Mrs. Cummins was not the only neighbor who furnished amusement during

those spring days of 1885 to the boys at the Maltese Cross. The

Eatons' "dude ranch" had developed in a totally unexpected direction.

From being a headquarters for Easterners who wanted to hunt in a wild

country, it had become a kind of refuge to which wealthy and

distracted parents sent 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 under no compulsion to

follow their example. The "dudes" regularly came "back from town" with

all they could carry without and within; and the cowboys round about

swore solemnly that you couldn't put your hand in the crotch of any

tree within a hundred yards of the Eatons' ranch-house without coming

upon a bottle concealed by a dude being cured of "the drink."

The neighbors who were most remote from Roosevelt in point of space

continued to be closest in point of intimacy. The Langs were now well

established and Roosevelt missed no opportunity to visit with them for

an hour or a day, thinking nothing apparently of the eighty-mile ride

there and back in comparison with the prospect of an evening in good

company. The Langs were, in fact, excellent company. They knew books

and they knew also the graces of cultivated society. To visit with

them was to live for an hour or two in the quietude of an Old World

home, with all the Old World's refinements and the added tang of

bizarre surroundings; and even to one who 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, in terms that hovered and poised and struck like

birds of prey. Lincoln Lang, who was present, described Bill Jones's

discourse as "outside the pale of the worst I have ever heard uttered

by human mouth," which meant something in that particular place. But

Bill Jones was an Irishman, and he was not naturally tolerant of

idiosyncrasies of speech and manner. Roosevelt, on the whole, liked

the "younger sons," and they in turn regarded him with a kind of awe.

He was of their own class, and yet there was something in him which

stretched beyond the barriers which confined them, into regions where

they were lost and bewildered, but he was completely at home.

They all had delightful evenings together at Yule, with charades and

punning contests, and music on the piano which Lincoln Lang had

brought out through the gumbo against all the protests of nature. Mrs.

Lang was an admirable cook and a liberal and hospitable hostess, which

was an added reason for riding eighty miles.

To the Scotch family, exiled far up the Little Missouri, Roosevelt's

visits were notable events. "We enjoyed having him," said Lincoln Lang

long afterward, "more than anything else in the world."

[Illustration: Mrs. Lang.]

[Illustration: Gregor Lang.]

To Gregor Lang, Roosevelt's visits brought an opportunity for an

argument with an opponent worthy of his steel. The Scotchman's alert

intelligence pined sometimes, in those intellectually desolate

wastes, for exercise in the keen give-and-take of debate. The average

cowboy was not noted for his conversational powers, and Gregor Lang

clutched avidly at every possibility of talk. It was said of him 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 was a religion (as it was to

many in those middle eighties), and he wrestled with the error in

Lang's soul as a saint wrestles with a devil. As the day dawned,

Gregor Lang gave an exclamation of satisfaction. "It's been a fine

talk we've had, Mistur-r Eaton," he cried. "Now suppose you tak' my

side and I tak' yours?" What Eaton said thereupon has not been

recorded; but Gregor Lang went home happy.

With all his love for forensics as such, Lang had solid convictions.

They were a Democrat's, and in consequence many of them were not

Roosevelt's. Roosevelt attacked them with energy and Lang defended

them with skill. Roosevelt, who 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, when you ar-re

Pr-resident of the United States, you may r-run the gover-rnment the

way you mind to." He did admit in the bosom of his family, however,

that Roosevelt made "the best ar-rgument for the other side" he had

ever heard.

Lang's love of an argument, which to unfriendly ears might have

sounded like contentiousness, did not serve to make the excellent

Scotchman popular with his neighbors. He had a habit, moreover, of

saying exactly what he thought, regardless of whom he might hit. He

was not politic at all. He had, in fact, come to America and to 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 of the Bad Lands could

teach a thinking man like him. But his courage was fine. Against the

protests of his Southern neighbors, he insisted on treating a negro

cowboy in his outfit as on complete equality with his white employees;

and bore the storm of criticism with equanimity. Such a spirit was

bound to appeal to Roosevelt.

At the Maltese Cross there was a steady stream of callers. One of

them, a hawk-eyed, hawk-nosed cowpuncher named "Nitch" Kendley, who

was one of the first settlers in the region, arrived one day when

Roosevelt was alone.

"Come on in," said Roosevelt, "and we'll have some dinner. I can't

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

ahead, and I will see what I can do for the rest of the dinner."

So "Nitch" made the biscuits and put them in the oven, and Roosevelt

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

Then the two cooks went outdoors, for the cabin was small, and the

weather was hot.

Roosevelt began to talk, whereupon "Nitch," who had ideas of his own,

began to talk also with a fluency which was not customary, for he was

naturally a taciturn man. They both forgot the dinner. "Nitch" never

knew how long they talked.

They were brought back to the world of facts by a smell of burning.

The cabin was filled with smoke, and "you could not," as "Nitch"

subsequently remarked, "have told your wife from your mother-in-law

three feet away." On investigation it proved that "Nitch's" biscuits

and Roosevelt's meat were burnt to cinders.

Merrifield and Sylvane were out after deer, and Roosevelt and his

companion waited all afternoon in vain for the two men to return. At

last, toward evening, Roosevelt made some coffee, which, as "Nitch"

remarked, "took the rough spots off the biscuits."

"If we'd talked less," reflected "Nitch," "we'd have had more dinner."

Roosevelt laughed. He did not seem to mind the loss of a meal. "Nitch"

was quite positive that he was well repaid. They went on talking as

before.

XVI

He went so high above the earth,

Lights from Jerusalem shone.

Right thar we parted company,

And he came down alone.

I hit terra firma,

The buckskin's heels struck free,

And brought a bunch of stars along

To dance in front of me.

_Cowboy song_

Early in May, Roosevelt's men returned from Fergus Falls with a

thousand head of cattle. In a letter to his brother, Sewall describes

what he terms the "Cattle Torture," in which he had been engaged. "It

will perhaps interest you," he adds. "It certainly must have been

interesting to the cattle."

The cattle were driven in from the country [Sewall writes]

and put in a yard. This was divided in the middle by a fence

and on one side was a narrow lane where you could drive six

or eight Cattle at a time. This narrowed so when you got to

the fence in the middle only one could pass by the post, and

beyond the post there was a strong gate which swang off from

the side fence at the top so to leave it wide enough to go

through. Well, they would rush them into the shoot and when

they came to the gate would let it swing off at the top. The

animal would make a rush but it was so narrow at the bottom

it would bother his feet and there was a rope went from the

top of the gate over his back to a lever on the outside of

the yard. While he was trying to get through, the fellow on

the lever would catch him with the gate and then the frying

began.

They had two good big fires and about four irons in each

and they would put an iron on each side. One is a Triangle

about four inches on a side, the other an Elkhorn about six

inches long with two prongs. It smelt around there as if

Coolage was burning Parkman,[13] or was it Webster? I

remember hearing father read about the smell of meat burning

when I was a boy, and I kept thinking of that and Indians

burning Prisoners at the stake. Well, we burnt them all in

less than a day and a half and then hustled them into the

cars.

[Footnote 13: A celebrated murder case in Boston.]

They of course did not get much to eat for two or three days

before they started. Then we put from 50 to 57 yearlings in

a carr and from 32 to 37 two year olds and started. The poor

cattle would lay down, then of course as many as could stand

on them would do so. The ones that got down would stay there

till they were completely trod under and smothered unless

you made them get up. So I would go in and shove and crowd

and get them off of the down ones, then I would seize a tail

and the man with me would punch from outside with a pole

with a brad in it. This would invigorate the annimal as he

used the pole with great energy, and with my help they would

get up.

I did not dislike the work though it was very warm and the

cattle were rather slippery to hold on to after they had

been down, but it was lively and exciting climbing from one

carr to the other when they were going, especially in the

night. We went to see them every time they stopped and some

times we did not have time before we started. Then we would

have to go from one to the other while they were going, and

after we had got through run back over the tops of the cars.

Ours were all alive when we got to Medora. How they ever

lived through, I don't see. John Bean would liked to have

bought me by the cord, and if he had been around Medora,

think I could have sold myself for dressing.

Roosevelt met them at Medora and set out with them to drive the cattle

north to Elkhorn Ranch. It was customary to drive cattle along the

river bottom, but there had been a series of freshets that spring

which had 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 dangers of the crossings were too great even for a none too

prudent man to hazard. Accordingly Roosevelt decided to drive the

animals down along the divide west of Medora between the Little

Missouri and the Beaver.

Owing to a variety of causes, the preparations for the trip had been

inadequate. He had only five men to help him; Sewall and Dow and Rowe

and two others. Of these, only one was a cowpuncher of experience.

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

saddle-band, in some fashion which nobody could explain became so

snarled up with each other that, after disentangling the situation, he

was forced to relegate his expert to the ranks and take command

himself.

His course lay, for the most part, through the Bad Lands, which

enormously increased the difficulty of driving the cattle. A herd

always travels strung out in lines, and a thousand head thus going

almost in single file had a way of stretching out an appreciable

distance, with the strong, speedy 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 the trail led, it was

no easy task for six men to keep the cattle from breaking off in

different directions or prevent the strong beasts that formed the

vanguard from entirely outstripping the laggards. The spare

saddle-ponies also made trouble, for several of them were practically

unbroken.

Slowly and with infinite difficulty they drove the herd northward. To

add to their troubles, the weather went through "a gamut of changes,"

as Roosevelt wrote subsequently, "with that extraordinary and

inconsequential 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 drive the cattle down into a sheltered valley to keep

them overnight. The cold was so intense that even in the sun the water

froze at noon. Forty-eight hours afterwards it was the heat that was

causing them to suffer.

The inland trail which they were following had its disadvantages, for

water for the stock was scarce there, and the third day, after

watering the cattle at noon, Roosevelt and his men drove them along

the very backbone of the divide through barren and forbidding

country. Night came on while they were still many miles from the

string of deep pools which held the nearest water. The cattle were

thirsty and restless, and in the first watch, which Roosevelt shared

with one of his cowboys, when the 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 ran his pony

along its edge, turning back the beasts at one point barely in time to

wheel and keep them in at another. The ground was cut up by numerous

gullies, and more than once Roosevelt's horse turned a complete

somersault with his rider. Why he was not killed a half-dozen times

over is a mystery. He was dripping with sweat, and his pony was

quivering like a quaking aspen when, after more than an hour of the

most violent exertion, he and his companion finally succeeded in

quieting the herd.

I have had hard work and a good deal of fun since I came out

[Roosevelt wrote to Lodge on the fifteenth of May].

To-morrow I start for the round-up; and I have just come in

from taking a thousand head of cattle up on the trail. The

weather was very bad and I had my hands full, working night

and day, and being able to take off my clothes but once

during the week I was out.

The river has been very high recently, and I have had on two

or three occasions to swim my horse across it; a new

experience to me. Otherwise I have done little that is

exciting in the way of horsemanship; as you know I am no

horseman, and I cannot ride an unbroken horse with any

comfort. The other day I lunched with the Marquis de Mores,

a French cavalry officer; he has hunted all through France,

but he told me he never saw in Europe such stiff jumping as

we have on the Meadowbrook hunt.

Whether he was or was not a horseman is a question on which there is

authority which clashes with Roosevelt's. A year's experience with

broncos had taught him much, and though Sylvane remained indisputably

the crack rider of the Maltese Cross outfit, Roosevelt more than held

his own. "He was not a purty rider," as one of his cowpunching friends

expressed it, "but a hell of a good rider."

Roosevelt was a firm believer in "gentling" rather than "breaking"

horses. He had no sentimental illusions concerning the character of

the animals with which 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 reasonably domesticated, but there was one

that resisted all Roosevelt's friendly advances. He was generally

regarded as a fiend incarnate. "The Devil" was his name.

"The trouble with training the Devil," said Packard, who was present

at the Maltese Cross one day when Roosevelt was undertaking to ride

him, "was that he was a wild four-year-old when first ridden and this

first contest was a victory for the horse. If the rider had won, Devil

might have become a good saddle horse. But when the horse wins the

first contest, one can look for a fight every time he is saddled. The

chances favor his becoming a spoiled horse. I happened to arrive at

the Chimney 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 the throw. Instantly Devil stopped and meekly

followed Roosevelt to the snubbing-post, where he was tied up for a

period of 'gentling.' The ordinary procedure was to throw such a horse

and have one man sit on his head while another bound a handkerchief

over his eyes. He was then allowed to get on his feet and often made

little resistance while the saddle and bridle were being adjusted. The

rider then mounted and the fireworks began as soon as he jerked the

handkerchief from the horse's eyes.

"Devil had gone through this procedure so often that he knew it by

heart. He had, however, not become accustomed to being 'gentled'

instead of 'busted.' As Roosevelt walked toward him, the horse's fear

of man overcame his dread of the rope, and he surged back until the

noose was strangling him.

"It was half an hour before he allowed Roosevelt to put a hand on his

neck. All this was preliminary to an attempt to blindfolding Devil

without throwing, and at last it was accomplished. He then submitted

to being saddled and bridled, though he 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 time when he had strangled and tired himself to a

standstill. Several times he threw himself heavily by tripping on the

rope or by tightening it suddenly. And at last he gave it up, standing

with legs braced, with heaving flanks and gasping breath.

"Roosevelt walked toward him with a pail of water and the first real

sign that 'gentling' was better than 'busting' was when the wild-eyed

Devil took a swallow; the first time in his life he had accepted a

favor from the hand of man. It was too dangerous to attempt riding in

the corral, and Devil was led out to some bottom-land which was fairly

level; the end of the rope around the horn of Merrifield's saddle and

Sylvane Ferris on another saddle horse ready to urge Devil into a run

as soon as Roosevelt had mounted. A vain attempt at mounting was made,

and finally Devil had to be blindfolded. Then came the mounting, and,

almost instantly with the lifting of the blindfold, Roosevelt 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 unhorsed other men whom

Roosevelt would have been first to call better riders than himself.

There was a sudden arching of the back which jolted the rider at least

six inches from the saddle, then a whirling jump which completed a

half-turn, and a landing, stiff-legged, on the fore feet while the

hind hoofs kicked high in the air. In his six-inch descent the rider

was met with the saddle or the flanks of the horse and catapulted into

space. The only way to 'stay with the leather' was to get the horse to

running instead of making this first jump.

"About every other jump we could see twelve acres of bottom-land

between Roosevelt and the saddle, but now the rider stayed with the

animal a little longer than before. Four times that beast threw him,

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,

for if there is any basis of operations fatal to fancy bucking it is

quicksand. After a while Roosevelt turned the bronco around, brought

him out on dry land, and rode him until he was as meek as a rabbit."

The round-up that spring gave Roosevelt an opportunity to put his

horsemanship to the severest test there was.

Theodore Roosevelt is now at Medora [the Mandan _Pioneer_

reported on May 22d], and has been there for some time past.

He is preparing his outfit for the round-up, and will take

an active part in the business itself.

Roosevelt had, in fact, determined to work with the round-up as an

ordinary cowpuncher, and shortly after the middle of May he started

with his "outfit" south to the appointed meeting-place west of the

mouth of Box Elder Creek in southeastern Montana. With him were all

the regular cowboys of the Maltese Cross, 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 attached

to the "outfit," or to "the wagon" as it was called on the round-up,

had his own "string" of ten or a dozen ponies, thrown together into a

single herd which was in charge of the "horse-wranglers," one for the

night and one for the morning, customarily the youngest (and most

abused) cowboys on the ranch.

Roosevelt's "string" was not such as to make him look forward to the

round-up with easy assurance. He had not felt that he had a right,

even as "the boss," to pick the best horses for himself out of the

saddle band of the Maltese Cross. With Sylvane, Merrifield, Myers, and

himself choosing in succession, like boys picking teams for "one ol'

cat," "the boss" having first choice on each round, he took what Fate

and his own imperfect judgment gave him. At the conclusion of the

"picking," he found that, 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 himself to be tamed and

was soon quiet. The third, on the other hand, turned out to be one of

the worst buckers Roosevelt possessed; and the fourth had a habit

which was even worse, for he would balk and throw himself over

backward. It struck Roosevelt that there was something about this

refractory animal's disposition, to say nothing of his Roman nose,

which greatly reminded him of the eminent Democrat, General Ben

Butler, and "Ben Butler" became that bronco's name. Roosevelt had

occasion to remember it.

[Illustration: The Maltese Cross "outfit".]

[Illustration: The Maltese Cross "chuck-wagon". The man on horseback

is Sylvane Ferris; the man loading the wagon is Walter Watterson,

Roosevelt's teamster and cook.]

The encampment where the round-up was to begin furnished a scene of

bustle and turmoil. From here and there the heavy four-horse wagons

one after another jolted in, the "horse-wranglers" rushing madly to

and fro in the endeavor to keep the different saddle bands from

mingling. Single riders, in groups of two or three, appeared, each

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-races

and wrestling-matches. A round-up always had more than a little of the

character of a county fair. For though the work was hard, and

practically continuous for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, it

was full of excitement. The cowboys regarded it largely as sport, and

the five weeks they spent at it very much of a holiday.[14]

[Footnote 14: _Roosevelt: Ranch Life and the Hunting

Trail._

"Am inclined to think that this assertion of Mr.

Roosevelt's would be open to criticism on the part of

the real old-time cowpunchers. Much depended upon the

weather, of course, but in a general way most of them

regarded the work as anything but a picnic. Usually, it

came closer to being 'Hell,' before we got through with

it, as was the case on that particular round-up in 1885,

when Mr. Roosevelt was along. Rained much of the time,

and upon one occasion kept at it for a week on end. Tied

the whole outfit up for several days at one point and I

recall we had to wring the water out of our blankets

every night before retiring. The boys liked to work on

general round-ups, hard and all as they were, mainly

because it brought them into contact with the boys from

other ranges, so that they had a chance to renew old

acquaintances. Generally the boys were all inclined to

be a little wild at the start, or until cooled down by a

few days of hard work. After that things got into a

steady groove, eighteen hours per day in the saddle

being nothing unusual.

"At the start, the round-up bore many of the aspects of

a county fair, just as Mr. Roosevelt states, and unless

the trip proved to be unusually hard there was always

more or less horse-play in the air."--_Lincoln Lang._]

Roosevelt reported to the captain of the round-up, a man named

Osterhaut, saying that he expected to be treated as a common cowhand

and wanted to be shown no favors; and the captain took him at his

word. He promptly 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 best of them; he rode "the long circle"; he guarded

the day-herd and the night-herd and did the odd (and often perilous)

jobs of the cowpuncher with the same cool unconcern that characterized

the professional cowboy.

"Three-Seven" Bill Jones was on the round-up as foreman of the

"Three-Seven Ranch." ("There," as Howard Eaton remarked with

enthusiasm, "was a cowboy for your whiskers!") He was a large, grave,

taciturn man, capable of almost incredible feats of physical

endurance. Dantz overheard him, one day, discussing Roosevelt.

"That four-eyed maverick," remarked "Three-Seven" Bill, "has sand in

his craw a-plenty."

As with all other forms of work [Roosevelt wrote years

after], so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who

nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are

disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were

crack riders and ropers, who, just because they felt such

overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very

valuable men. Continually on the circles a cow or a calf

would get into some thick patch of bulberry bush and refuse

to come out; or when it was getting late we would pass some

bad lands that would probably not contain cattle, but might;

or a steer would turn fighting mad, or a calf grow tired and

want to lie down. If in such a case the man steadily

persists in doing the unattractive thing, and after two

hours of exasperation and harassment does finally get the

cow out, and keep her out, of the bulberry bushes, and

drives her to the wagon, or finds some animals that have

been passed by in the fourth or fifth patch of bad lands he

hunts through, or gets the calf up on his saddle and takes

it in anyhow, the foreman soon grows to treat him as having

his uses and as being an asset of worth in the round-up,

even though neither a fancy roper nor a fancy rider.[15]

[Footnote 15: _Autobiography._]

It was an active life,[16] and Roosevelt had no opportunity to

complain of restlessness. Breakfast came at three and dinner at eight

or nine or ten in the morning, at the conclusion sometimes of fifty

miles of breakneck riding. From ten to one, 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, over the hills; and at night, from ten to twelve, he

would again be on guard, riding round the cattle, humming some eerie

lullaby. It was always the same song that he sang, but what the words

were or the melody is a secret that belongs to the wind.

[Footnote 16: Roosevelt gives an admirable description

of a round-up in his _Ranch Life and the Hunting

Trail_.]

When utterly tired, it was hard to have to get up for one's

trick at night-herd [Roosevelt wrote in his

"Autobiography"]. Nevertheless on ordinary nights the two

hours round the cattle in the still darkness were pleasant.

The loneliness, under the vast empty sky, and the silence in

which the breathing of the cattle sounded loud, and the

alert readiness to meet any emergency which might suddenly

arise out of the formless night, all combined to give one a

sense of subdued interest.

As he lay on the ground near by, after his watch, he liked to listen

to the wild and not unmusical calls of the cowboys as they rode round

the half-slumbering steers. There was something magical in the strange

sound of it under the stars. Now and then a song would float through

the clear air.

"The days that I was hard up,

I never shall forget.

The days that I was hard up--

I may be well off yet.

In days when I was hard up,

And wanted wood and fire,

I used to tie my shoes up

With little bits of wire."

It was a favorite song with the night-herders.

One night, early in the round-up, Roosevelt failed satisfactorily to

identify the direction in which he was to go in order to reach the

night-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 greeted with withering scorn by the injured cowpuncher who had

been obliged to stand double guard because Roosevelt had failed to

relieve him.

Sixteen hours of work left little time for social diversions, but even

when they were full of sleep the cowboys would draw up around the

camp-fire, to smoke and sing and "swap yarns" for an hour. There were

only three musical instruments in the length and breadth of the Bad

Lands, the Langs' piano, 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 leading spirit of those

evenings was Bill Dantz, who knew a hundred songs by heart, and could

spin an actual happening into a yarn so thrilling and so elaborate in

every detail that no one could tell precisely where the foundation of

fact ended and the Arabian dome and minaret of iridescent fancy began.

Roosevelt found the cowboys excellent companions. They were a

picturesque crew with their broad felt hats, their flannel shirts of

various colors, overlaid with an enamel of dust and perspiration,

baked by the Dakota sun, their bright silk handkerchiefs knotted

round the neck, their woolly "shaps," their great silver spurs, their

loosely hanging cartridge-belts, their ominous revolvers. Roosevelt

was struck by the rough courtesy with which the men treated each

other. There was very little quarreling or fighting, due, Roosevelt

suspected, to the fact that all the men were armed; for, it seemed,

that when a quarrel was 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 less of an employee than of

a member of an order bound by vows, unspoken but accepted. He obeyed

orders without hesitation, though it were to mount a bucking bronco or

"head off" a stampede. He worked without complaint in a smother of

dust and cattle fumes at temperatures ranging as high as 136 degrees;

or, snow-blinded and frozen, he "rode line" for hours on end when the

thermometer was fifty or more below zero. He was in constant peril of

his life from the horns of milling cattle or the antics of a "mean"

horse. Roosevelt was immensely drawn to the sinewy, hardy, and

self-reliant adventurers; and they in turn liked him.

Life in the camps was boisterous and the language beggared

description.

"With some of these fellows around here," Dr. Stickney, the Bad Lands'

surgeon, once remarked, "profanity ceases to be a habit and becomes an

art."

"That's right," assented Sylvane. "Some strangers will get the hang of

it, but others never do. There was 'Deacon' Cummins, for instance.

He'd say such a thing as 'damned calf.' You could tell he didn't know

anything about it."

The practical jokes, moreover, which the cowboys played on each other

were not such as to make life easy for the timid. "The boys played all

kinds of tricks," remarked Merrifield long after; "sometimes they'd

stick things under the horses' tails and play tricks of that kind an'

there'd be a lot of hilarity to see the fellow get h'isted into the

air; but they never bothered Mr. Roosevelt. He commanded everybody's

respect."

They did play one joke on him, however, but it did not turn out at all

as they expected.

Roosevelt's hunting proclivities were well known, for he never missed

an opportunity, even on the round-up, to wander up some of the

countless coulees with a rifle 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 wild-goose chase. So

they told him with great seriousness of a dozen antelope they had seen

five or six miles back, suggesting that he had better go and get one.

He "bit," as they knew he would, and, in spite of the fact that he had

had a hard day on the round-up, saddled a horse and rode off in the

direction which they had indicated. The cowboys speculated as to the

language he would use when he came back.

He was gone several hours, and he had two antelope across his

saddle-bow when he rode back into camp.

"I found them all right," he cried, "just a quarter-mile from where

you said."

There was a shout from the cowboys. By general consent the joke was

declared as not to be on the "four-eyed tenderfoot."

Most of the men sooner or later accepted Roosevelt as an equal, in

spite of his toothbrush and his habit of shaving; but there was one

man, a surly Texan, who insisted on "picking on" Roosevelt as a dude.

Roosevelt laughed. But the man continued, in season and out of season,

to make him the butt of his gibes.

It occurred to the object of all this attention that the Texan was

evidently under the impression that the "dude" was also a coward.

Roosevelt decided that, for the sake of general harmony, that

impression had better be corrected at once.

One evening, when the man was being particularly offensive, Roosevelt

strode up to him.

"You're talking like an ass!" he said sharply. "Put up or shut up!

Fight now, or be friends!"

The Texan stared, his shoulder dropped a little, and he shifted his

feet. "I didn't mean no harm," he said. "Make it friends."

They made it friends.

XVII

At a round-up on the Gily,

One sweet mornin' long ago,

Ten of us was throwed right freely

By a hawse from Idaho.

And we thought he'd go a-beggin'

For a man to break his pride,

Till, a-hitchin' up one leggin',

Boastful Bill cut loose and cried--

"_I'm an on'ry proposition for to hurt;

I fulfill my earthly mission with a quirt;

I kin ride the highest liver

'Tween the Gulf and Powder River,

And I'll break this thing as easy as I'd flirt._"

So Bill climbed the Northern Fury,

And they mangled up the air,

Till a native of Missouri

Would have owned his brag was fair.

Though the plunges kep' him reelin'

And the wind it flapped his shirt,

Loud above the hawse's squealin'

We could hear our friend assert--

"_I'm the one to take such rakin's as a joke.

Some one hand me up the makin's of a smoke!

If you think my fame needs bright'nin',

Why, I'll rope a streak of lightnin',

And I'll cinch 'im up and spur 'im till he's broke._"

Then one caper of repulsion

Broke that hawse's back in two.

Cinches snapped in the convulsion;

Skyward man and saddle flew.

Up he mounted, never laggin',

While we watched him through our tears,

And his last thin bit of braggin'

Came a-droppin' to our ears--

"_If you'd ever watched my habits very close,

You would know I've broke such rabbits by the gross.

I have kep' my talent hidin';

I'm too good for earthly ridin',

And I'm off to bust the lightnin'--Adios!_"

Badger CLARK

If Roosevelt anticipated that he would have trouble with his untamed

broncos, he was not disappointed. "The effort," as he subsequently

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 round

'to see whether the high-headed bay could buck the boss off,'

doubtless was of benefit to me, but lacked much of being enjoyable."

One morning, when the round-up "outfits" were camped on the Logging

Camp Range, south of the Big Ox Bow, Roosevelt had a memorable

struggle with one of his four 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 valley which the

torrents of successive springs had through the centuries cut there.

The horse had to be blindfolded before he would allow a saddle to be

put on him.

Lincoln Lang was among the cowboys who stood in an admiring circle,

hoping for the worst.

"Mr. Roosevelt mounted, with the blind still on the horse," Lang said,

telling the story afterward, "so that the horse stood still, although

with a well-defined hump on his back, which, as we all knew very well,

meant trouble to come. As soon as Mr. Roosevelt got himself fixed in

the saddle, the men who were holding the horse pulled off the blind

and turned him loose."

Here Bill Dantz, who was also in the "gallery," takes up the story:

"The horse did not buck. He started off quietly, in fact, until he was

within a few feet of the chasm. Then he leapt in the air like a shot

deer, and came down with all four feet buckled under him, jumped

sideways and went in the air a second time, twisting ends."

Here Lang resumes the narrative:

"Almost any kind of a bucking horse is hard to ride, but the worst of

all are the 'sunfishers' who change end for end with each jump,

maintaining the turning movement in one direction so that the effect

is to get the rider dizzy. This particular horse was of that type, and

almost simultaneous with the removal of the blind he was in gyroscopic

action.

"I am aware that Mr. Roosevelt did not like to 'pull leather,' as the

term goes, but this time at least he had to, but for the matter of

that there were not many who would not have done the same thing. 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 to do it,

because in thus holding himself tight to the saddle with his hands, he

had to take full punishment, which can be avoided only when one has

acquired the knack of balancing and riding loosely.

"As it was, his glasses and six-shooter took the count within the

first few jumps, but in one way or another he hung to it himself,

until some of the boys rode up and got the horse headed into a

straightaway by the liberal use of their quirts. Once they got him

running, it was all over, of course. If I remember right, Mr.

Roosevelt rode the horse on a long circle that morning and brought him

in safe, hours later, as good as gold."[17]

[Footnote 17: "During the course of the Barnes-Roosevelt

trial at Syracuse in 1916, Roosevelt was taking dinner

one evening at the house of Mr. Horace S. Wilkinson.

Chancellor Day, of Syracuse University, who was present,

said: 'Mr. Roosevelt, my attention was first directed to

you by an account of a scene when you were with the

cowboys. It told of your trying to get astride a bronco,

and it was a struggle. But you finally conquered him,

and away you went in a cloud of dust.'

"'Very true, very true,' said Roosevelt, 'but I rode him

all the way from the tip of his ear to the end of his

tail.'"--_Rev. D. B. Thompson, Syracuse_, N.Y.]

The horse which Roosevelt had called "Ben Butler" was not so easily

subdued. It was "Ben Butler's" special antic to fall over backward. He

was a sullen, evil-eyed brute, with a curve in his nose and a droop in

his nostrils, 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 the protests of his own men. "That horse

is a plumb outlaw," Bill Dantz declared, "an' outlaws is never safe.

They kinda git bad and bust out at any time. He will sure kill you,

sooner or later, if you try to ride him."

One raw, chilly morning, Roosevelt, who had been ordered to ride "the

outside circle," chose "Ben Butler" for his mount, because he knew the

horse was tireless and could stand 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 fell on

his rider. Roosevelt, with a sharp pain in his shoulder, extricated

himself and mounted once more. But the horse now refused to go in any

direction, backward or forward.

Sylvane and George Myers threw their lariats about the bronco's neck,

and dragged him a few hundred yards, choking but stubborn, all four

feet firmly planted and pawing the ground. When they released the

ropes, "Ben Butler" lay down and refused to get up.

The round-up had started; there was no time to waste. Sylvane gave

Roosevelt his horse, Baldy, which sometimes bucked, but never went

over backwards, and himself mounted the now re-arisen "Ben Butler." To

Roosevelt's discomfiture, the horse that had given him so much trouble

started off as meekly as any farm-horse.

"Why," remarked Sylvane, not without a touch of triumph, "there's

nothing the matter with this horse. He's a plumb gentle horse."

But shortly after, Roosevelt noticed that Sylvane had fallen behind.

Then he heard his voice, in persuasive tones, "That's all right! Come

along!" Suddenly a new note came into his entreaties. "Here you! Go on

you! Hi, hi, fellows, help me out! He's laying on me!"

They dragged Sylvane from under the sprawling steed, whereupon

Sylvane promptly danced a war-dance, spurs and all, on the iniquitous

"Ben." Roosevelt gave up the attempt to take that particular bronco on

the round-up that day.

"By gollies," remarked "Dutch Wannigan" in later days, "he rode some

bad horses, some that did quite a little bucking around for us. I

don't know if he got 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 get throwed off you'd never hear

the last of it. He didn't care a bit. By gollies, if he got throwed

off, he'd get right on again. He was a dandy fellow."

The encounter with "Ben Butler" brought a new element into Roosevelt's

cowpunching experience, and made what remained of the round-up

somewhat of an ordeal. For he discovered that the point of his

shoulder was broken. Under other circumstances he would have gone to a

doctor, but in the Bad Lands you did not go to doctors, for the simple

reason that there was only one physician in the whole region and he

might at any given moment be anywhere from fifty to two hundred and

fifty miles away. If you were totally incapacitated with a broken leg

or a bullet in your lungs, you sent 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 everybody else in that young country, utterly fearless, and, it

seemed, utterly tireless. He rode out into the night careless alike of

blinding sleet and drifting snow. At grilling speed he rode until his

horse stood with heaving sides and nose drooping; then, at some ranch,

he changed to another and rode on. Over a course of a hundred miles or

more he would ride relays at a speed that seemed incredible, and at

the end of the journey operate with a calm hand for a gun-shot wound

or a cruelly broken bone, sometimes on the box of a mess-wagon turned

upside down on the prairie.

Dr. Stickney was from Vermont, a quiet, lean man with a warm smile and

friendly eyes, a sense of humor and a zest for life. He had a

reputation for never refusing a call whatever the distance or the

weather. Sometimes he rode with a guide; more 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-patch in a coulee and tramped back and forth to keep

himself from freezing until the storm had spent itself. It was a life

of extraordinary devotion. Stickney took it with a laugh, blushing

when men spoke well of him; and called it the day's work.

God alone knew where the doctor happened to be on the day that "Ben

Butler" rolled over backward with Theodore Roosevelt. It is safe to

surmise that Roosevelt 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 course, it was not

pleasant; but there were many things that were not pleasant. It was,

in fact, Roosevelt found, excruciating. But he said nothing about

that.

By the beginning of June, the round-up had worked down to Tepee

Bottom, two or three miles south of the Maltese Cross, making its

midday camp, one hot and sultry day, in a grove of ancient cottonwoods

that stood like unlovely, weather-beaten, gnarled old men, within

hailing distance 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 storm hung in the humid air, and none of them

remembered, not even Roosevelt, that "gentlemen" did not go to dinner

parties in their shirt-sleeves, at least not in the world to which

Mrs. Cummins liked to believe she belonged. Roosevelt was in his shirt

and trousers, cowboy fashion.

As the men prepared to sit down to dinner, Mrs. Cummins was obviously

perturbed. She left the room, returning a minute later with a coat

over her arm.

"Mr. Roosevelt," she said, "I know you won't like to come to dinner

without a coat. I have got one of Mr. Cummins's that will fit you. I

am sure you will feel more comfortable."

What Roosevelt's emotions were at being thus singled out and

proclaimed a "dude" among the men he wanted, above all things, to

consider him their peer, Roosevelt concealed at the moment and later

only fitfully revealed. He accepted the coat with as good grace as he

could muster, to the suppressed delight of his friends.

But Mrs. Cummins was not yet done with her guest of honor. She had

evidently been hurt, poor lady, by his failure to observe the

amenities of social intercourse, for during the dinner she said to

him, "I don't see why men and women of culture come out here and let

the people pull them down. What they should do is to raise the people

out here to their level."

What Roosevelt answered is lost to history; but Lincoln Lang, who was

with him when he rode back to camp that afternoon, reported that

Roosevelt's comments on the dinner party were "blistering." "He told

my mother afterwards," said Lang in later times, "that Mrs. Cummins

was out of place in the Bad Lands"; which was Mrs. Cummins's tragedy

in a nutshell.

They moved the camp that same afternoon a mile or two north to a wide

bottom that lay at the base of the peak known as Chimney Butte, north

of Garner Creek and west of the Little Missouri. 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 with increasing violence. The cattle

were very restless and uneasy, running up and down and trying here and

there to break out of the herd. The guards were doubled in

anticipation of trouble.

At midnight, fearing a stampede, the night-herders, of whom Lincoln

Lang happened to be one, sent a call of "all hands out." Roosevelt

leaped on the pony he always kept picketed near him. Suddenly there

was a terrific peal of thunder. The lightning struck almost into the

herd itself, and with heads and tails high the panic-stricken animals

plunged off into the darkness.

Will Dow was at Roosevelt's side. The tumult evidently had not

affected his imperturbable gayety. "There'll be racing and chasing on

Cannobie lea," Roosevelt heard him gayly quote. An instant later the

night had swallowed him.

For a minute or two Roosevelt could make out nothing except the dark

forms of the beasts, running on every side of him like the black

waters of a 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, a part turning to one side, while the other

part kept straight ahead. Roosevelt galloped at top speed, hoping to

reach the leaders and turn them.

He heard a wild splashing ahead. One instant he was aware that the

cattle in front of him and beside him were disappearing; the next, he

himself was plunging over a cutbank into the Little Missouri. He bent

far back in the saddle. His horse almost fell, recovered himself,

plunged forward, and, struggling through water and quicksand, made the

other side.

For a second he saw another cowboy beside him. The man disappeared in

the darkness and the deluge, and Roosevelt galloped off through a

grove of cottonwoods after the diminished herd. The ground was rough

and full of pitfalls. Once his horse turned a somersault and threw

him. At last the cattle came to a halt, but soon they were again away

through the darkness. Thrice again he halted them, and thrice again

they stampeded.

"The country was muddy and wet," said Lincoln Lang afterward. "We were

having a heavy rain all night. I don't know how we ever got through.

All we had was lightning flashes to go by. It was really one of the

worst mix-ups I ever saw. That surely was a night."

[Illustration: The scene of the stampede. On the farther side of the

river is the cutbank over which the cattle rushed in the dark.]

Day broke at last, and as the light filtered through the clouds

Roosevelt could dimly discern where he was. He succeeded at last in

turning back what remained of 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 saddle on his

head. It was the man he had seen for a flash during the storm. His

horse had run into a tree and been killed. He himself had escaped by a

miracle.

The men in the camp were just starting on the "long circle" when

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

snatched a hasty breakfast; then he was off for the day's work.

As only about half of the night-herd had been brought back, the

circle-riding was particularly heavy, and it was ten hours before

Roosevelt was back at the wagon camp once more for a hasty meal and a

fresh horse. He finished work as the late twilight fell. He had been

in the saddle forty hours, changing horses five times. That night he

slept like the dead.

The storm had raised the level of the river and filled every wash-out

with swirling brown waters. The following day Roosevelt had an

adventure which came within an ace of being tragedy and culminated in

hilarious farce. 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 laid across the wash-out, which, except at

times of heavy rains or melting snows, was completely dry. On this

occasion, however, it was full to the banks, and had even flowed over

the rude bridge, jumbling the light logs.

The stringers parted as their horses attempted to make their way

gingerly across, and in an instant horses and riders and bridge

timbers were floundering indiscriminately in the rushing torrent.

Roosevelt's horse worked his way out, but the Englishman, who was a

good rider according to his lights, was not altogether used to mishaps

of this sort and became excited.

"I'm drowning! I'm drowning!" he called to Roosevelt.

Roosevelt snatched the lasso from his saddle. He was not famous as a

roper, but on this occasion his "throw" went true. The rope descended

over the shoulders of the British aristocrat, and an instant later

Roosevelt had him on solid ground.

"As he was yanked unceremoniously out of that creek," Roosevelt

subsequently remarked, "he did not seem to be very thankful."

Sober second thoughts, however, brought gratitude with them. The

Britisher never forgot that Roosevelt had saved his life, and

Roosevelt never forgot the picture that a son of a lord made, dragged

through the water at the end of a lasso.

On June 5th, which must have been the day after the rescue of the

Englishman, Roosevelt was writing to Lodge.

A cowboy from "down river" has just come up to the round-up,

and brought me my mail, with your letter in it. I am writing

on the ground; so my naturally good handwriting will not

show to its usual advantage.

I have been three weeks on the round-up and have worked as

hard as any of the cowboys; but I have enjoyed it greatly.

Yesterday I was eighteen hours in the saddle--from 4 A.M. to

10 P.M.--having a half-hour each for dinner and tea. I can

now do cowboy work pretty well.

Toronto[18] must be a dandy; I wish I could pick up one as

good. That is, if he is gentle. You are all off about my

horsemanship; as you would say if you saw me now. Almost all

of our horses on the ranch being young, I had to include in

my string three that were but partially broken; and I have

had some fine circuses with them. One of them had never been

saddled but once before, and he proved vicious, and besides

bucking, kept falling over backwards with me; finally he

caught me, giving me an awful slat, from which my left arm

has by no means recovered. Another bucked me off going down

hill; but I think I have cured him, for I put him through a

desperate course of sprouts when I got on again. The third I

nearly lost in swimming him across a swollen creek, where

the flood had carried down a good deal of drift timber.

However, I got him through all right in the end, after a

regular ducking. Twice one of my old horses turned a

somersault while galloping after cattle; once in a

prairie-dog town, and once while trying to prevent the herd

from stampeding in a storm at night. I tell you, I like

gentle and well-broken horses if I am out for pleasure, and

I do not get on any other, unless, as in this case, from

sheer necessity.

[Footnote 18: Toronto was the name of Lodge's hunter.]

It is too bad that letters cannot be published with stage directions.

For surely the words, "I like gentle and well-broken horses," should

bear about them somewhere the suggestion of the glint of the eye, the

flash of the teeth, the unctuous deliberateness, and the comical

break in the voice with which, surely, Roosevelt whispered them to his

soul before he wrote them down.

While Roosevelt was enjoying adventures and misadventures of various

sorts, Sylvane Ferris was having what he might have described as "a

little party" of his own. For Sylvane, most honest and guileless of

men, had got into the clutches of the law. It happened this way.

Early in the spring some cowpunchers, driving in cattle which had

strayed during the winter over the level country far to the east of

the Little Missouri, came upon a cow marked with the maltese cross.

They drove her westward with the rest of the "strays," 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. When, therefore, the necessity

arose of paying board at the section-house at Gladstone after a few

happy days at that metropolis, the cowboys, who did not have a cent of

real money among them, hit upon the brilliant idea of offering the cow

in payment.

The section boss accepted the settlement, but evidently not without a

sense of the consequences that might follow the discovery in his

possession of a cow for which he could 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

ability to make something out of nothing, doctored the cow with a care

which he would not have dreamed of bestowing on his wife, and made a

profitable milk-provider out of her.

Sylvane discovered her during the round-up, picketed outside the

Russian's shack, and promptly proceeded to take possession of her. The

Russian 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 been the price of the shoes. The Russian threw up

his hands and demanded no less than forty. Sylvane shrugged his

shoulders and annexed the cow.

That evening as Sylvane was sitting around the mess-wagon with a dozen

other cowpunchers, a stranger came walking from the direction of

Gladstone. The cow was hitched to the wagon, for she had shown a

tendency to choose her own master. The stranger started to detach the

rope that held her.

"Hold on!" cried Sylvane, "that is our cow."

The stranger took some papers out of his pocket and handed them to

Sylvane.

"Here are replevin papers," he said.

"I don't want your papers," remarked Sylvane, who did not know a

replevin paper from a dog license.

The stranger threw the papers at Sylvane's feet.

"I've come to take this cow."

"Well," remarked Sylvane, "if that's all the business you have, you

can go straight back where you came from."

The stranger strode toward the cow, Sylvane did likewise. They reached

the rope at the same moment. There was a shout from the delighted

audience of cowpunchers.

The stranger released his hold on the rope. "If you say I can't take

her, I can't take her," the man grumbled. "There's too many of you.

But I'll bring back men that can."

"Well, turn yourself loose," remarked Sylvane agreeably. "You'll need

a lot of them."

There was another shout from the onlookers, and the stranger departed.

Sylvane threw the papers into the mess-wagon.

Roosevelt did not happen to be present, and in his absence the sober

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

Sylvane had resisted an officer of the law, which was a criminal

offense.

Sylvane, who was afraid of nothing that walked on two legs or on four,

had a wholesome respect for that vague and ominous thing known as the

Law.

"Say, I don't want to get in bad with any sheriff," he said, really

worried. "What had I oughter do?"

The "Deacon," who possibly rejoiced at being for once taken seriously,

suggested that Sylvane ride to Gladstone and see if he could not

straighten the matter out. The other cowpunchers, whose acquaintance

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 in the

stranger's eye when Sylvane rode up to him, Sylvane failed to notice

it. Before a justice of the peace he agreed to appear in court on a

certain date, and his two companions furnished a bond.

Next day, while they were in camp on the Heart River, an acquaintance

of Sylvane's, a lawyer who rejoiced in the harmonious name of Western

Starr, rode in from Dickinson to have dinner with "the boys." Sylvane

showed him the papers the stranger had deposited at his feet.

The lawyer glanced over them. "What are these?" he asked.

"I don't know," answered Sylvane lightly. "That's what I handed them

to you for, to find out."

"Why," exclaimed Starr, "these aren't anything. They haven't been

signed by anybody."

Sylvane's jaw dropped. "Say, how about my bond?"

"Oh, that's valid, even if these are not. You've got to appear in

court."

Sylvane's feelings concerning the "Deacon" and his precious advice

were deep and earnest. The situation was serious. He knew well enough

the chance that the "outfit" of a wealthy Easterner like Roosevelt

would stand with a Gladstone jury, when it was a question of depriving

a poor man of his cow.

Western Starr suggested that he arrange for a change of venue.

Sylvane approved. The change of venue cost ten dollars, but was

granted. The date of the trial was set. Sylvane traveled to Dickinson

and waited all day with his attorney for the trial to be called. No

one appeared, not even the judge.

Starr's fee was twenty dollars. Sylvane's railroad fare was five more.

The total bill was thirty-five.

Roosevelt paid the bill. If he remarked that, taking lost time into

consideration, it would have been cheaper, in the first place, to pay

the Russian the forty dollars he demanded, there is no record of it.

But the remark would not have been characteristic. The chances are

that he thought Sylvane's encounter with the law worth every cent that

it cost.

XVIII

Somewhere on some faded page

I read about a Golden Age,

But gods and Caledonian hunts

Were nothing to what I knew once.

Here on these hills was hunting! Here

Antelope sprang and wary deer.

Here there were heroes! On these plains

Were drops afire from dragons' veins!

Here there was challenge, here defying,

Here was true living, here great dying!

Stormy winds and stormy souls,

Earthly wills with starry goals,

Battle--thunder--hoofs in flight--

Centaurs charging down the night!

Here there were feasts of song and story

And words of love and dreams of glory!

Here there were friends! Ah, night will fall

And clouds or the stars will cover all,

But I, when I go as a ghost again

To the gaunt, grim buttes, to the friendly plain

I know that for all that time can do

To scatter the faithful, estrange the true--

Quietly, in the lavender sage,

Will be waiting the friends of my golden age.

From _Medora Nights_

The wild riding, the mishaps, the feverish activity, the smell of the

cattle, the dust, the tumult, the physical weariness, the comradeship,

the closeness to life and death--to Roosevelt it was all magical 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 all in the warm light

of dawn and dusk under the wide vault of heaven; and the experiences

that were merely the day's work to his companions to him were edged

with the shimmer of spiritual adventure.

"We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst," Roosevelt wrote

thirty years later, "and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked

among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another;

but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the

glory of work and the joy of living."

"It was a wonderful thing for Roosevelt," said Dr. Stickney. "He

himself realized what a splendid thing it was for him to have been

here at that time and to have had sufficient strength in his character

to absorb it. He started out to get the fundamental truths as they

were in this country and he never lost sight of that purpose all the

time he was here."

To the joy of strenuous living was added, for Roosevelt, the

satisfaction of knowing that the speculation in which he had risked so

large a part of his fortune was apparently prospering. The cattle were

looking well. Even pessimistic Bill Sewall admitted that, though he

would not admit that he had changed his opinion of the region as a

place for raising cattle.

I don't think we shall lose many of our cattle this winter

[he wrote his brother]. I think they have got past the worst

now. Next year is the one that will try them. It is the cows

that perish mostly and we had but few that had calves last

spring, but this spring thare will be quite a lot of them.

The calves suck them down and they don't get any chance to

gain up before they have another calf and then if the

weather is very cold they are pretty sure to die. It is too

cold here to raise cattle that way. Don't believe there is

any money in she cattle here and am afraid thare is not much

in any, unless it is the largest heards, and they are

crowding in cattle all the time and I think they will eat us

out in a few years.

Sewall, being a strong individualist, was more than dubious concerning

the practicality of the coöperative round-up. The cowmen were

passionately devoted to the idea of the open range; to believe in

fences was treason; but it was in fences that Bill Sewall believed.

I don't like so free a country [he wrote]. Whare one man has

as good a right as another nobody really has any right, so

when feed gets scarce in one place they drive their cattle

whare it is good without regard to whose range they eat out.

I am satisfied that by the time we are ready to leave grass

will be pretty scarce here.

I think the Cattle business has seen its best days and I

gave my opinion to Mr. R. last fall. I hope he may not lose

but I think he stands a chance. Shall do all we can to

prevent it, but it is such a mixed business. One or two

can't do much. It is the most like driving on the Lake when

you are mixed with everybody. I don't like it and never did.

I want to controle and manage my own affairs and have a

right to what I have, but here as on the Lake it is all

common. One has as much right as another.

Roosevelt remained with the round-up until it disbanded not far from

Elkhorn Bottom. Then, on June 21st, he went East, accompanied by

Wilmot Dow, who was going home to get married and bring Sewall's wife

back with him when he brought back his own.

Two reporters intercepted Roosevelt as he passed through St. Paul the

day after his departure from Medora, and have left an attractive

picture of the politician-turned-cowboy.

Rugged, bronzed, and in the prime of health [wrote the

representative of the _Pioneer Press_], Theodore Roosevelt

passed through St. Paul yesterday, returning from his Dakota

ranch to New York and civilization. There was very little of

the whilom dude in his rough and easy costume, with a large

handkerchief tied loosely about his neck; but the eyeglasses

and the flashing eyes behind them, the pleasant smile and

the hearty grasp of hand remained. There was the same

eagerness to hear from the world of politics, and the same

frank willingness to answer all questions propounded. The

slow, exasperating drawl and the unique accent that the New

Yorker feels he must use when visiting a less blessed

portion of civilization have disappeared, and in their place

is a nervous, energetic manner of talking with the flat

accent of the West. Roosevelt is changed from the New York

club man to the thorough Westerner, but the change is only

in surface indications, and he is the same thoroughly good

fellow he has always been.

The reporter of the _Dispatch_ caught him in the lobby of the

Merchant's Hotel.

"I'm just in from my ranch," he said [runs the interview].

"Haven't had my dinner yet, but I think a short talk with a

newspaper fellow will give me a whetted appetite. Yes, I am

a regular cowboy, dress and all--" and his garb went far to

prove his assertion, woolen shirt, big neck handkerchief

tied loosely around his neck, etc. "I am as much of a cowboy

as any of them and can hold my own with the best of them. I

can shoot, ride, and drive in the round-up with the best of

them. Oh, they are a jolly set of fellows, those cowboys;

tiptop good fellows, too, when you know them, but they don't

want any plug hat or pointed shoes foolishness around them.

I get along the best way with them.

"We have just finished the spring round-up. You know what

that means. The round-up covered about two hundred miles of

grass territory along the river, and thousands of cattle

were brought in. It is rare sport, but hard work after all.

Do I like ranch life? Honestly I would not go back to New

York if I had no interests there. Yes, I enjoy ranch life

far more than city life. I like the hunt, the drive of

cattle, and everything that is comprehended in frontier

life. Make no mistake; on the frontier you find the noblest

of fellows. How many cattle have I? Let's see, well, not

less than 3500 at present. I will have more another year."

The man from the _Dispatch_ wanted to talk politics, but beyond a few

general remarks Roosevelt refused to satisfy him.

"Don't ask me to talk politics," he said. "I am out of politics. I

know that this is often said by men in public life, but in this case

it is true. I really am. There is 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 life," he

repeated; then, lest he should seem to suggest the faintest hint of

discontent, he hastened to add, "though I always make it a point to

enjoy myself wherever I am."

Roosevelt spent two months in the East. On August 23d he was again in

St. Paul on his way, as he told a reporter of the _Dispatch_, to

Helena, Montana, and thence back to Medora. Once more the interviewer

sought his views on political questions. Roosevelt made a few

non-committal statements, refusing to prophesy. "My political life,"

he remarked, "has not altogether killed my desire to tell the truth."

And with that happily flippant declaration he was off into the

wilderness again.

The "womenfolks" from Maine were at Elkhorn when Roosevelt arrived.

They were backwoodswomen, self-reliant, fearless, high-hearted; true

mates to their stalwart men. Mrs. Sewall had brought her

three-year-old daughter with her. Before Roosevelt knew what was

happening, they had turned the new house into a new home.

And now for them all began a season of deep and quiet contentment that

was to remain in the memories of all of them as a kind of idyl. It was

a life of elemental toil, hardship, 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

distinctions of social position or wealth. They respected one another

and cared for one another because and only because each knew that the

others were brave and loyal and steadfast.

[Illustration: Elkhorn ranch-house. Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt.]

[Illustration: Site of Elkhorn, 1919.]

Life on the ranch proved a more joyous thing than ever after the women

had taken charge. They demanded certain necessities at once. They

demanded chickens, which Roosevelt supplied, to the delight of the

bobcats, who promptly started to feast on them; they demanded at

least one cow. No one had thought of a cow. No one in the length and

breadth of that cattle country, except Mrs. Roberts, seemed to think

it worth while to keep a cow for the milk that was in her, and all the

cows were wild as antelope. Roosevelt and Sewall and Dow among them

roped one on the range and threw her, and sat on her, and milked her

upside down, which was not altogether satisfactory, but was, for the

time being, the best thing they could do.

Meals became an altogether different matter from what they had been at

the Maltese Cross where men were kings of the kitchen. "Eating was a

sort of happy-go-lucky business at the Maltese Cross," remarked Bill

Sewall subsequently. "You were happy if you got something, an' you

were lucky too." There was now a new charm in shooting game, with

women at home to cook it. And Mrs. Sewall baked bread that was not at

all like the bread Bill baked. Soon she was even baking cake, which

was an unheard-of luxury in the Bad Lands. Then, after a while, the

buffalo berries and wild plums began to disappear from the bushes

roundabout and appear on the table as jam.

"However big you build the house, it won't be big enough for two

women," pessimists had remarked. But their forebodings were not

realized. At Elkhorn no cross word was heard. They were, taken

altogether, a very happy family. Roosevelt was "the boss" in the sense

that, since he footed the bills, power of final decision was his; but

only in that sense. He saddled his own horse; now and then he washed

his own clothes; he fed the pigs; and once, on a rainy day, he blacked

the Sunday boots of every man, woman, and child in the place. He was

not encouraged to repeat that performance. The folks from Maine made

it quite clear that if the boots needed blacking at all, which was

doubtful, they thought some one else ought to do the blacking--not at

all because it seemed to them improper that Roosevelt should black

anybody's boots, but because he did it so badly. The paste came off on

everything it touched. The women "mothered" him, setting his

belongings to rights at stated intervals, for he was not conspicuous

for orderliness. He, in turn, treated the women with the friendliness

and respect he showed to the women of his own family. And the little

Sewall girl was never short of toys.

Elkhorn Ranch was a joyous place those days. Cowboys, hearing of it,

came from a distance for a touch of home life and the luxury of

hearing a woman's voice.

Roosevelt's days were full of diverse activities, and the men who

worked with him at Elkhorn were the pleasantest sort of companions.

Bill Sewall, who, as Sylvane described him, was "like a track-hound on

the deer-trail," had long ago given up the idea of making a cowboy of

himself, constituting himself general superintendent of the house and

its environs and guardian of the womenfolks. Not that the women

needed protection. There was doubtless no safer place for women in the

United States at that moment than the Bad Lands of the Little

Missouri; and Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Dow could have been counted on to

handle firearms as fearlessly if not as accurately as Bill himself.

But Bill tended the famished, unhappy-looking potato-patch for them,

and with characteristic cheerfulness did the other chores, being quite

content to leave to Roosevelt and Dow and another young cowpuncher

named Rowe the riding of "sunfishers" and such things. He had a level

head and an equable temper, and the cowpunchers all liked him. When a

drunken cowboy, who had been a colonel in the Confederate army,

accosted him one day in Joe Ferris's store with the object apparently

of starting a fight, it was Sewall's quiet good nature that made his

efforts abortive.

"You're a damned pleasant-looking man," exclaimed the Southerner.

Sewall smiled at him. "I am," he said. "You can't find a pleasanter

man anywhere round." Which was the essential truth about Bill Sewall.

Of all Roosevelt's friends up and down the river, Sewall's nephew,

Will Dow, was possibly the one who had the rarest qualities of

intellect and spirit. He had a poise and a winsome lovableness that

was not often found in that wild bit of country combined with such

ruggedness of character. He had a droll and altogether original sense

of humor, and an imagination which struck Roosevelt as extraordinary

in its scope and power and which disported itself in the building of

delightful yarns.

"He was always a companion that was sought wherever he went," said

Bill Sewall. "There are men who have the faculty of pleasing and

creating mirth and he was one of that kind."

Rowe was a different sort, of coarser fiber, but himself not without

charm. He was a natural horseman, fearless to recklessness, an

excellent worker, and a fighting man with a curious streak of

gentleness in him that revolted against the cruelty of the

branding-iron. Most men accepted the custom of branding cattle and

horses as a matter of course. There was, in fact, nothing to do save

accept it, for there was no other method of indicating the ownership

of animals which could be reasonably relied on to defy the ingenuity

of the thieves. Attempts to create opinion against it were regarded as

sentimental and pernicious and were suppressed with vigor.

But Rowe had plenty of courage. "Branding cattle is rotten," he

insisted, in season and out of season; adding on one occasion to a

group of cowpunchers standing about a fire with branding-irons in

their hands, "and you who do the branding are all going to hell."

"Aw," exclaimed a cowboy, "there ain't no hell!"

"You watch," Rowe retorted. "You'll get there and burn just as that

there cow."

In comparison to the lower reaches of the Little Missouri where

Elkhorn Ranch was situated, the country about the Maltese Cross was

densely populated. Howard Eaton, eight or ten miles away on Beaver

Creek, was Elkhorn's closest neighbor to the north; "Farmer" Young,

the only man in the Bad Lands who had as yet attacked the problem of

agriculture in that region, was the nearest neighbor to the south. Six

or eight miles beyond Farmer Young lived some people named Wadsworth.

Wadsworth was an unsocial being whom no one greatly liked. He had been

the first man to bring cattle into the Bad Lands, and it was some of

his cattle, held by Ferris and Merrifield on shares, which Roosevelt

had bought in the autumn of 1883.

Roosevelt's first call on Mrs. Wadsworth had its serio-comic aspects.

The Wadsworths had a great wolf-hound whom Roosevelt himself described

as "a most ill-favored hybrid, whose mother was a Newfoundland and

whose father was a large wolf," and which looked, it seemed, more like

a hyena than like either of its parents. The dog both barked and

howled, but it had a disconcerting habit of doing neither when it was

on business bent. The first intimation Roosevelt had of its existence

one day, as he was knocking at the door of the Wadsworth cabin, was a

rush that the animal made for his trousers.

Pete Pellessier, a round-faced, genial cowpuncher from Texas,

subsequently told about it. "It was one of those dogs that come

sneaking around, never a growl or anything else--just grab a hunk of

your leg to let you know they're around. That's the kind of a dog this

was. Roosevelt just started to make a bow to Mrs. Wadsworth, 'way

over, real nice. Well, that dog flew and grabbed him in the seat of

the pants--he had on corduroy pants.

"'Get out of here, you son-of-a-gun!' he says; 'get out of here, I

tell you!'

"Then he turns to Mrs. Wadsworth. 'I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wadsworth,'

he says politely, 'that dog was grabbing me an'--'

"Just then the dog reached for another helping. 'Get out of here!'

Roosevelt shouts to the dog, and then turns back, 'How do you do?' he

says to Mrs. Wadsworth. But the dog came back a third time, and that

time Roosevelt gave that wolf-hound a kick that landed him about ten

rods off. An' Roosevelt went on with his visiting."

It was a free and joyous life that Roosevelt lived with his

warm-hearted companions at Elkhorn those late summer days of 1885. Now

and then, when work was done, he would sit on the porch for an hour or

two at a time, watching the cattle on the sand-bars, "while," as he

wrote subsequently, "the vultures wheeled overhead, their black

shadows gliding across the glaring white of the dry river-bed." Often

he would sink into his rocking-chair, grimy and hot after the day's

work, and read Keats and Swinburne for the contrast their sensuous

music offered to the vigorous realities about him; or, forgetting

books, he would just rock back and forth, looking sleepily out across

the river while the scarlet crests of the buttes softened to rose and

then to lavender, and lavender gave place to shadowy gray, and gray

gave place to the luminous purple of night. The leaves of the

cottonwood trees before the house were never still, and often the

cooing of mourning doves would come down to him from some high bough.

He heard the thrush in the thicket near by, and in the distance the

clanging cries of the water-fowl. He knew the note of every bird, and

they were like friends calling to him.

XIX

We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men,

But we had to come to town to get the mail.

And we're ridin' home at daybreak--'cause the air is cooler then--

All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail.

Shorty's nose won't bear paradin', Bill's off eye is darkly fadin',

All our toilets show a touch of disarray;

For we found that City life is a constant round of strife,

And we ain't the breed for shyin' from a fray.

Chant your war-whoops, pardners dear, while the east turns pale with fear,

And the chaparral is tremblin' all aroun';

For we're wicked to the marrer; we're a midnight dream of terror,

When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town!

Badger CLARK

Meanwhile, as the months passed by, Medora was growing, and stretching

itself. Even the Mandan _Pioneer_, a hundred and fifty miles to the

east, thought it worth its while to brag about it.

Medora is distinctively a cattle town [runs the comment],

and is ambitious to be the cattle market of the Northwest.

In two years it has grown from absolutely nothing to be a

town which possesses a number of fine buildings, and

represents a great many dollars of capital. The Black Hills

freight depot is a well-built, substantial building. A

number of brick houses have been built during the last year,

including a very neat and attractive Catholic church, and a

large hotel.

The _Pioneer_ did not see fit to say that most of the "fine buildings"

had been built by one man and that on the slender reed of that man's

business acumen the prosperity of the whole community rested. To

have done so would possibly have seemed like looking a gift-horse in

the mouth. And Medora's prosperity appeared solid enough, in all

conscience. Things were, in fact, humming. There was now a clothing

store in town, a drug store, a hardware store, a barber shop. Backed

by Roosevelt, Joe Ferris had erected a two-story structure on the

eastern bank and moved his store from Little Missouri to be an active

rival of the Marquis's company store. A school was built (by whom and

with what funds remains mysterious) and Bill Dantz was made

Superintendent of Education; and next to Joe's store, opposite the

office of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, Fisher laid the beginnings of

Medora's Great White Way with a roller-skating pavilion, where the

cowboys who drifted into town, drunk or sober, exhibited their skill

to the hilarious delight of their friends.

But the architectural monuments in which Medora's opulence most

vigorously expressed itself were the saloons. The number of these

varied, according to the season. Sometimes there were a dozen,

sometimes there were more, for no one bothered about a license and any

one with ten dollars and a jug of rum could start his own "liquor

parlor."

Among the saloons Bill Williams's stood in a class by itself. He, too,

had followed civilization to Medora, establishing himself first in a

small building near Joe's store, and, when that burnt down, in an

imposing two-story frame structure which the Marquis de Mores built

for him. The bar-room was on the first floor and above it was a huge

hall which was used for public meetings and occasionally for dances.

The relation of the dance-hall to the bar-room had its disadvantages,

especially when the shooting began. The bar-room itself was a

sumptuous affair, for Williams had the shrewdness to know that it was

not only rum that the lonely cowpuncher sought when he pushed in the

swinging doors. The place was never closed, night or day, and the faro

wheel was seldom silent.

The other saloons could not compete with the gorgeousness with which

Bill Williams edged the cloud of robbery and ruin that hung about his

iniquitous saloon; when they seemed for a night to compete, drawing to

their own hospitable bars the cowpunchers whom Williams looked upon as

his own legitimate prey, he had a way of standing at his door and

shooting indiscriminately into the night. Out of a dozen rum-shops

would pour excited cowboys eager to know "what the shooting was

about," and as they crowded inquisitively about his bar, trade would

once more become brisk in Bill Williams's saloon.

[Illustration: Hell-Roaring Bill Jones.]

[Illustration: Bill Williams's saloon (1919).]

Bill Williams was a _bona-fide_ "bad man." So also was Maunders. But

they were of Medora's hundred-odd permanent inhabitants during that

summer of 1885, the only ones who might with complete fidelity to

facts have been so designated. Others blew in and blew out again,

creating a little disturbance and drifting west. The great majority

of Medora's noisy population were merely light-hearted youngsters

who had not yet outgrown their love for fire-crackers.

Under the title "Styles in the Bad Lands," the Dickinson _Press_

reprinted certain "fashion notes" from the columns of an enterprising

contemporary:

The Estelline (Dak.) _Bell_ has been at some trouble to

collect the following latest fashion notes for the benefit

of its Bad Lands readers: The "gun" is still worn on the

right hip, slightly lower down than formerly. This makes it

more convenient to get at during a discussion with a friend.

The regular "forty-five" still remains a favorite. Some

affect a smaller caliber, but it is looked upon as slightly

dudish. A "forty," for instance, may induce a more artistic

opening in an adversary, but the general effect and

mortality is impaired. The plug of tobacco is still worn in

the pocket on the opposite side from the shooter, so when

reaching for the former, friends will not misinterpret the

move and subsequently be present at your funeral. It is no

longer considered necessary to wait for introductions before

proceeding to get the drop. There will be time enough for

the mere outward formalities of politeness at the inquest.

The trimming of the "iron" is still classic and severe, only

a row of six cartridges grouped around the central barrel

being admissible. Self-cockers are now the only style seen

in the best circles.[19] Much of the effectiveness of the

gun was formerly destroyed by having to thumb up the hammer,

especially when the person with whom you were conversing

wore the self-cocking variety. It has been found that on

such occasions the old-style gun was but little used except

in the way of circumstantial evidence at the inquest.

Shooting from the belt without drawing is considered hardly

the thing among gentlemen who do not wish to be considered

as attempting to attract notice. In cases where the

gentleman with whom you are holding a joint debate already

has the drop, his navy six having a hair trigger, and he

being bound to shoot, anyway, this style of discussion is

allowable, though apt to cause a coldness to spring up. As

regards the number of guns which it is admissible to wear,

great latitude is allowed, from one up to four being noted

on the street and at social gatherings. One or two is

generally considered enough, except where a sheriff with a

reputation of usually getting his man and a Winchester rifle

is after you, when we cannot too strongly impress upon the

mind of the reader the absolute necessity for going well

heeled.

[Footnote 19: "Whoever wrote that was badly off his

base. The simon-pure cowpuncher would not accept a

self-cocker as a gift. They laughed at them in fact.

Once, on a bet, a cowpuncher shot off all six shots with

his single-action Colt .45 while his opponent was

getting off three with his self-cocker."--_Lincoln

Lang._]

In Medora in those midsummer days of 1885, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was

the life of every party. Wherever there was deviltry, there was Bill

Jones, profane and obscene beyond description, but irresistibly

comical. He was as lean and muscular as John Falstaff was short and

fat, but the divergences between the genial old reprobate of Eastcheap

and the saturnine, but by no means unlovable, rapscallion of Medora

were less striking than the qualities they had in common. He had good

friends, none better than the gay, infinitely pathetic patrician's

son, Van Zander, who played Prince Hal to him, light-heartedly

flipping a fortune in the air as others, essentially less admirable,

might have flipped a dollar.

"Deacon" Cummins thought Bill Jones dreadful, which naturally incited

Bill Jones always to do the worst that was in him to do whenever the

"Deacon" was within earshot. He found delight in drawing up beside him

on the round-up and pouring forth every evil tale he knew.

"Jones, I don't know why you tell those stories when I'm around," the

"Deacon" would exclaim, not without pathos. "You know I don't like

them."

After his first encounter with Roosevelt in the office of the _Bad

Lands Cowboy_, Bill Jones told him no foul stories. The contrast

between Bill Jones's attitude toward a virtuous man who was strong and

a virtuous man who was weak might furnish a theme for many sermons.

The antics of Saturday nights were many and some of them were

explosive, but on the whole men looked more tolerantly on the shackles

of civilization in Medora in 1885 than they had in 1884. The

vigilantes' raid had undoubtedly chased the fear of God into the

hearts of the evil-doers.

Whatever can be said against the methods adopted by the

"stranglers" who came through here last fall [remarked the

_Bad Lands Cowboy_], it cannot but be acknowledged that the

result of their work has been very wholesome. Not a definite

case of horse-stealing from a cowman has been reported

since, and it seems as though a very thorough clean-up had

been made.

The ranch-owners, evidently, did not find the situation as

satisfactory as Packard found it, for in July the Little Missouri

River Stockmen's Association, of which Roosevelt was chairman,

determined to organize a posse to "clean up" the country north of the

railroad between the Missouri and the Little Missouri rivers.

Osterhaut, captain of the round-up, was appointed leader and half a

dozen ranchmen contributed a cowboy apiece. Roosevelt sent Sewall as

his representative.

The route was through about as wild and unsettled a portion

of the country as can be found now, so the people here say

[Sewall wrote his brother on his return], and the oldest

heads seemed to think thare might be some danger, but we saw

nothing worse than ourselves.

Once more, that August, Packard raised his voice in favor of the

organization of the county, but once more mysterious forces blocked

his efforts. Meanwhile, the Stockmen's Association was exerting a

stabilizing influence that was as quiet as it was profound. No one

talked about it, or thought much about it. But to evil-doers, it

loomed uncomfortably in the background. Sometime during the year 1885,

the Association voted to employ a stock inspector at Medora to examine

the brands of all cattle shipped thence to Chicago. This was a

distinct check to the thieves, and might have been checkmate, if the

Association had not seen fit to appoint to the position the same Joe

Morrill who as United States deputy marshal had already exhibited a

tenderness toward the lawbreakers which was almost if not altogether

criminal. What Roosevelt's attitude was to this appointment is not

known; but he was under no illusions in regard to Morrill.

Amid the tumult and excitement of life in Medora that summer of 1885,

the consolations of organized religion were more inaccessible even

than the services of an earthly physician, and there was no servant of

Christ, of any creed or any denomination, who ministered to the men

and women scattered through that wild region in a manner even remotely

comparable to the self-sacrificing devotion with which Dr. Stickney

ministered to them. That excellent disciple of the Lord doctored

broken spirits even as he doctored broken bodies. The essentials of

religion, which are love and service, he gave with both hands from a

full heart; the "trimmings" he left to the parsons.

These "trimmings" were, it seemed, the only things which the few

professional men of God who drifted into Medora were able to

contribute. With the exception of the Roman Catholic chapel, erected

by the Marquise de Mores as a thank-offering after the birth of her

two children, there was no church of any denomination in Little

Missouri or Medora, or, in fact, anywhere in Billings County; and in

the chapel there were services not more than once or twice a month.

Occasionally an itinerant Methodist or Baptist, whom no one knew

anything about, blew in from anywhere, and blew out again; and if he

was seen no more there were no lamentations.[20] Services of a sort

were held in the "depot," in one of the stores or in the dance-hall

over Bill Williams's saloon, but attendance was scanty.

[Footnote 20: The Dickinson _Press_ burst into verse in

describing the exploits of one of the preachers.

"Of a gospel preacher we now will tell

Who started from Glendive to save souls from hell.

At the Little Missouri he struck a new game,

With the unregenerate, 'Honest John' is its name.

"He indulged too much in the flowing bowls,

And forgot all about the saving of souls,

But 'dropped' his three hundred, slept sweetly and well,

And let the Little Missourians wander to ----

that place whose main principles of political economy are

brimstone and caloric."

But the verses tell only half the story. As Sylvane

Ferris relates it Bill Williams, conniving with Jess

Hogue to fleece the preacher, gave him the impression

that he too was losing heavily; and actually shed tears.

The preacher was heard to murmur, as he staggered into

the night, "I don't mind losing my own money, but I am

so sorry for that nice Mr. Williams."]

The inhabitants of the Bad Lands did not greatly feel the need of

spiritual instruction, and were inclined to seek consolation, when

they needed it, in "Forty-Mile Red-Eye" rather than in theology.

"Anything or any one associated with religion or spiritual living was

shunned," Bill Dantz explained in after days, "religion being looked

on as an institution for old women and weaklings. Such traveling

evangelists and, later, regular pastors as came to the Northwest were

treated with respect, but never came within miles of the intimacy or

confidence of the cowboys. Such early congregations as clustered about

the pioneer churches were the newly arrived 'nesters' or homesteaders

of the towns; the cowboys never. There could be no possible community

of interests between book-learned men of sedentary profession and a

half-tamed, open-range horseman."

The reason, of course, was that the missionaries were fundamentally

less honest and virtuous than the gay-hearted argonauts to whom they

attempted to bring the gospel; and their patient listeners, who had no

illusions concerning their own piety, nevertheless knew it. The

preachers, moreover, were less than human. They preached interminable

sermons. Discourses lasting an hour and a half were common, and even

lengthier ones were not unusual. The parsons were hopelessly

thick-skinned, moreover, and impervious to hints. When on one

occasion, at which Sylvane was present, the congregation began to

consult their watches, the preacher, instead of bringing his sermon to

a close, exclaimed, "See here, you don't want to be lookin' at your

watches. You don't hear a sermon often."

One missionary, the representative of a certain Home Mission Society,

came to Packard, saying that he wanted to start a church in Medora,

and asking Packard for his moral support. Packard agreed that a church

might be useful and secured the baggage-room at the "depot" for an

auditorium. The man held his first services, preaching an hour and a

half.

"See here," said Packard when the performance was over, "this won't

do. You preach altogether too long."

"Well," asked the preacher, "how long shall it be?"

"Your whole service oughtn't to be longer than your sermon was."

The missionary it appeared, was eager to please. The following Sunday

he preached three quarters of an hour.

But Packard was still dissatisfied. "Cut it to fifteen minutes," he

insisted. "You can say all you have to say in that time."

The third Sunday the missionary did not appear. He had found it

necessary to make a swift exit from his domicile, departing by one

door as a sheriff entered by another. He had, it seems, knocked in the

head of one of his parishioners with a hatchet.

Experiences of this sort were not calculated to inspire respect for

the clergy in the minds of the cowpunchers.

"Them preachers," Sylvane subsequently remarked, "broke us fellows

from going to church."

But though religion did not flourish in the alkaline soil of the Bad

Lands, the fundamental American principle of orderly government, based

on the consent of the governed, slowly and with many setbacks took

root. The town of Medora itself began to sober down. Joe Ferris was a

rock of defense for law and order. In disputes, instead of clutching

at the six-shooter, men began to turn to Joe as an arbitrator, knowing

that he was honest and fair and had a sense of humor. Packard,

moreover, had established himself firmly in the respect and affection

of his neighbors, and his reiterations, week after week and month

after month, of certain notions of order and decency, gradually began

to have their effect. The _Cowboy_ became the dominant factor in

Medora's struggle toward maturity.

From out of the blue ether and the whimsical generosity of Fate,

meanwhile, had come an assistant for Packard who gave new zest to his

adventure. His name was Johnny O'Hara, and Packard always insisted

that he came as a gift from the gods.

"In all literature there was only one like him," said Packard in after

days, "and that was Kim. And Kim's name was O'Hara. As chela to Teshoo

Lama, Kim acquired merit. As devil in the _Bad Lands Cowboy_ office,

Johnny acquired a place in my estimation only to be described in the

beatitudes of an inspired writer. Kim went out with his begging-bowl

and he and his Lama feasted bounteously. Johnny boarded passenger

trains with an armful of the _Cowboy_ and returned with enough money

to pay current expenses. Kim played the great game with Strickland

Sahib and attained rupees sufficient for a ride on the tee-rain.

Johnny took the remains of a bunch of bananas I had ordered by express

from St. Paul and sold them for enough to pay for the first and even a

second one. Two banana feasts for nothing, plus a profit! Kim came

from the top of Zam-Zanneh to his chelaship with Teshoo Lama. Johnny

came from the top of Mount Olympus or the biggest butte in the Bad

Lands to become my right hand. Blessed be the name of O'Hara, be it

Kim or Johnny."

They worked together, with Joe Ferris and Sylvane and Merrifield and

Gregor Lang and Howard Eaton, the solid citizens, and Roosevelt, the

aggressive champion of order, to establish America in a patch of

sagebrush wilderness.

XX

Bill's head was full o' fire

An' his gizzard full o' rum,

An' the things he said wuz rich an' red

An' rattled as they come.

Dave wuz on his stummick,

Readin' the news at his ease-like,

When Bill comes, brave, sayin' what he'll do to Dave

In words what could walk away, cheese-like.

Ol' Bill's fist wuz man-size

Sure as any alive--

But Dave, never squintin', turns over the printin'

An' there wuz his Forty-five.

Bill he chokes an' swallers,

But Dave he's gentle an' mild,

An' they talks together o' cows an' the weather,

An' allows they is re-con-ciled.

From _Medora Nights_

Where, meanwhile, was the Marquis de Mores?

A casual observer, during the spring of 1885, might have remarked that

physically he was never long at any one place; but that metaphorically

he was on the crest of the wave. The erection of the great abattoir,

which had replaced the more primitive structure built in 1883, gave an

impression of great prosperity. Actually, however, it was a symptom of

failure. It had, in fact, been erected only because of the

irremediable inefficiency of the original smaller structure. By the

end of 1884 the Marquis had discovered that the slaughtering of

twenty-five head of cattle a day could not, by the most painstaking

application of "business methods," be made profitable. It took more

than butchers, the Marquis found, to operate a slaughter-house. An

engine was needed and an engineer, a foreman, a bookkeeper, a

hide-man, a tallow-man, a blood-man, a cooper, and a night-watchman.

These men could easily take care of three or four hundred head a day,

and they were required to take care only of twenty-five.

The Marquis was not without executive ability. He had, since the

preceding autumn, sought competent advisers, moreover, and followed

their suggestions. Among other things, these advisers had told him

that, owing to the unusual quality of the stem-cured grass in the Bad

Lands, beef fit for market could be slaughtered as early as the first

of June when beef commanded a high price.

Accordingly, on June 1st the new abattoir was opened. Every precaution

against waste had, it seemed, been taken, and for fear lest the branch

houses in Kansas City, Bismarck, and elsewhere should be unable to

absorb the output of the slaughter-house and interrupt its steady

operation, the Marquis secured a building on West Jackson Street,

Chicago, where the wholesale dealers in dressed beef had their stalls,

with the purpose of there disposing of his surplus.

[Illustration: Hotel de Mores.]

[Illustration: The abattoir of the Marquis de Mores.]

A hundred head of cattle were slaughtered daily at the new abattoir.

At last the plant was efficient. The Marquis had a right to

congratulate himself. But unexpectedly a fresh obstacle to success

obtruded itself. The experts had been wrong; the beef proved of

poor quality. The branch houses disposed of it with difficulty, and

the retail dealers in Chicago refused to buy. Although dressed beef

was produced there in enormous quantities for Eastern markets, the

local consumer had a prejudice against cold-storage meat. He did not

like grass-fed beef, moreover. It was as good or better than corn-fed

beef, but he was not accustomed to it, and would not change his habits

even at a saving.

It was a staggering blow, but the Marquis was a fighting man and he

took it without wincing. Packard, discussing the situation with him

one day, pointed out to him that the cattle could not possibly be

stall-fed before they were slaughtered as no cattle feed was raised

short of the corn country, hundreds of miles to the south.

The Marquis was not noticeably perturbed by this recital of an obvious

fact. "I am arranging to buy up the hop crop of the Pacific coast," he

answered calmly. "This I will sell to the Milwaukee and St. Louis

brewers on an agreement that they shall return to me all the resultant

malt after their beer is made. This I will bring to Medora in tank

cars. It is the most concentrated and fattening food to be bought. I

will cover the town site south of the track with individual

feeding-pens; thousands of them. Not only can I hold fat cattle as

long as I wish, but I will feed cattle all the year round and always

have enough to keep the abattoir running."

There was something gorgeous in the Marquis's inability to know when

he was beaten. His power of self-hypnotism was in fact, amazing, and

the persistence with which he pursued new bubbles, in his efforts to

escape from the devils which the old ones had hatched as they burst,

had its attractive side.

"The Medora Stage and Forwarding Company," the Dickinson _Press_

announced on May 16th, "is a total wreck." It was; and shortly after,

Van Driesche, most admirable of valets and now the Marquis's private

secretary, went with "Johnny" Goodall, foreman of the Marquis's ranch,

to Deadwood to salvage what they could from the rocks.

But two weeks later the Marquis had a new dream. The _Press_ announced

it; "The Marquis de Mores believes he has discovered kaoline, a clay

from which the finest pottery is made, near the town of Medora." The

inference is clear. If Medora could not rival Chicago, it might easily

rival Sèvres or Copenhagen.

For all the Marquis's endeavors to outface fortune, however, and to

win success somewhere, somehow, beyond this valley of a hundred

failures, the Nemesis which every man creates out of his limitations

was drawing her net slowly and irresistibly about him. He had no

friends in Medora. His foreign ways and his alien attitude of mind

kept him, no doubt against his own desires, outside the warm circle of

that very human society. He was an aristocrat, and he did not

understand the democratic individualism of the men about him. "The

Marquis," as one of his associates later explained, "always had the

idea of being the head of something or other, and tried to run

everything he had anything to do with."

The Marquis loved the Bad Lands; there was no question about that. "I

like this country," he said to J. W. Foley, who became his

superintendent about this time, "because there is room to turn around

without stepping on the feet of others." The trouble was, however,

that with a man of the Marquis's qualities and limitations, the Desert

of Sahara would scarcely have been wide enough and unsettled enough to

keep him content with his own corner of it. He seemed fated to step on

other people's toes, possibly because at bottom he did not greatly

care if he did step on them when they got in the way.

"De Mores," said Lincoln Lang, "seemed to think that some sort of

divine right reposed in him to absorb the entire Little Missouri

country and everything in it."

He had king's blood in him, in fact, and the genealogy which he

solemnly revealed to Foley reached into an antiquity staggeringly

remote, and made Bourbons and Guelphs, Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs

appear by comparison as very shoddy parvenus. He claimed descent on

the maternal side from Caius Mucius, who, as Livy relates, crossed the

Tiber to slay King Porsena and killed the King's secretary by mistake,

a piece of business so similar to certain actions of the man who

claimed him for an ancestor as to lend some color to the claim. De

Mores was related more or less nearly to the Orleans family which had

never renounced what it regarded as its title to the throne of France;

and he himself had his eye on a crown. Behind all his activities in

the Bad Lands loomed a grandiose purpose. To one or two of his

associates he revealed it. He would make a great fortune in America,

he declared, then return to France and, with the glitter of his

dollars about him, gain control of the French army and by a _coup

d'état_ make himself King of France.

It was a gorgeous piece of day-dreaming; but its fulfillment was, in

those middle eighties, not beyond the border of the possible.

As the only rival for leadership in the Bad Lands of this aspirant for

a throne stood, by one of Fate's queerest whimsies, a man who also had

his eye on one of the high places of this world. The Marquis de Mores

was the leader, or if not the leader at least the protector, of the

forces of reaction; Theodore Roosevelt was the leader of the forces of

progress. They were both in the middle twenties, both aristocrats by

birth, both fearless and adventurous; but one believed in privilege

and the other believed in equality of opportunity.

"When it came to a show-down, the Marquis was always there," said Dr.

Stickney, who watched the quiet struggle for supremacy with a

philosophic eye, "but he had no judgment. You couldn't expect it. He

was brought up in the army. He was brought up in social circles that

didn't develop judgment. He didn't know how to mix with the cowboys.

When he did mix with any of them, it was always with the worst

element. Now, when Roosevelt came to the Bad Lands he naturally

attracted the better element among the cowboys, such men as the

Ferrises and Merrifield, men of high character whose principles were

good."

And Packard said: "Roosevelt was the embodiment of the belief of

obedience to the law and the right of the majority to change it. The

Marquis was equally honest in his belief that he himself was the law

and that he had a divine right to change the law as he wished."

The conflict between the two forces in the community was quiet but

persistent. Roosevelt dined on occasion with the Marquis and the

Marquis dined on occasion with Roosevelt; they discussed horsemanship

and hunting and books; at the meeting of the Montana Stockgrowers'

Association at Miles City in April, that year, the Marquis proposed

Roosevelt for membership; on the surface, in fact, they got along

together most amicably. But under the surface fires were burning.

On one occasion, when Roosevelt and the Marquis were both in the East,

Roosevelt sent a message to his sister "Bamie," with whom he was

living, telling her that he had invited the Marquis and his wife to

dinner that evening. The message that came back from "Bamie" was, in

substance, as follows: "By all means bring them. But please let me

know beforehand whether you and the Marquis are on friendly terms at

the moment or are likely to spring at each other's throat."

"Theodore did not care for the Marquis," said "Bamie" in later years,

"but he was sorry for his wife and was constantly helping the Marquis

out of the scrapes he was forever getting into with the other

cattlemen."

There were many reasons why the relations between the two men should

not have been noticeably cordial. Roosevelt had from the start thrown

in his lot with the men who had been most emphatic in their

denunciation of the Marquis's part in the killing of Riley Luffsey.

Gregor Lang, who was the Marquis's most caustic critic, was

Roosevelt's warm friend. "Dutch Wannigan," moreover, who had been

saved only by a miracle in the memorable ambuscade, was one of

Roosevelt's cow-hands. That summer of 1885 he was night-herder for the

Maltese Cross "outfit." He was a genial soul and Roosevelt liked him.

No doubt he was fascinated also by his remarkable memory, for

"Wannigan," who was unable to read or write, could be sent to town

with a verbal order for fifty items, and could be counted on not only

to bring every article he had been sent for, but to give an exact

accounting, item by item, of every penny he had spent. For the Marquis

the presence of "Dutch Wannigan" in Roosevelt's "outfit" was, no

doubt, convincing evidence of Roosevelt's own attitude in regard to

the memorable affray of June 26th, 1883. Whatever irritation he may

have felt toward Roosevelt because of it could scarcely have been

mollified by the fact that "Dutch Wannigan," in his quiet way, was

moving heaven and earth to bring about the indictment of the Marquis

for murder.

But there was another reason why the relations between the Marquis and

Roosevelt were strained. In the Marquis's business ventures he was

constantly being confronted by unexpected and, in a sense,

unaccountable obstacles, that rose suddenly out of what appeared a

clear road, and thwarted his plans. The railroads, which gave special

rates to shippers who did far less business than he, found for one

reason or another that they could not give him any rebate at all.

Wholesale dealers refused, for reasons which remained mysterious, to

handle his meat; yard-men at important junctions delayed his cars. He

could not help but be conscious that principalities and powers that he

could not identify were working in the dark against him. He suspected

that the meat-packers of Chicago had passed the word to their allies

in Wall Street that he was to be destroyed; and assumed that

Roosevelt, bound by a dozen ties to the leaders in the business life

of New York, was in league with his enemies.

A totally unexpected incident brought the growing friction between the

two men for a flash into the open. Roosevelt had agreed to sell the

Marquis eighty or a hundred head of cattle at a price, on which they

agreed, of about six cents a pound. Accompanied by two of his

cowpunchers, he drove the cattle to the enclosure adjoining the

abattoir of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, had them

weighed, and went to the Marquis for his check.

"I am sorry I cannot pay you as much as I agreed for those cattle,"

said the Marquis.

"But you bought the cattle," Roosevelt protested. "The sale was

complete with the delivery."

"The Chicago price is down a half cent," answered the Marquis

regretfully. "I will pay you a half cent less than we agreed."

The air was electric. Packard told about it long afterwards. "It was a

ticklish situation," he said. "We all knew the price had been agreed

on the day before; the sale being completed with the delivery of the

cattle. Fluctuations in the market cut no figure. Roosevelt would have

made delivery at the agreed price even if the Chicago price had gone

up."

Roosevelt turned to the Marquis. "Did you agree to pay six cents for

these cattle?"

"Yes," the Marquis admitted. "But the Chicago price--"

"Are you going to pay six cents for them?" Roosevelt broke in.

"No; I will pay five and a half cents."

Roosevelt turned abruptly to his cowpunchers. "Drive 'em out, boys,"

he said. The men drove out the cattle.

"There was no particular ill-feeling between them," Packard said

later, "and Roosevelt gave the Marquis credit for an honest belief

that a variation in the Chicago price would cut a figure in their

agreed price. It was that very fact, however, which made impossible

any further business relations between them."

The _Pioneer Press_ of St. Paul, in its issue of August 23d, 1885,

tells its own version of the story.

About a year ago the Marquis made a verbal contract with

Theodore Roosevelt, the New York politician, who owns an

immense cattle ranch near Medora, agreeing to purchase a

number of head of cattle. Roosevelt had his stock driven

down to the point agreed upon, when the Marquis declined to

receive them, and declared that he had made no such

contract. Roosevelt stormed a little, but finally subsided

and gave orders to his men not to sell any cattle to the

Marquis or transact any business with him. The relations

between the Marquis and Roosevelt have since been somewhat

strained.

A reporter of the Bismarck _Tribune_, a few days after this story

appeared, caught Roosevelt as he was passing through the city on his

return from a flying visit to the East, and evidently asked him what

truth there was in it. His deprecation of the story is not altogether

conclusive.

Theodore Roosevelt, the young reformer of New York, passed

through this city yesterday [he writes], _en route_ to his

ranch in the Bad Lands. He was as bright and talkative as

ever, and spoke of the great opportunities of the imperial

Northwest with more enthusiasm than has ever been exhibited

by the most sanguine old-timer. Mr. Roosevelt recently had a

slight tilt with the Marquis de Mores on a cattle deal, and

the story has been exaggerated until readers of Eastern

papers are led to believe that these two cattle kings never

speak as they pass by and are looking for each other with

clubs. This is not true.

Meanwhile, during those summer months of 1885 the hot water into which

the Frenchman had flung himself when he assisted in the killing of

Riley Luffsey began to simmer once more. It came to a boil on August

26th, when a grand jury in Mandan indicted the Marquis de Mores for

murder in the first degree.

The Marquis had not been unaware how matters were shaping themselves.

When the movement to have him indicted first got under way, in fact,

it was intimated to him that a little matter of fifteen hundred

dollars judiciously distributed would cause the indictment to be

withdrawn. He inquired whether the indictment would stay withdrawn or

whether he would be subject to indictment and, in consequence, to

blackmail, during the rest of his life. He was told that since he had

never been acquitted by a jury, he might be indicted at any moment,

the next day, or ten years hence. He declared that he preferred to

clean up the matter then and there.

"I have plenty of money for defense," he said to a reporter of the New

York _Times_, adapting, not without humor, a famous American war-cry

to his own situation, "but not a dollar for blackmail."

Knowing the ways of courts, he removed himself from the Territory

while the forces were being gathered against him at Mandan.

"I determined that I would not be put in jail," he explained to the

_Times_ interviewer, "to lie there perhaps for months waiting for a

trial. Besides, a jail is not a safe place in that part of the

country. Now the court seems to be ready and so will I be in a few

days. I do not fear the result."

He was convinced that the same forces which had thwarted him in his

business enterprises were using the Luffsey episode to push him out of

the way.

"I think the charge has been kept hanging over me," he said, "for the

purpose of breaking up my business. It was known that I intended to

kill and ship beef to Chicago and other Eastern cities, and had

expended much money in preparations. If I could have been arrested and

put in jail some months ago, it might have injured my business and

perhaps have put an end to my career."

The Marquis was convinced that it was Roosevelt who was financing the

opposition to him and spoke of him with intense bitterness.

The indictment of the Marquis, meanwhile, was mightily agitating the

western part of the Territory. Sentiment in the matter had somewhat

veered since the first trials which had been held two years before.

The soberer of the citizens, recognizing the real impetus which the

Marquis's energy and wealth had given to the commercial activity of

the West Missouri region, were inclined to sympathize with him. There

was a widespread belief that in the matter of the indictment the

Marquis had fallen among thieves.

The Marquis returned from the East about the last day of August, and

gave himself up to the sheriff at Mandan. He was promptly lodged in

jail. The remark he had made to the interviewer in New York, that a

jail was not a safe place in Dakota, proved prophetic. A mob, composed

of cowboys and lumberjacks, bombarded the jail in which the Marquis

was confined. At the close of the bombardment, Roosevelt, who happened

to be in Mandan, on his way to the East, called on the Marquis.

In the Marquis's cell he found the Frenchman with his faithful valet

and secretary. The secretary was under the bed, but the Marquis was

sitting on its edge, calmly smoking a cigarette.

As the date for the trial drew near, feeling rose. The idle and

vociferous elements in the town discovered that the Marquis was a

plutocrat and an enemy of the people, and called thirstily for his

blood. There was a large Irish population, moreover, which remembered

that the slain man had borne the name of Riley and (two years after

his demise) hotly demanded vengeance. The Marquis declared that, with

popular sentiment as it was, he could not be given a fair trial, and

demanded a change of venue. It was granted. The mob, robbed of its

prey, howled in disappointment. A mass meeting was held and

resolutions were passed calling for the immediate removal of the

iniquitous judge who had granted the Marquis's petition.

The trial, which began on September 15th, was more nerve-racking for

the lawyers than for the defendant. For the witnesses were elusive.

The trial seemed to be regarded by the majority of those connected

with it as a gracious act of Providence for the redistribution of some

of the Marquis's wealth. Everybody, it seemed, was thrusting a finger

into the Marquis's purse. One of his friends later admitted that the

Frenchman's money had been freely used, "but, of course, only," he

blandly explained, "to persuade the witnesses to tell the truth."

McFay, a carpenter, who had distinguished himself at the previous

trial by the melodramatic quality of his testimony, proved the

peskiest witness of all. He was spending his days and his nights

during the trial gambling and living high. Whenever his money gave out

he called at the office of one of the Marquis's supporters to "borrow"

fifty dollars to continue his revelry, and the victim was too much

afraid of what fiction he might tell the jury to refuse him. It was

determined in solemn conclave, however, that McFay should be the first

witness called, and disposed of.

The lawyers breathed a sigh of relief when the time came to put the

shifty carpenter on the stand. But just as he was to be called, McFay

drew aside the friend of the Marquis whom he had so successfully bled.

"Come outside a minute," he said.

The friend went.

"My memory is getting damn poor," declared the carpenter.

"How much do you want?"

"Oh, five hundred."

He got it. The trial proceeded.

One juror was, for no reason which they themselves could adequately

analyze, withdrawn by the Marquis's attorneys at the last minute. He

told one of them years after that, if he had been allowed to serve, he

would have "hung up the jury until some one had passed him ten

thousand." It was a close shave.

Two items in the testimony were notably significant. One was

contributed by the Marquis: "O'Donald and Luffsey discharged all the

barrels of their revolvers," he said, "and then began to shoot with

their rifles." The other item was contributed by Sheriff Harmon, who

arrested O'Donald and "Dutch Wannigan" immediately after the affray.

He testified "that the guns and pistols of the hunters were loaded

when handed to him."

The jury made no attempt to pick its way through contradictions such

as this, and returned to the court room after an absence of ten

minutes with a verdict of "not guilty."