My brother had heralded the fact that I (then a young woman of
twenty-eight) was a mighty rider (I had followed the Essex County
hounds in New Jersey)! And the cowboys were quite sure, I think, that
I would leap from the locomotive to the back of a bucking bronco. Our
train drew up, or I should say, approximately drew up, to the little
station at Medora at four o’clock in the morning, in one of the most
frightful storms that I ever remember. Rain fell in torrents, and we
had to get out on an embankment composed of such slippery mud that
before we actually plodded to the station, our feet and legs were
encased in glutinous slime; but the calls of the cowboys undauntedly
rang out in the darkness, and the neighing of horses and prancing of
hoofs made us realize that civilization as well as convention was a
thing of the past. Will Merrifield, the superintendent of Elkhorn
Ranch, and Sylvane Ferris, his able lieutenant, fully expected me to
mount the extremely dangerous-looking little animal which they held by
a loose rope, and they were inordinately disappointed when I pleaded
the fatigue of two nights on the train, and begged that I might drive
with the other less-adventurous ladies to the ranch-house, forty
miles away. Before starting on this long trip we were entertained by
Joe Ferris, the brother of Sylvane, who having once also been one of
Theodore’s cowboys, had now decided upon a more sober type of life as
storekeeper in the little town of Medora. Joe and his wife were most
hospitable, and above his shop in their own rooms we were given a nice
warm breakfast and an equally warm welcome. After breakfast, we came
down to the shop, where our luggage had already been gathered, and
there we began to sort what we would take to the Ranch and what we
would leave. This required a certain amount of packing and unpacking,
and I was on my knees “madly thrusting,” as “Alice in Wonderland” puts
it, “a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe” when Joe came up to me
and said: “Mrs. Douglas (they all decided to call me Mrs. Douglas, as
more informal than Mrs. Robinson), it ain’t worth while for you to tire
yourself like that when the best packer in all Dakota is standin’ in
the doorway.” I looked up and sure enough a huge man, who might have
just walked out of one of Bret Harte’s novels, _was_ “standin’ in the
doorway.” “There he is,” continued Joe; “that’s Hell-Roarin’ Bill, the
sheriff of the county; you heard tell of how he caught that lunatic;
well, Bill’s the best ladies’ packer that ever was, and you had better
leave all your bags to him to arrange.” Fearing that “Bill” might be
offended if I did not use him in the capacity of a French maid, and
having frequently been told of the rapid results of hurt feelings on
the part of “Bill,” I suavely called him to my side, and telling him of
the wonderful reputation which I had heard he enjoyed, I immediately
put my wardrobe in his care, and to my infinite surprise the huge
backwoodsman measured up to his reputation. Very soon the cavalcade was
ready, the rain had ceased to fall in such torrents, the half-misty
quality in the air lent a softer beauty to the arid landscape, and
a sense of adventure was the finishing touch to our expectations as
we started for Elkhorn Ranch. My disappointed friends, Merrifield
and Sylvane, said that “they did not believe that Mrs. Douglas would
like drivin’ with a ‘shotgun team’ much better than ridin’ a buckin’
bronco, but, of course, if she _thought_ she wanted to go that way,
she could.” An hour later “Mrs. Douglas” somewhat regretted her choice
of progression; true enough, it _was_ a shotgun team attached to that
springless wagon in which we sat! The horses had never been hitched up
together before, and their methods of motion were entirely at odds.
The cowboy driver, however, managed eventually to get them started,
and from that moment our progress, though irrelevant, was rapid beyond
words.
We forded the “Little Missouri” River twenty-three times on the way to
the ranch-house, and as the banks of the river were extremely steep, it
was always a question as to whether we could go fast enough down one
bank to get sufficient impetus to enable us to go through the river
and up the very steep bank on the other side; so that either coming or
going we were in imminent danger of a complete somersault. However, we
did accomplish that long, exhausting, springless drive, and gradually
the buttes rose higher and higher around us, the strange formation
of the Bad Lands, curious in color, became more and more marked,
the cottonwood-trees more plentiful as the river broadened out, and
suddenly we saw buried amidst the trees on the farther side of one of
our fordings the substantially built, cosey-looking house called by my
brother the Elkhorn Ranch.
In a letter written to my aunt, Mrs. Gracie, from the ranch-house I say:
“We are having the most delightful time at the Ranch. The little house
is most cosey and comfortable, and Mrs. Merrifield had everything so
neat and sweet for us, and as she has a girl to help her, we really
do not have to rough it at all. We all make our beds and do up our
rooms religiously, but even that they would willingly do for us if we
would let them. We have had three cloudless days, the first of which
was occupied in driving the forty miles down here, and a beautiful
picturesque drive it is, winding in and out through these strange, bold
Buttes, crossing the ‘Little Missouri’ twenty-three times! We ladies
drove, but the men all rode, and very picturesque they looked filing
across the river. We arrived at the Ranch house at twelve o’clock and
ate a splendid dinner of Mrs. Merrifield’s preparing, immediately after
which we climbed up a Butte and walked to Prairie Dog town and saw the
little prairie dogs. We then mounted horses and took a lovely ride, so
you may imagine that we slept well.
“The next day we were all on horseback soon after breakfast, Ferris
and Merrifield with us, and off we rode; this time with the intention
of seeing Merrifield lasso a steer. When we came to a great bunch
of cattle, the practised eyes of the two men at once discovered an
unbranded heifer, which they immediately decided to lasso and brand.
It was very exciting. Merrifield threw the rope, cleverly catching
its legs, and then threw the heifer, which was almost the size of a
cow, and then Ferris tied another rope around its neck. The ends of
the ropes were slipped over the pommels of two ponies who, in the most
sensible way, held the heifer while the two men built a little fire
and heated the cinch ring with which they branded the creature. It was
all intensely picturesque. In the afternoon, we again rode out to be
with the men while they drove the deer on the bottom, and Merrifield
shot one; so you see, we have had very typical experiences, especially
at the round-up yesterday.”
Happy days, indeed, they were, full of varied excitements. Merrifield’s
little boy, Frank, only eleven years old, was the chief factor in
finding the herd of ponies in the morning, for it was the custom to
let them loose after twilight. Many and many a time I would hear him
unslip the halter of the one small pony (“Little Moke” by name) which
was still tied to the ranch-house steps and on which he would leap
in the early dawn to go to round up the ponies for the day’s work. I
would jump up and look out of the ranch window, and see the independent
little fellow fording the river, starting on his quest, and an hour or
so later the splashing of many feet in the water heralded the approach
of “Little Moke,” his young rider, and the whole bunch of four-legged
friends.
The relationship between my brother and his men was one of honest
comradeship but of absolute respect, each for the other, and on the
part of the cowboys there was, as well, toward their “Boss,” a certain
reverential attitude in spite of the “man to man” equality. How I loved
that first night that we sat around the fire, when the men, in their
effort to give my brother all the news of the vicinity during his
absence, told the type of tale which has had its equivalent only in
Owen Wister’s “The Virginian.” “There is a sky-pilot a good many miles
from here, Mr. Roosevelt,” said Sylvane, “who’s bringin’ a suit against
you.” Sylvane announced this unpleasant fact with careless gaiety,
stretching his long legs toward the fire. No one was ever so typically
the ideal cowboy of one’s wildest fancy as was Sylvane Ferris. Tall and
slender, with strong fair hair and blue eyes of an almost unnatural
clearness, and a splendid broad brow and aquiline nose, Sylvane
looked the part. His leather chaps, his broad sombrero hat, his red
handkerchief knotted carelessly around his strong, young, sunburned
throat, all made him such a picture that one’s eye invariably followed
him as he rode a vicious pony, “wrastled” a calf, roped a steer, or
branded a heifer; but now sitting lazily by the fire, such activities
seemed a thing of the past, and Sylvane was ready for an hour’s gossip.
“A sky-pilot? Why should a sky-pilot bring suit against me?” said my
brother laughingly. [In telling this story he sometimes referred to
this man as a professor.]
“Well,” said Sylvane, “it was this way, Mr. Roosevelt. You see, we was
all outside the ranch door when up drives the sky-pilot in a buggy.
He was one of them wanderin’ ones that thought he could preach as he
wandered, and just about as he drove up in front of our ranch his horse
went dead lame on him and his old buggy just fell to pieces. He was in
a bad fix, and he said he knew you never would let him be held up like
that, because he had heard you was a good man too, and wouldn’t we lend
him a horse, or send him with the team to the next place he was going
to, some forty miles away. We felt we had to be hospitable-like, with
you so far away and the sky-pilot in such a fix, so we said ‘Yes,’ we
would send him to where he wanted to go, and there he is now, lyin’ in
a hut with one leg broken and one arm nearly wrenched off his body, and
he’s bringin’ suit against you, which ain’t really fair, we think.”
“What do you mean, Sylvane; what have I got to do with his broken leg
and arm?” said my brother, beginning to feel a trifle nervous.
“Well, you see, it is this way,” said Sylvane; “he says we sent him to
where he is with a runaway team and he was thrown out and broken up in
pieces-like; but we says how could that team we sent him with _be_ a
runaway team--how _could_ a team be called a runaway team when one of
the horses ain’t never been hitched up before, and the other ain’t run
away not more’n two or three times; but I guess sky-pilots are always
unreasonable!”
This conclusion seemed to satisfy Sylvane entirely; the unfortunate
condition of the much-battered sky-pilot aroused no sympathy in his
adamantine heart, nor did he feel that the sky-pilot had the slightest
cause for his suit, which later was settled in a satisfactory manner,
but the conversation was typical of that evening’s ranch news by the
big wood-fire.
Our day at the round-up was one of the most fascinating days of my
life, and I was proud to see that my city-bred brother was as agile and
as active in the duties of rounding up the great steers of the plains
as were the men brought up from their babyhood to such activities.
We lunched at midday with the roundup wagon; rough life, indeed, but
wonderfully invigorating, and as we returned in the evening, galloping
over the grassy plateaus of the high buttes, I realized fully that
the bridle-path would never again have for me the charm it once had
had. Nothing in the way of riding has ever been so enchanting, and
the curious formation of the Bad Lands, picturesque, indeed, almost
grotesque in line, in conjunction with the wonderful climate of that
period of the year and the mingling of tints in the sunset sky,
resulted in a quality of color and atmosphere the like of which I only
remember in Egypt, and made as lasting an impression upon my memory as
did the land of the Nile.
During our stay, my original failure to leap, on my arrival, “from
the locomotive to the back of a bucking bronco” had more or less been
effaced from the memory of the cowboys by subsequent adventures, and
the last day that we spent under the cottonwood-trees, by the banks of
the Little Missouri, was made significant by the “surprise” gotten up
by Merrifield and Sylvane for the special edification of my brother
and husband. The surprise took the form of the “wrastling” of a calf
by no less a person than myself! Merrifield had taught me to rope an
animal, Sylvane had shown me with praiseworthy regularity the method
of throwing a calf, and the great occasion was heralded amongst the
other members of the party by an invitation to sit on the fence of the
corral at three o’clock, the last afternoon of our visit to Elkhorn,
and thus witness the struggle between a young woman of the East and
a bovine denizen of the Western prairies. The corral, a plot of very
muddy ground (having been watered by a severe rain the night before),
was walled in by a fence, and generally used when we wished to keep
the ponies from straying. On this occasion, however, it was emptied
of all _but_ the calf, which was to be the object of my efforts and
prowess. I was then introduced by Merrifield, very much as the circus
rider used to be introduced in the early Barnum and Bailey days;
then followed a most gruelling pantomime; the calf, which was of an
unusually unpleasant size, galloped around the corral and I, knee-deep
in mud, galloped after it, and finally succeeded in achieving the
first necessity, which was to rope it around the neck. After that, the
method of procedure was as follows: The “wrastler”--on this occasion
my unfortunate self--was supposed to get close enough to the animal in
question to throw himself or herself across the back of the galloping
calf, with the purpose of catching the left leg of the animal, the leg,
in fact, farthest away from one’s right arm. If this deed could be
accomplished and the leg forcibly bent under the calf, both calf and
rider would go down in an inextricable heap, and the “wrastling” of the
calf would be complete.
I can feel now the mud in my boots as I floundered with agonized effort
after that energetic animal. I can still sense the strain in every
nerve of my body as I finally flung myself across its back, and still,
also, as if it were only yesterday, do I remember the jellied sensation
within me, as for some torturing minutes I lay across the heifer’s
spine, before, by a final Herculean effort, I caught that left leg with
my right arm. The cries of “stay with him!” from the fence, the loud
hand-clapping of the enthusiastic cowboys, the shrieks of laughter of
my brother and my husband, all still ring in my ears, and when the
deed was finally accomplished, when the calf, with one terrible lurch,
actually “wrastled,” so to speak, fell over on its head in the mud,
all sensation left me and I only remember being lifted up, bruised and
encased in an armor of oozing dirt, and being carried triumphantly on
the shoulders of the cowboys into the ranch-house, having redeemed, in
their opinion, at least, the reputation which my brother had given me
before I visited the Bad Lands.
Years later, when the young owner of Elkhorn Ranch had reached the
higher estate of President of the United States, I, as the sister of
the President, was receiving with my sister-in-law at the breakfast
in the White House, at his Inaugural in 1905, and was attired in my
best black velvet gown and “presidential sister” white plumes; I was
surrounded by senators and ambassadors, when suddenly, coming toward
me, I recognized the lithe figure of my brother’s quondam cowboy, Will
Merrifield. He, too, had climbed the rungs of the ladder of fame, and
now, as marshal of Montana, he had been intrusted by the State of
Montana with the greetings of that state for the newly inaugurated
President. Coming toward me with a gay smile of recognition, he shook
me warmly by the hand and said: “Well, now, Mrs. Douglas, it’s a sight
for sore eyes to see you again; why, almost the last time I laid eyes
on you, you were standing on your head in that muddy corral with your
legs waving in the air.” Senators and ambassadors seemed somewhat
surprised, but Will Merrifield and the President’s sister shook hands
gaily together, and reminisced over one of the latter’s most thrilling
life victories. But to return to our farewell to Elkhorn Ranch in 1890.
* * * * *
The three weeks’ visit to the ranch-house had passed on fleet wings,
and it was a very sad little party that turned its face toward Medora
again, in preparation for the specially planned trip to Yellowstone
Park. Theodore Roosevelt, as one may well imagine, was making a very
real concession to family affection by arranging this trip for us and
accompanying us upon it. What he loved was roughing it; near-roughing
it was not his “métier,” nor, frankly, was it his “métier” to arrange
a _comfortable_ trip of any kind. He loved wild places and wild
companions, hard tramps and thrilling adventure, and to be a part
of the type of trip which women who were not accustomed to actual
hunting could take, was really an act of unselfishness on his part.
We paid huge sums for no comforts, and although supposed to go--as we
were riding--where the ordinary travellers in stage-coach could not
go in Yellowstone Park, yet there _were_ times when we seemed to be
constantly camping in the vicinity of tomato cans!
I write again to my aunt two weeks after we start our Yellowstone
experiences:
“We have had a most delightful two weeks’ camping and have enjoyed
every moment. The weather has been cloudless, and though the nights
were cold, we were only really uncomfortable one night. We were all in
the best of health and the best of spirits, and ate without a murmur
the strange meals of ham, tomatoes, greasy cakes and coffee prepared
by our irresistible Chinese cook. Breakfast and dinner were always the
same, and lunch was generally bread and cheese carried in our pockets
and eaten by the wayside. We have really had great comfort, however,
and have enjoyed the pretense of roughing it and the delicious, free,
open-air life hugely,--and such scenery! Nothing in my estimation can
equal in unique beauty the Yellowstone canyon, the wonderful shapes
of the rocks, some like peaks and turrets, others broken in strange
fantastic jags, and then the marvellous colors of them all. Pale greens
and yellows, vivid reds and orange, salmon pinks and every shade of
brown are strewn with a lavish hand over the whole Canyon,--and the
beautiful Falls are so foamy and white, and leap with such exultation
from their rocky ledge 360 feet down.
“We had one really exciting ride. We had undertaken too long an
expedition, namely, the ascent of Mt. Washburn, and then to Towers’
Falls in one day, during which, to add to the complications, Edith had
been thrown and quite badly bruised. We found ourselves at Towers’
Falls at six o’clock in the evening instead of at lunch time, and
realized we were still sixteen miles from Camp, and a narrow trail
only to lead us back, a trail of which our guide was not perfectly
sure. We galloped as long as there was light, but the sun soon set over
the wonderful mountains, and although there was a little crescent moon,
still, it soon grew very dark and we had to keep close behind each
other, single file, and go very carefully as the trail lay along the
mountainside. Often we had to traverse dark woods and trust entirely
to the horses, who behaved beautifully and stepped carefully over the
fallen logs. Twice, Dodge, our guide, lost the trail, and it gave one
a very eerie feeling, but he found it again and on we went. Once at
about 11 P. M., Theodore suggested stopping and making a great fire,
and waiting until daylight to go on, for he was afraid that we would
be tired out, but we all preferred to continue, and about 11:30, to
our great joy, we heard the roar of the Falls and suddenly came out
on the deep Canyon, looking very wonderful and mysterious in the dim
starlight. We reached our Camp after twelve o’clock, having been
fifteen hours away from it, thirteen and a half of which we had been in
the saddle. It was really an experience.”
It was a hazardous ride and I did not terrify my aunt by some of the
incidents such as the severe discomfort suffered by Mrs. Theodore
Roosevelt when she was thrown and narrowly escaped a broken back, and
when a few hours later my own horse sank in a quicksand and barely
recovered himself in time to struggle to terra firma again, not to
mention the dangers of the utter darkness when the small, dim crescent
moon faded from the horizon. My brother was the real leader of the
cavalcade, for the guide, Ira Dodge, proved singularly incompetent.
Theodore kept up our flagging spirits, exhausted as we were by the long
rough day in the saddle, and although furious with Dodge because of his
ignorance of the trail through which he was supposed to guide us, he
still gave us the sense of confidence, which is one’s only hope on such
an adventure. Looking back over that camping trip in the Yellowstone,
the prominent figure of the whole holiday was, of course, my brother.
He was a boy in his tricks and teasing, crawling under the tent flaps
at night, pretending to be the unexpected bear which we always dreaded.
He was a real inspiration in his knowledge of the fauna and birds
of the vicinity and his willingness to give us the benefit of that
knowledge.
I find in my diary of that excursion a catalogue of the birds and
other animals which he himself had pointed out to me, making me
marvel again at the rapid observation which he had made part of his
physical equipment. I note: “During the first four days we have been
in the Park, we have seen chipmunk, red squirrel, little black bear,
elk watering with the horses, muskrat in the streams, golden eagle,
Peregrine falcon and other varieties, red-tailed hawk and pigeon hawk,
Clark’s crow, Canada jay, raven, bittern, Canada goose, mallard and
teal ducks, chicadee, nuthatch, dwarf-thrush, robin, water oozel,
sunbird, longspur, grass finch, yellow-crowned warbler, Rocky Mountain
white-throated sparrow, song-sparrow, and wren.”
Each one of the above I saw with the eyes of Theodore Roosevelt, and
can still hear the tones of his voice as he described to me their
habits of life and the differences between them and others of their
kind. To him this trip must, of necessity, have been somewhat dull,
based as it was upon the companionship of three women who were not
hunters; but never once during those weeks did he seem anything but
happy, and as far as we were concerned, to see the beauties of nature
through those ardent eyes, to hear the bird-notes through those ears,
attuned to each song, and to listen constantly to his stories of wood
and plain, his interpretation of the lives of those mighty pioneer men
of the West--all of this comes back to me, as a rare experience which
I have gladly stored away in what Emerson calls “the amber of memory.”
How we laughed over the strange rules and regulations of the park!
Fierce bears were trapped, but could not be killed without the kind
permission of one of the secretaries in Washington, the correspondence
on the subject affording my brother infinite amusement. _His_ methods
under like circumstances would have been so very different!
The experiences at Elkhorn Ranch and again in the Yellowstone Park
were of special benefit to me from the standpoint of the comprehension
which they gave me of the absolute sympathy which my brother felt both
with the nature and the human nature of the great West. No period of
the life of Theodore Roosevelt seems to me quite as important, in
the influence which it was to bear upon his future usefulness to his
country, as was that period in which, as man to man, he shared the
vigorous work and pastimes of the men of that part of our country.
Had he not actually lived the life not only of the hunter and
cattleman, but had he not taken actual part as sheriff in the methods
of government of that part of our country, he would never have been
able to interpret the spirit of the West as he did. He would never
have been recognized _as_ such an interpreter, and when the time came
that America could no longer look from an uninterested distance at the
Spanish iniquities in Cuba, the fact that Theodore Roosevelt had become
so prominent a figure in the West proved the essential factor in the
flocking to his standard of that mass of virile manhood which, under
his leadership, and that of the then army doctor, Leonard Wood, became
the picturesque, well-known “Rough Rider” Volunteer Cavalry of the
Spanish-American War.
At Elkhorn Ranch, also, the long silences and stretches of solitude had
much to do with the mental growth of the young man. There he read and
wrote and thought deeply. His old guide Bill Sewall was asked not long
since about his opinion of my brother as a religious man. His answer
was as follows: “I think he read the Bible a great deal. I never saw
him in formal prayer, but as prayer is the desire of the heart, I think
he prayed without ceasing, for the desire of his heart was always to
do right.” Thus, sharing the hardships and the joys of their primitive
life with his comrades of the West, the young rancher became an
integral part of that country, which never failed to rouse in him the
spirit of high adventure and romance.
Theodore Roosevelt, himself, in a letter to John Hay, written long
after our visit to his ranch and our gay excursion to the Yellowstone,
describes the men of that part of the world. He was taking an extended
trip, as President, in 1903, on the first part of which journey Mr. Hay
had accompanied him, and at Oyster Bay, on his return, he writes to his
secretary of state in order to give him further details of the trip: