There was much horse-stealing and cattle-killing in this part of the
country while Roosevelt was a resident of it. Under the direction of
the big cattle-owners, vigilantes were organized to rid the territory
of the “rustlers”--the cowboys’ name for horse and cattle-thieves.
Roosevelt admitted the need of these stringent methods, but his own way
of fighting lawlessness was to accept the office of deputy sheriff for
his locality.
It was while filling this office that Roosevelt first made the
acquaintance of Seth Bullock, who later became one of his warmest
friends and greatest admirers, and who served as marshal of South
Dakota under Roosevelt when the latter became President.
Roosevelt first met Seth when the latter was sheriff in the Black Hills
district. A horse-thief Seth wanted escaped into Roosevelt’s territory
and was captured by him, a matter that led Seth to give some attention
to the young cub of a deputy two or three hundred miles north of him.
Later, Bill Jones, Ferris and Roosevelt went down to Deadwood on
business. At the little town of Spearfish they met Seth. The trip had
been a hard one, and the three travelers were dusty and unkempt. Seth’s
reception of them at first was decidedly stand-offish, but when their
identity became known he unbent. “You see,” he explained to the future
President, “by your looks I thought you were some kind of a tin-horn
gambling outfit, and that I might have to keep an eye on you!”
Roosevelt’s reputation as an upholder of the law was further enhanced
by his arrest of the three desperadoes from whom his neighborhood
had suffered. The vigilantes had almost cleared the country of
scoundrels, but there remained three men who had long been suspected
of cattle-killing and horse-stealing. One was a half-breed, another
was an old German of the shiftless type, while the leader was a
strapping fellow named Finnigan, with a crop of red hair reaching to
his shoulders. These men, finding the neighborhood becoming too hot
for them, were anxious to quit that section of the country. Roosevelt
possessed a clinker-built boat that had been used to ferry his men
across the river.
One day one of the men brought back to the house news that the boat had
been stolen. The end of the rope had been cut off with a sharp knife.
Near the stream lay a red woolen mitten with a leather palm. These
three desperadoes were at once suspected. Undoubtedly they knew that
to travel on horseback in the direction they wanted to go was almost
impossible and that the river offered them the best avenue of escape.
They must also have reasoned that by taking Roosevelt’s boat they would
possess the only one on the river and that, therefore, they could not
be pursued.
They reckoned without Roosevelt’s fighting spirit, however. With the
aid of two of his cowboys, Sewall and Dow, who, coming from Maine
woods, were therefore skilled in woodcraft and in the use of the ax,
paddle and rifle, they turned out in two or three days a first-class
flat-bottomed scow. This was loaded with supplies, and early one
morning Roosevelt, Sewall and Dow started down the river in chase of
the thieves. On the third day of their pursuit, as they came around a
bend, they saw the lost boat moored against a bank. Some yards from
the shore a campfire smoke arose. The pursuers shoved their scow into
the bank and approached the camp. They found the German sitting by
the campfire with his weapons on the ground. His two companions were
off hunting. When the two thieves returned they walked into three
cocked rifles. Roosevelt shouted to them to hold up their hands. The
half-breed obeyed at once. Finnigan hesitated, but as Roosevelt walked
a few paces toward him, covering his chest with his rifle, the man,
with an oath, let his own rifle drop and threw his hands high above his
head.
Then came the hardest and most irksome part of the task--getting the
prisoners safely to jail. After many monotonous days and nights, in
which it was necessary to keep a close guard on the prisoners and
at the same time navigate the river, they came to a cow camp. There
Roosevelt learned that at a ranch fifteen miles off he could hire a
large prairie schooner and two tough broncos for the transportation of
his prisoners to Dickinson, the nearest town. This was done. Sewall
and Dow went back to the boats. Roosevelt put the prisoners in the
wagon along with an old settler, who drove the horses while he walked
behind, ankle-deep in mud, with his Winchester over his shoulder. After
thirty-six hours of sleeplessness the wagon jolted into the main street
of Dickinson, where Roosevelt delivered his prisoners into the hands
of the sheriff, and received, under the laws of Dakota, his fees as a
deputy sheriff, amounting to some fifty dollars.