XVIII.

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, anddriving 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 haveworked as hard as any of the cowboys; but I have enjoyed it greatly. Yesterday I was eighteen hours in the saddle—from 4A.M.to 10P.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.

I have been three weeks on the round-up and haveworked as hard as any of the cowboys; but I have enjoyed it greatly. Yesterday I was eighteen hours in the saddle—from 4A.M.to 10P.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.

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 thebusiness 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.[Back to Contents]

Somewhere on some faded pageI read about a Golden Age,But gods and Caledonian huntsWere nothing to what I knew once.Here on these hills was hunting! HereAntelope sprang and wary deer.Here there were heroes! On these plainsWere 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 storyAnd words of love and dreams of glory!Here there were friends! Ah, night will fallAnd clouds or the stars will cover all,But I, when I go as a ghost againTo the gaunt, grim buttes, to the friendly plainI know that for all that time can doTo scatter the faithful, estrange the true—Quietly, in the lavender sage,Will be waiting the friends of my golden age.

Here there were feasts of song and storyAnd words of love and dreams of glory!Here there were friends! Ah, night will fallAnd clouds or the stars will cover all,But I, when I go as a ghost againTo the gaunt, grim buttes, to the friendly plainI know that for all that time can doTo scatter the faithful, estrange the true—Quietly, in the lavender sage,Will be waiting the friends of my golden age.

FromMedora 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 merelythe 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 toraise 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.

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 thePioneer 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 theDispatchcaught 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 canshoot, 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."

"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 theDispatchwanted 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 theDispatch, 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.

Elkhorn Ranch-house.Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt.

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 tofeast 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 footedthe 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 thatthe 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 extraordinaryin 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 LittleMissouri 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 hunkof 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 theriver 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.[Back to Contents]

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!

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 MandanPioneer, 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.

ThePioneerdid 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 communityrested. 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 theBad 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 theMarquis 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.

Hell-roaring Bill Jones.

Bill Williams's Saloon,(1919).

Bill Williams was abona-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 majorityof 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 DickinsonPressreprinted certain "fashion notes" from the columns of an enterprising contemporary:

The Estelline (Dak.)Bellhas 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-cockingvariety. 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.

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 theBad 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 theBad 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 sortwere held in the "depot," in one of the stores or in the dance-hall over Bill Williams's saloon, but attendance was scanty.

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-learnedmen 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 aftermonth, of certain notions of order and decency, gradually began to have their effect. TheCowboybecame 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 theBad Lands Cowboyoffice, 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 theCowboyand 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.[Back to Contents]

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