabl

Butte Ranch one day just as the horse-herd was being driven into the corral. Devil knew he was due for a riding-lesson. It was positively uncanny to see him dodge the rope. On several occasions he stopped dead in his tracks and threw his head down between his front legs; the loop sliding harmlessly off his front quarters, where not even an ear projected. But Devil couldn't watch two ropes at once, and Roosevelt 'snared' him from the corral fence while Merrifield was whirling his rope for

ome accustomed to being 'gentled' instead of 'busted.' As Roosevelt walked toward him, the horse's

shrank from every touch as though it were a hot iron. The handkerchief was then taken from his eyes, and he began bucking the empty saddle like a spoiled horse of the worst type. Every one took a seat on top of the corral fence to await the tim

ing was made, and finally Devil had to be blindfolded. Then came the mounting, and, almost instantly with the lifting of the blindfold, Roosevelt was sprawling in the sagebrush. Somewhat scratched he was, and his teeth glittered in the way which required a look at his eyes to tell whether it was a part of a smile or a look of deadly determination. It required no second glance to know that Devil was going to be ridden or Roosevelt was going to be hurt. There was no disgrace in being thrown. It was done in the same way that Devil had unhors

but the fifth time Roosevelt maneuvered him into a stretch of quicksand in the Little Missouri River. This piece of strategy saved the day, made Roosevelt a winner, and broke the record of the Devil, fo

elt an opportunity to put his horsem

22d], and has been there for some time past. He is preparing his outfi

oss, besides a half-dozen other "riders," and Walter Watterson, a sandy-haired and faithful being who drove Tony and Dandy, the wheel team, and Thunder and Lightning, the leaders, hitched to the rumbling "chuck-wagon." Watterson was also the cook, and in both capacities was unexcelled. Each cowpuncher atta

, of the nine horses he had chosen, four were broncos, broken only in the sense that each had once or twice been saddled. One of them, he discovered promptly, could not possibly be bridled or saddled single-handed; it was very difficult to get on him and very difficult to get off; he was exceedingly nervous, moreover, if his rider moved his hands or feet; "but he had," Roosevelt declared, "no bad tricks," which, in view of his other qualities, must have been a real comfort. The second allowed himse

se Cross

e Cross "C

the man loading the wagon is Walter Wa

ach driving his "string." The wagons found their places, the teamsters unharnessed the horses and unpacked the "cook outfit," the foreman sought out the round-up captain, the "riders" sought out their friends. Here there was larking, there there was horse-racing, elsewhere there was "a circus with a pitchin' bronc'," and foot-rac

tly justified his existence. He did not pretend to be a good roper, and his poor eyesight forbade any attempt to "cut" the cattle that bore his brand out of the milling herd; but he "wrestled calves" with the bes

aton remarked with enthusiasm, "was a cowboy for your whiskers!") He was a large, grave, taciturn man, ca

marked "Three-Seven" Bill, "h

ould 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 th

while the experts were "cutting out the cows," Roosevelt was "on day-herd," as the phrase went, riding slowly round and round the herd, turning back into it any cattle that attempted to escape. In the afternoon he would "ride circle" again, ov

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 sound

l calls of the cowboys as they rode round the half-slumbering steers. There was something magical

that I w

shall

that I wa

e well

hen I was

ed wood

o tie my

tle bits

te song with th

t-herd. It was a pitch-dark night, and he wandered about in it for hours on end, finding the cattle at last only when the sun rose. He was g

, a violin which "Fiddling Joe" played at the dances over Bill Williams's saloon, and Howard Eaton's banjo. The banjo traveled in state in the mess-wagon of the "Custer Trail," and hour on hour, about the camp-fire on the round-up, Eaton would play to the dreamy delight of the weary men. The leadi

likely to end fatally, men rather hesitated about embarking upon it. The moral tone of the round-up camp seemed to Roosevelt rather high. There was a real regard for truthfulness, a firm insistence on the sanctity of promises, and utter contempt for meanness and cowardice and dishonesty and hypocrisy and the disposition to shirk. The cowpuncher was a potential cattle-owner and good citizen, and if he went wild on occasion it was largely because he was so exuberantly young. In years he was generally a boy, often under twenty. But he did the work of a man, and he did it with singular conscientiousness and the spirit les

oisterous and the langu

ckney, the Bad Lands' surgeon, once remarked, "pr

but others never do. There was 'Deacon' Cummins, for instance. He'd say suc

kinds of tricks," remarked Merrifield long after; "sometimes they'd stick things under the horses' tails and play tricks of that kind an' the

, however, but it did not tur

fle on his shoulder after deer, or to ride away over the prairies after antelope; and the cowpunchers decided that it would be rather good fun to send him on a

day on the round-up, saddled a horse and rode off in the direction which they had

had two antelope across his sadd

he cried, "just a quarter-

eneral consent the joke was declared as

t of shaving; but there was one man, a surly Texan, who insisted on "picking on" Roosevelt as a dude. R

der the impression that the "dude" was also a coward. Roosevelt decided that, f

being particularly offensive

e said sharply. "Put up or shut

ittle, and he shifted his feet. "I didn't

friends.[Back

V

nd-up on

mornin'

as throwed

wse fro

ught he'd

to break

tchin' up

ll cut loos

y propositio

arthly mission

e the hig

Gulf and Po

his thing as eas

mbed the No

mangled u

ative of

owned his b

plunges kep

d it flappe

the hawse

ear our fr

o take such ra

me up the maki

my fame needs

pe a streak

m up and spur 'im

caper of

hawse's b

pped in the

an and sa

nted, nev

hed him throu

t thin bit

oppin' to

watched my ha

ve broke such rab

p' my tal

od for ear

o bust the li

er C

remarked, "both to ride them, and to look as if I enjoyed doing so, on some cool morning when my grinning cowboy friends had gathered

broncos. The camp was directly behind the ranch-house (which the Eaton brothers owned), and close by was a chasm some sixty feet deep, a great gash in the vall

wboys who stood in an admirin

d still, although with a well-defined hump on his back, which, as we all knew very well, meant trouble to come. As soon as

as also in the "galler

of the chasm. Then he leapt in the air like a shot deer, and came down with all four fe

resumes th

with each jump, maintaining the turning movement in one direction so that the effect is to get the rider dizzy. This

g. As nearly as I can remember, he got the horn of his saddle in one hand and the cantle in the other, then swung his weight well into the inside and hung like a leech. Of course, it took sheer grit

the boys rode up and got the horse headed into a straightaway by the liberal use of their quirts. Once they got him running, it was all over, of c

trils, which gave him a ridiculous resemblance to the presidential candidate of the Anti-Monopoly Party. He was a great man-killing bronco, with a treacherous streak, and Roosevelt had put him in his "string" against

and the long, swift ride better than any other pony he had. As Roosevelt mounted him, the horse reared and fell over backward. He had done that before, but this time he fel

a few hundred yards, choking but stubborn, all four feet firmly planted and pawing t

times bucked, but never went over backwards, and himself mounted the now re-arisen "Ben Butler." To Roose

h of triumph, "there's nothing the matter w

oice, in persuasive tones, "That's all right! Come along!" Suddenly a new note came into

ptly danced a war-dance, spurs and all, on the iniquitous "Ben." Roosevelt

ot throwed. If he did, there wouldn't have been nothin' said about it. Some of those Eastern punkin-lilies now, those goody-goody fellows, if they'd ever

word to Dr. Stickney's office in Dickinson. The doctor might be north in the Killdeer Mountains or south in the Cave Hills or west in Mingusville, for the territory he covered stretched from Mandan a hundred and twenty miles east of Medora, to Glendive, the same distance westward, south to the Black Hills and north beyond the Canadian border, a stretch of country not quite as large as New England, but almost. The doctor covered it on horseback or in a buckboard; in the cab of a wild-cat engine or the caboose of a freight, or, on occasion, on a hand-car. He was as young as

often he rode alone. He knew the landmarks for a hundred miles in any direction. At night, when the trail grew faint, he held his course by the stars; when an unexpected blizzard swept down upon him and the snow hid the trail, he sought a brush-

did not inquire. You did not send for Dr. Stickney for a break in the point of your shoulder. You let the thing heal by itself and went on with your job. Of

nce of "Deacon" Cummins's ranch-house. A messenger from Mrs. Cummins arrived at the camp at noon inviting Roosevelt and three or four of his friends to dinner. A "home dinner" was not to be spurned, and they all rode over to the comfortable log cabin. The day was blistering, a st

mmins was obviously perturbed. She left the room,

o dinner without a coat. I have got one of Mr. Cummins's th

bove all things, to consider him their peer, Roosevelt concealed at the moment and later only fitfully reve

erve the amenities of social intercourse, for during the dinner she said to him, "I don't see why men and women of cultu

n, reported that Roosevelt's comments on the dinner party were "blistering." "He told my mother afterwards," said Lang

i. As evening approached, heavy black clouds began to roll up in the west, bringing rain. The rain became a downpour, through which flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder came wit

Roosevelt leaped on the pony he always kept picketed near him. Suddenly there was a terrific peal of thunder. The lightning

imperturbable gayety. "There'll be racing and chasing on Cannobie lea," Ro

roaring river. He was conscious that if his horse should stumble there would be no hope for him in the path of those panicky hoofs. The herd split

ring; the next, he himself was plunging over a cutbank into the Little Missouri. He bent far back in the saddle. His h

of cottonwoods after the diminished herd. The ground was rough and full of pitfalls. Once his horse turned a somersault and threw him. At la

rain all night. I don't know how we ever got through. All we had was lightning flashes

e Of The

ver is the cutbank over which

the cattle in the direction of the camp, gathering in stray groups of cattle as he went, and driving them before him. He came upon a cowboy on foot carrying his

oosevelt returned. One of them saddled a fresh horse for him while

urs before Roosevelt was back at the wagon camp once more for a hasty meal and a fresh horse. He finished work as the l

. He was riding with a young Englishman, the son of Lord Somebody or Other-the name is immaterial-who was living that spring with the Langs. Just north of the Custer Trail Ranch a bridge of loose stringers had been lai

bridge timbers were floundering indiscriminately in the rushing torrent. Roosevelt's horse worked his way out, but the Eng

m drowning!" he c

on this occasion his "throw" went true. The rope descended over the shoulders of

that creek," Roosevelt subsequently remar

r forgot that Roosevelt had saved his life, and Roosevelt never forgot the pict

e day after the rescue of the Englis

ght me my mail, with your letter in it. I am writing on the ground; s

t I have enjoyed it greatly. Yesterday I was eighteen hours in the saddle-from 4 A.M. to

ides 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 timb

rses," should bear about them somewhere the suggestion of the glint of the eye, the flash of the teeth, the unctuous delibera

s was having what he might have described as "a little party" of his own. For Sylvane, mo

s," but none of the men belonged to the "Roosevelt outfit" and their interest in this particular cow was therefore purely altruistic. She was not a particularly good cow, moreover, for she had had a calf in the winter and her udder had partially frozen.

not present a bill of sale. He therefore promptly passed the cow on to a Russian cobbler in payment for a pair of shoes. The cobbler, with the European peasant's uncanny ab

protested and told his story. Sylvane, pointing out that he was moved by charity and not by necessity, offered the man six dollars, which had

nger came walking from the direction of Gladstone. The cow was hitched to the wagon, for she had

ed Sylvane, "t

pers out of his pocket an

plevin paper

ked Sylvane, who did not know a r

ew the papers at

e to take

all the business you have, you can

ise. They reached the rope at the same moment. There

can't take her, I can't take her," the man grumbled. "Th

remarked Sylvane agreeably.

kers, and the stranger departed. Sylva

unsel of "Deacon" Cummins made itself heard. The gist of it was that Sy

n two legs or on four, had a wholesome respect f

with any sheriff," he said, reall

ntance with legal procedure was as vague as Sylvane's, agreed that that plan sounded reasonable. Sylvane went, accompanied by the "Deacon" and another cowboy. If there was a gleam of wicked triumph

er who rejoiced in the harmonious name of Western Starr, rode in from Dickinson to have di

over them. "What ar

e lightly. "That's what I hande

se aren't anything. They hav

opped. "Say, how

if these are not. You've

tion was serious. He knew well enough the chance that the "outfit" of a wealthy Easterner like Roos

ted that he arrange

ate of the trial was set. Sylvane traveled to Dickinson and waited all day wit

lvane's railroad fare was five mor

place, to pay the Russian the forty dollars he demanded, there is no record of it. But the remark would not have been char

II

on some

bout a G

and Caled

g to what I

e hills was

prang and

re heroes! On

fire from dr

s challenge,

living, here

ds and sto

lls with s

nder-hoofs

arging down

re feasts of

love and dr

e friends! Ah,

the stars wi

I go as a

im buttes, to th

for all that

faithful, est

n the lave

the friends of

edora

gical and enticing. He loved the crisp morning air, the fantastic landscape, the limitless spaces, half blue and half gold. His spirit was sensitive to beauty, especially the beauty that lay open for

die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another

to have been here at that time and to have had sufficient strength in his character to absorb it. He started out to get

risked so large a part of his fortune was apparently prospering. The cattle were looking well. Even pessimistic Bill Sew

ring, 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

of the co?perative round-up. The cowmen were passionately devoted to the idea of the ope

right, so when feed gets scarce in one place they drive their cattle whare it is good without regard to whos

n 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

m. Then, on June 21st, he went East, accompanied by Wilmot Dow, who was going home

t. Paul the day after his departure from Medora, and have

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 visi

tch caught him in the lob

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 w

t 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 everyt

k politics, but beyond a few general re

more excitement in the round-up than in politics. And," he remarked with zest, "it is far more respectable. I prefer my ranch and the excitement it brings, to New York li

back to Medora. Once more the interviewer sought his views on political questions. Roosevelt made a few non-committal statements, refusing to prophesy. "My polit

t, fearless, high-hearted; true mates to their stalwart men. Mrs. Sewall had brought her three-year-old d

ship, and danger, and of strong, elemental pleasures-rest after labor, food after hunger, warmth and shelter after bitter cold. In that life there was no room for distincti

n Ranc

by Theodore

Of El