Hunting lost broncos was one of the commonest and most irksome of
Roosevelt’s ranch duties. On one occasion, when three horses under his
charge had been running loose for a couple of months and had become as
wild as deer through their stolen liberty, he had to follow at full
speed for fifteen miles, until by exhausting them, he was able to get
them under control and headed toward a corral.
At other times he and his men were not so lucky. Two horses had been
missing from the ranch for nearly eighteen months. They were seen by
his men and pursued but the horses of the pursuers became exhausted and
broken before they caught up with the runaways.
On another occasion a horse that had been on the Roosevelt ranch
nine months developed a case of homesickness, went off one night and
traveled two hundred miles back to its former roaming grounds, swimming
the Yellowstone to achieve its goal.
When Roosevelt was attending one of the recent national political
conventions, up came George Meyer, one of his former ranchmen, with
this tale of Roosevelt’s roundup days on the Little Missouri:
“When the Colonel gets into a mix-up like he is in at this convention
the picture comes to me of the time when he and I started to get two
calves across the river. I singled out the meekest looking, grabbed it
up in my arms, held it while I managed to get on my horse, and started
to cross the river. Half way across I turned to see how ‘the boss’ was
getting along.
“He had roped his calf and was dragging it toward the river. The calf,
bleating and bouncing, swung round under the horse’s tail. This set the
bronco on a rampage. The river bank was high, but over it he bucked.
I saw ‘the boss’ clutching the reins with one hand and the calf rope
with the other. The sudden tautness of the rope as the horse plunged
into the water hurled the calf into the air, landing him beside ‘the
boss.’ Through the water the horse plunged, and back of bronco and
rider floundered the calf. It arrived on the other shore half strangled
and half drowned, but it was still bleating and bouncing as ‘the boss’
hauled it to the pen.”