The blizzard abated, but the icy cold did not; another blizzard came, and another and another. Save as it was whirled by the wind, ultimately to become a part of some great drift, the snow remained where it fell. No momentary thaw came to carry away a portion of the country's icy burden, or to alleviate for a few hours the strain on the snowbound men and women in the lonely ranch-houses. On the bottoms the snow was four feet deep.

November gave way to December, and December to January. The terrible cold persisted, and over the length and breadth of the Bad Lands the drifts grew monstrous, obliterating old landmarks and creating new, to the bewilderment of the occasional wayfarer.

Blizzard followed blizzard. For the men and women on the scattered ranches, it was a period of intense strain and privation; but for the cattle, wandering over the wind-swept world of snow and ice, those terrible months brought an affliction without parallel.

No element was lacking to make the horror of the ranges complete. The country, as Roosevelt had pointed out in July, was over-stocked. Even under favorable conditions there was not enough grass to feed the cattle grazing in the Bad Lands. And conditions throughout the summer of 1886 had been menacingly unfavorable. The drought had been intense. A plague of grasshoppers had swept over the hills. Ranchmen, who were accustomed to store large quantities of hay for use in winter, harvested little or none, and were forced to turn all their cattle out on the range to shift for themselves. The range itself was barren. The stem-cured grass which generally furnished adequate nutriment had been largely consumed by the grasshoppers. What there was of it was buried deep under successive layers of snow. The new stock, the "yearlings," driven into the Bad Lands from Texas or Iowa or Minnesota, succumbed first of all. In the coulees or the creek-beds, where they sought refuge in droves from the stinging blasts of the driven snow, they stood helpless and were literally snowed under, or imprisoned by the accumulation of ice about their feet, and frozen to death where they stood. The native stock, in their shaggier coats, faced the iron desolation with more endurance, keeping astir and feeding on sagebrush and the twigs of young cottonwoods. Gaunt and bony, they hung about the ranches or drifted into Medora, eating the tar-paper from the sides of the shacks, until at last they dropped and died. There was no help that the most sympathetic humanitarian or the most agonized cattle-owner could give them; for there was no fodder. There was nothing that any one could do, except, with aching and apprehensive heart, to watch them die.

They died by thousands and tens of thousands, piled one on the other in coulees and wash-outs and hidden from sight by the snow which seemed never to cease from falling. Only the wolves and coyotes throve that winter, for the steers, imprisoned in the heavy snow, furnished an easy "kill." Sage chickens were smothered under the drifts, rabbits were smothered in their holes.

It was a winter of continuous and unspeakable tragedy. Men rode out into the storms and never reached their destinations, wandering desperately in circles and sinking down at last, to be covered like the cattle with the merciless snow. Children lost their way between ranch-house and stable and were frozen to death within a hundred yards of their homes. The "partner" of Jack Snyder, a pleasant "Dutchman," whom Roosevelt knew well, died and could not be buried, for no pick could break through that iron soil; and Snyder laid him outside the cabin they had shared, to remain there till spring came, covered also by the unremitting snow.

Here and there a woman went off her head. One such instance was productive of a piece of unconscious humor that, in its grimness, was in key with the rest of that terrible winter:

Dear Pierre [wrote a friend to Wibaux, who had gone to France for the winter, leaving his wife in charge of the ranch].—No news, except that Dave Brown killed Dick Smith and your wife's hired girl blew her brains out in the kitchen. Everything O.K. here.

Yours truly Henry JACKSON

Early in March, after a final burst of icy fury, a quietness came into the air, and the sun, burning away the haze that lay over it, shone down once more out of a blue sky. Slowly the temperature rose, and then one day, never to be forgotten, there came a warm moistness into the atmosphere. Before night fell, the "Chinook" was pouring down from beyond the mountains, releasing the icy tension and softening all things.

Last Sunday [the Dickinson Press recorded, on March 5th] the welcome Chinook wind paid us a visit, and before noon the little rills were trickling down the hills and the brown herbage began to appear through the snow in every direction; the soft, balmy wind fanning the cheek brought memories and hopes of spring to the winter-wearied denizens of our community.

"Within a day or so," said Lincoln Lang afterward, "the snow had softened everywhere. Gullies and wash-outs started to run with constantly increasing force, until at length there was a steady roar of running water, with creeks out of bounds everywhere. Then, one day, we suddenly heard a roar above that of the rushing water, coming from the direction of the Little Missouri, and hurrying there saw a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. The river was out of banks clear up into the cottonwoods and out on to the bottom, going down in a raging, muddy torrent, literally full of huge, grinding ice-cakes, up-ending and rolling over each other as they went, tearing down trees in their paths, ripping, smashing, tearing at each other and everything in their course in the effort to get out and away. The spectacle held us spellbound. None of us had ever seen anything to compare with it, for the spring freshets of other years had been mild affairs as compared to this. But there was something else that had never been seen before, and doubtless never will be seen again, for as we gazed we could see countless carcasses of cattle going down with the ice, rolling over and over as they went, so that at times all four of the stiffened legs of a carcass would point skyward as it turned under the impulsion of the swiftly moving current and the grinding ice-cakes. Now and then a carcass would become pinched between two ice-floes, and either go down entirely or else be forced out on the top of the ice, to be rafted along for a space until the cake upon which it rested suddenly up-ended or turned completely over in the maelstrom of swirling water and ice. Continuously carcasses seemed to be going down while others kept bobbing up at one point or another to replace them."

And this terrible drama continued, not for an hour or for a few hours, but for days. Only as the weeks went by and the snow retreated was it possible for the cattlemen to make any estimate of their losses. The coulees were packed with dead cattle; the sheltered places in the cottonwood trees in the bottoms along the river were packed with them. Here and there a carcass was discovered high up in a crotch of a tree where the animal had struggled over the drifts to munch the tender twigs.

"I got a saddle horse and rode over the country," said Merrifield afterward, "and I'm telling you, the first day I rode out I never saw a live animal."

The desolation of the Bad Lands was indescribable. Where hundreds of thousands of cattle had grazed the previous autumn, shambled and stumbled a few emaciated, miserable survivors. Gregor Lang, who had gone into the winter with three thousand head all told, came out of it with less than four hundred. The "Hash-Knife outfit," which had owned a hundred thousand head, lost seventy-five thousand. Not a ranchman up and down the Little Missouri lost less than half his herd.

The halcyon days of Billings County were over. What had been a flourishing cattle country was a boneyard where the agents of fertilizer factories bargained for skeletons.



XXVI

Some towns go out in a night, And some are swept bare in a day, But our town like a phantom island, Just faded away.

Some towns die, and are dead, But ours, though it perished, breathes; And, in old men and in young dreamers Still, glows and seethes.

From Medora Nights

Roosevelt returned from Europe on March 28th.

The loss among the cattle has been terrible [he wrote Sewall from New York early in April]. About the only comfort I have out of it is that, at any rate, you and Wilmot are all right; I would not mind the loss of a few hundred if it was the only way to benefit you and Will—but it will be much more than that.

I am going out West in a few days to look at things for myself.

Well, I must now try to worry through as best I may. Sometime I hope to get a chance to go up and see you all. Then I shall forget my troubles when we go off into the woods after caribou or moose.

There was no merriment this time when Roosevelt arrived in Medora. With Sylvane he rode over the ranges.

You cannot imagine anything more dreary than the look of the Bad Lands [he wrote Sewall]. Everything was cropped as bare as a bone. The sagebrush was just fed out by the starving cattle. The snow lay so deep that nobody could get around; it was almost impossible to get a horse a mile.

In almost every coulee there were dead cattle. There were nearly three hundred on Wadsworth bottom. Annie came through all right; Angus died. Only one or two of our horses died; but the O K lost sixty head. In one of Munro's draws I counted in a single patch of brushwood twenty-three dead cows and calves.

You boys were lucky to get out when you did; if you had waited until spring, I guess it would have been a case of walking.

"I don't know how many thousand we owned at Elkhorn and the Maltese Cross in the autumn of 1886," said Merrifield afterward. "But after that terrible winter there wasn't a cow left, only a few hundred sick-looking steers."

I am bluer than indigo about the cattle [Roosevelt wrote his sister Corinne]. It is even worse than I feared; I wish I was sure I would lose no more than half the money I invested out here. I am planning how to get out of it.

With Sylvane and Merrifield, with whom in other days Roosevelt had talked of golden prospects, he gloomily reviewed the tragic situation. The impulse was strong in them all to start afresh and retrieve their losses. Most of the cattlemen were completely discouraged and were selling at ridiculously low prices the stock which had survived the winter. But Roosevelt resisted the temptation.

"I can't afford to take a chance by putting in any more capital," said Roosevelt. "I haven't the right to do it."

And there the discussion ended.

There was a matter beside the wreck of his cattle business which required Roosevelt's immediate attention. George Myers was under suspicion (honest George Myers, of all men!) of being a cattle-thief. Roosevelt would have jumped to George's defense in any case, but the fact that the man who brought the charges against him was Joe Morrill, whom the forces of disorder had elected sheriff the previous April, added an extra zest to the fight.

George had, for some years, "run" a few cattle of his own with the Maltese Cross herd. Of these, two steers had, through an oversight, remained unbranded and been sent to Chicago with what was known as a "hair-brand" picked on the hide. Morrill was stock inspector as well as sheriff and allowed the animals to pass, but when Myers, shortly after, went East to visit his family, Morrill swore out a warrant for his arrest and started in pursuit.

He found Myers at Wooster, Ohio, arrested him, obtained his extradition and then, to the amazement of the local judge, released him.

"You can go now, George," he said. "When will you be ready to start back?"

"Oh, in a day or two, I guess," said George.

"That's a hell of a way to use a prisoner," exclaimed the judge.

"Thanks, judge," Morrill replied coolly, "but he's my prisoner."



They returned West shortly after, living high on the way. The sheriff had his wife with him, and it dawned on George that Joe Morrill was having an extraordinarily pleasant vacation at the expense of the taxpayers and of George's own reputation, and, in addition, was making a tidy sum of money out of the trip. His transportation, reservations, and allowance per diem were paid, of course, by the county he represented. George, having brought a load of cattle to the stock-yards, had a pass for his return. But that was the sheriff's luck, it appeared, not the county's. Morrill treated him most affably. As they were nearing Medora, in fact, he informed his prisoner that he would appear before the justice of the peace, explain that he had discovered that the charge was baseless, and ask for a dismissal of the case without a hearing on the ground that a mistake had been made.

But the sheriff was not taking into account the fact that Medora had, during the past two or three years, emerged from barbarism, and that there was such a thing as public opinion to be confronted and satisfied. To the majority of the citizens, an accusation of cattle-thieving was almost identical with a conviction, and feeling ran high for a time against George Myers. But Packard jumped into the fight and in the columns of the Bad Lands Cowboy excoriated Joe Morrill.

The affair spilled over beyond the limits of Billings County, for the Bismarck Tribune printed Morrill's version of the case, and a day or so later published a stinging letter from Packard, who was nothing if not belligerent. It did not hurt his cause that he was able to quote a statement, made by Morrill, that "there's plenty in it if the justice of the peace and the sheriff work together."

Myers, backed by Packard, refused to have the case dismissed and it was put on the calendar at Mandan. There it rested until the following spring.

Roosevelt, arriving in Medora in April, saw at once that a larger issue was at stake than even the question of doing justice to a man wrongfully accused. To have a man like Morrill officially responsible for the detection of cattle-thieves was a travesty.

He promptly sought Joe Morrill, finding him at the "depot." In his capacity as chairman of the Little Missouri River Stockmen's Association, he was in a position to speak as Morrill's employer, and he spoke with his customary directness. Gregor Lang, who happened to be present, told Lincoln afterward that he had "never heard a man get such a scathing" as Roosevelt gave the shifty stock inspector.

"Roosevelt was taking a lot of chances," said Lincoln Lang later, "because Morrill was cornered. He was known to be a gunman and a risky man to mix with."

Roosevelt ordered Morrill to resign his inspectorship at once. Morrill refused.

The annual meeting of the Montana Stock-grower's Association was to be held in Miles City the middle of the month. Roosevelt knew that the Association would not consent to sit in judgment on the case as between Myers and Morrill. He determined, therefore, to demand that the inspectorship at Medora be abolished on the ground that the inspector was worse than useless.

Roosevelt presented his charges before the Board of Stock Commissioners on April 18th. The Board was evidently reluctant to act, and, at the suggestion of certain members of it, Roosevelt, on the following day, presented the matter before the Executive Committee of the Association. He asked that the Committee request the Board of Stock Commissioners to do away with the inspectorship at Medora, but the Committee, too, was wary of giving offense. He asked twice that the Committee hear the charges. The Committee refused, referring him back to the Board of Stock Commissioners.

That Board, meanwhile, was hearing from other cattlemen in the Bad Lands. Boyce, of the great "Three-Seven outfit," supported Roosevelt's charges, and Towers, of the Towers and Gudgell Ranch near the Big Ox Bow, supported Boyce. Morrill was sent for and made a poor showing. It was evidently with hesitant spirits that the Board finally acted. Morrill was dismissed, but the Board hastened to explain that it was because its finances were too low to allow it to continue the inspectorship at Medora and passed a vote of thanks for Morrill's "efficiency and faithful performance of duty."

What Roosevelt said about the vote of thanks is lost to history. He was, no doubt, satisfied with the general result and was ready to let Morrill derive what comfort he could out of the words with which it was adorned.

Through the records of that meeting of the cattlemen, Roosevelt looms with singular impressiveness. At the meeting of the previous year he had been an initiate, an effective follower of men he regarded as better informed than himself; this year he was himself a leader. During the three years that had elapsed since he had last taken a vigorous part in the work of an important deliberative body, he had grown to an extraordinary extent. In the Legislature in Albany, and in the Republican Convention in Chicago in 1884, he had been nervous, vociferous, hot-headed, impulsive; in Miles City, in 1887, there was the same vigor, the same drive but with them a poise which the younger man had utterly lacked. On the first day of the meeting he made a speech asking for the elimination, from a report which had been submitted, of a passage condemning the Interstate Commerce Law. The house was against him almost to a man, for the cattlemen considered the law an abominable infringement of their rights.

In the midst of the discussion, a stockman named Pat Kelly, who was incidentally the Democratic boss of Michigan, rose in his seat. "Can any gentleman inform me," he inquired, "why the business of this meeting should be held up by the talk of a broken-down New York State politician?"

There was a moment's silence. The stockmen expected a storm. There was none. Roosevelt took up the debate as though nothing had interrupted it. The man from Michigan visibly "flattened out." Meanwhile, Roosevelt won his point.

He spent most of that summer at Elkhorn Ranch.

Merrifield had, like Joe Ferris, gone East to New Brunswick for a wife, and the bride, who, like Joe's wife, was a woman of education and charm, brought new life to the deserted house on Elkhorn bottom. But something was gone out of the air of the Bad Lands; the glow that had burned in men's eyes had vanished. It had been a country of dreams and it was now a country of ruins; and the magic of the old days could not be re-created.

The cattle industry of the Bad Lands, for the time being, was dead; and the pulses of the little town at the junction of the railroad and the Little Missouri began to flutter fitfully and ominously. Only the indomitable pluck of the Marquis and his deathless fecundity in conceiving new schemes of unexampled magnitude kept it alive at all. The Marquis's ability to create artificial respiration and to make the dead take on the appearance of life never showed to better effect than in that desolate year of 1887. His plan to slaughter cattle on the range for consumption along the line of the Northern Pacific was to all intents and purposes shattered by the autumn of 1885. But no one, it appears, recognized that fact, least of all the Marquis. He changed a detail here, a detail there; then, charged with a new enthusiasm, he talked success to every reporter who came to interview him, flinging huge figures about with an ease that a Rockefeller might envy; and the newspapers from coast to coast called him one of the builders of the Northwest.

His plan to sell dressed beef along the railroad gave way to a project to sell it at the wholesale stalls in Chicago. That failed. Thereupon, he evolved an elaborate and daring scheme to sell it direct to consumers in New York and other Eastern seaboard cities.

"The Marquis actually opened his stores in Fulton Market," said Packard afterward, "and there sold range beef killed in Medora. Of course his project failed. It was shot full of fatal objections. But with his magnetic personality, with his verbalistic short-jumps over every objection, with every newspaper and magazine of the land an enthusiastic volunteer in de Mores propaganda, and with the halo of the von Hoffman millions surrounding him and all his deeds, bankers and business men fell into line at the tail of the de Mores chariot. We of the Bad Lands were the first to see the fatal weaknesses in his plans, but we were believers, partly because the Marquis seemed to overcome every difficulty by the use of money, and mainly because we wanted to believe."

Dozens of shops were in fact opened by the Marquis, but the public refused to trade, even at a saving, in stores where only one kind of meat could be bought. The Marquis had all the figures in the world to prove that the public should buy; but human nature thwarted him.

The plan failed, but the Marquis, with his customary dexterity, obscured the failure with a new and even more engaging dream.

"Our company is to be merged into another very large cattle syndicate," he said in March, 1887, "and having abundant capital, we propose to buy up every retail dealer in this city either by cash or stock."

The National Consumers' Company was the name of the new organization.

There was a fine mixture of altruism and business in the first prospectus which the Marquis's new company issued:

Crushed, as so many others, by monopoly, we have been looking for the means of resisting it by uniting in a practical way with those who, like ourselves, try to make their future by their work. This has led to the organization of this company. The name of the company shows its aims. It must be worked by and for the people.

That sounded very impressive, and the newspapers began to speak of the Marquis as a true friend of the people. Meanwhile, the Bad Lands Cowboy announced:

Marquis de Mores has completed contracts with the French Government to supply its soldiers with a newly invented soup. He intends to visit Europe soon to make contracts with Western range cattle companies who have their headquarters there, for the slaughtering of their cattle.

The soup scheme evidently died stillborn, for history records nothing further of it, and less than three months after the National Consumers' Company was founded with blare of trumpets, it had collapsed. It was characteristic of von Hoffman, whose fortune was behind the undertaking, that he paid back every subscriber to the stock in full. If any one was to lose, he intimated, it was von Hoffman. But, having settled with the creditors of his expensive son-in-law, he explained to that gentleman, in words which could not be misunderstood, that he would have no more of his schemes. Von Hoffman thereupon betook himself to Europe, and the Marquis to Medora.

His optimism remained indomitable to the last. To reporters he denied vigorously that he had any intentions "of removing his business interests from Dakota."

"I like Dakota and have come to stay," he remarked. Thereupon he launched one more grandiose scheme, announcing that he had discovered a gold mine in Montana and was planning to begin working it for all it was worth as soon as his prospectors had completed their labors; and sailed for India with his intrepid Marquise to hunt tigers.

Dakota knew him no more, and under the heading, "An Ex-Dakota Dreamer," the Sioux Falls Press pronounced his epitaph:

The Marquis is a most accomplished dreamer, and so long as his fortune lasted, or his father-in-law, Baron von Hoffman, would put up the money, he could afford to dream. He once remarked confidentially to a friend, "I veel make ze millions and millions by ze great enterprizes in America, and zen I veel go home to France, and veel capture my comrades in ze French armee, an veel plot and plan, and directly zey veel put me in command, and zen I veel swoop down on ze government, and first zing you know I veel mount the zrone." One time his agent at Medora, his ranch on the Northern Pacific, wrote him at New York about the loss of three thousand head of sheep, the letter going into all the details of the affair. The Marquis turned the sheet over and wrote, "Please don't trouble me with trifles like these." He is a very pleasant gentleman to meet, but unfortunately his schemes are bigger than he is.

Medora was a town whose glory had departed. A pall was on all things, and the Cowboy was no longer present to dispel it with the cheerful optimism of old. For, one night, when the cold was most bitter, and the wind was high, a fire had started in the old cantonment building where Packard lived with his newly wedded wife, and printed the pages that had for three years brought gayety to the inhabitants of Medora, and stability to its infant institutions. The files were burned up, the presses destroyed; the Cowboy was a memory. It was as though the soul of Medora had gone out of its racked body. The remains lay rigid and voiceless.

One by one its leading citizens deserted it. Roosevelt came and went, making his long stays no longer in the West, but in the East, where "home" was now. Packard went, then Fisher, then Van Driesche.

[J. C. Maunders,] of Medora [runs an item in the Dickinson Press], is talking of moving two or three of his buildings from there to Dickinson.

It was followed by other items full of mournful import.

[J. C. Maunders,] [Joseph Morrill,] and John W. Goodall, of Medora, were here Thursday and closed contracts for several lots. They will build.

Two weeks later, the exodus began. The telling of it has a Shaksperean flavor:

Medora is coming to Dickinson. On Thursday a train came in from the west with a number of flat-cars on which were loaded the buildings of [J. C. Maunders,] who recently bought lots here.

Thus it was that the Pyramid Park Hotel, where Roosevelt had spent his first night in Little Missouri, four years previous, came to Dickinson to become a most respectable one-family dwelling. Mrs. McGeeney's hotel followed it two weeks later.

In August came the final blow:

D. O. Sweet and family have moved from Medora to Dickinson. Mr. Sweet desired to reside where there was some life and prospect of growth.

Alas, for earthly greatness, when a son of the town that was to rival Omaha should desert her with such a valedictory!



XXVII

The range is empty and the trails are blind, And I don't seem but half myself to-day. I wait to hear him ridin' up behind And feel his knee rub mine the good old way. He's dead—and what that means no man kin tell. Some call it "gone before." Where? I don't know, but, God! I know so well That he ain't here no more!

Badger CLARK

This, then, is the story of Roosevelt in the Bad Lands. What remains is epilogue.

In the autumn of 1887, Roosevelt was again with the Merrifields at Elkhorn and with Sylvane at the Maltese Cross, to assist in the round-up of a train-load of cattle which he subsequently sold at Chicago (again at a loss, for the prices for beef were even lower than the previous year). He went on a brief hunt after antelope in the broken country between the Little Missouri and the Beaver; he fought a raging prairie fire with the split and bleeding carcass of a steer; he went on another hunt late in December with a new friend named Fred Herrig, and was nearly frozen to death in a blizzard, attempting (not without success) to shoot mountain sheep; whereupon, feeling very fit, he returned East to his family and his books.

He was now increasingly busy with his writing, completing that winter a volume of vigorous sketches of the frontier, called "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," beside his "Life of Gouverneur Morris," and a book of "Essays on Practical Politics." In the autumn of 1888, he was again at Elkhorn and again on the chase, this time in the Selkirks in northern Idaho, camping on Kootenai Lake, and from there on foot with a pack on his back, ranging among the high peaks with his old guide John Willis and an Indian named Ammal, who was pigeon-toed and mortally afraid of hobgoblins.

In 1889 he became a member of the Civil Service Commission in Washington, and thereafter he saw the Bad Lands only once a year, fleeing from his desk to the open country every autumn for a touch of the old wild life and a glimpse of the old friends who yet lingered in that forsaken country.

Medora had all the desolation of "a busted cowtown" whose inhabitants, as one cowpuncher remarked in answer to a tenderfoot's inquiry, were "eleven, including the chickens, when they were all in town." All of the wicked men and most of the virtuous ones, who had lent picturesqueness to Medora in the old days, were gone. Sylvane Ferris still lingered as foreman of the cattle which Roosevelt still retained in the Bad Lands, and Joe Ferris still ran his store, officiated as postmaster, and kept a room for Roosevelt on his infrequent visits. Bill Williams shot a man and went to jail, and with him went the glory of his famous saloon. Of his old cronies, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones only remained. He was a man of authority now, for he had been elected sheriff when Joe Morrill moved his lares et penates to Dickinson. His relations with Roosevelt criss-crossed, for, as sheriff, Roosevelt was his deputy, but whenever Roosevelt went on an extended hunting trip, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was his teamster. He was, incidentally, an extraordinarily efficient teamster. He had certain profane rituals which he repeated on suitable occasions, word for word, but with an emphasis and sincerity that made them sound each time as though he had invented them under the inspiration of the immediate necessity. He had a special torrent of obscenity for his team when they were making a difficult crossing somewhere on the Little Missouri. It was always the same succession of terrifying expletives, and it always had the desired effect. It worked better than a whip.

Meanwhile, the devotion of Bill Jones to Theodore Roosevelt was a matter of common report throughout the countryside, and it was said that he once stayed sober all summer in order to be fit to go on a hunting trip with Roosevelt in the fall.

Sylvane married, like his "partners" going for his bride to New Brunswick, whose supply of delightful young ladies seemed to be inexhaustible. They went to live in a "martin's cage," as they called it, under the bluff at Medora, and there Roosevelt visited them, after Joe moved to Montana and his store passed into other hands. The Langs remained at Yule. After the evil winter, Sir James Pender threw them upon their own resources, and the years that followed were hard. Lang had long recognized the mistake he had made in not accepting Roosevelt's offer that September of 1883, and the matter remained a sore subject for Mrs. Lang, who never ceased regretting the lapse of judgment which had made her otherwise excellent husband miss what she knew, as soon as she met Roosevelt, had been the greatest opportunity which Gregor Lang would ever have placed in his hands. Lang, as county commissioner, became an important factor in the development of the county, and his ranch flourished. Lincoln Lang turned to engineering and became an inventor. He went East to live, but his heart remained among the buttes where he had spent his adventurous boyhood.



The Eatons forsook the punching of cattle, and engaged in "dude" ranching on a grand scale, and the "Eaton Ranch" began to be famous from coast to coast even before they moved to Wolf, Wyoming, in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Mrs. Cummins drifted away with her family, carrying, no doubt, her discontent with her. Lloyd Roberts disappeared, as though the earth had swallowed him, murdered, it was supposed, in Cheyenne, after he had loaned Bill Williams seven hundred dollars. Mrs. Roberts was not daunted. She kept the little ranch on Sloping Bottom and fed and clothed and educated her five daughters by her own unaided efforts. The Vines, father and son, drifted eastward. Packard and Dantz took to editing newspapers, Packard in Montana, Dantz in Pennsylvania. Edgar Haupt became a preacher, and Herman Haupt a physician. Fisher grew prosperous in the State of Washington; Maunders throve mightily in Dickinson; Wilmot Dow died young; Bill Sewall resumed his life in Maine as a backwoodsman and guide; Foley remained custodian of the deserted de Mores property at Medora; "Redhead" Finnegan was hanged.

Poor "Dutch" Van Zander drank up his last remittance. "There," he cried, "I have blown in a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, but I've given the boys a whale of a good time!" He gave up drinking thereafter and went to work for the "Three Seven" outfit as an ordinary cowhand. He became a good worker, but when the call of gold in Alaska sounded, he responded and was seen no more in his old haunts. A few years later he appeared again for a day, saying that he was on his way to his old home in Holland. A month or two later news filtered into Medora that the brilliant and most lovable Dutch patrician's son had been found, dead by his own hand, in a cemetery in Amsterdam, lying across his mother's grave.

Twice Roosevelt's path crossed Joe Morrill's, and each time there was conflict. Morrill opened a butcher-shop in a town not far from Medora, and it devolved on Roosevelt, as chairman of the Stockmen's Association, to inform him that, unless he changed his manner of acquiring the beef he sold, he would promptly go to jail. The shifty swashbuckler closed his shop, and not long after, Roosevelt, who was at the time serving on the Civil Service Commission in Washington, heard that Morrill was endeavoring to have himself made marshal of one of the Northwestern States. The "reference" Roosevelt gave him on that occasion was effective. Morrill was not appointed; and what happened to him thereafter is lost to history.

In 1890, Roosevelt was at the ranch at Elkhorn with Mrs. Roosevelt; a year later he hunted elk with an English friend, R. H. M. Ferguson, at Two Ocean Pass in the Shoshones, in northwestern Wyoming. That autumn the Merrifields moved to the Flathead country in northwestern Montana, and Roosevelt closed the ranch-house. A year later he returned to Elkhorn for a week's hunting. The wild forces of nature had already taken possession. The bunch-grass grew tall in the yard and on the sodded roofs of the stables and sheds; the weather-beaten log walls of the house itself were one in tint with the trunks of the gnarled cottonwoods by which it was shaded. "The ranch-house is in good repair," he wrote to Bill Sewall, "but it is melancholy to see it deserted."

Early the next spring Roosevelt took Archibald D. Russell, R. H. M. Ferguson, and his brother-in-law Douglas Robinson into partnership with him and formed the Elkhorn Stock Company, transferring his equity in the Elkhorn Ranch to the new corporation.[24]

[Footnote 24: See Appendix for a statement of Roosevelt's cattle investment.]

It was at the end of a wagon-trip to the Black Hills, which Roosevelt took with Sylvane and Hell-Roaring Bill Jones in 1893, that Roosevelt met Seth Bullock.

Seth was at that time sheriff in the Black Hills district [wrote Roosevelt in his "Autobiography"], and a man he had wanted—a horse-thief—I finally got, I being at the time deputy sheriff two or three hundred miles to the north. The man went by a nickname which I will call "Crazy Steve." It was some time after "Steve's" capture that I went down to Deadwood on business, Sylvane Ferris and I on horseback, while Bill Jones drove the wagon. At a little town, Spearfish, I think, after crossing the last eighty or ninety miles of gumbo prairie, we met Seth Bullock. We had had rather a rough trip, and had lain out for a fortnight, so I suppose we looked somewhat unkempt. Seth received us with rather distant courtesy at first, but unbent when he found out who we were, remarking, "You see, by your looks I thought you were some kind of a tin-horn gambling outfit, and that I might have to keep an eye on you!" He then inquired after the capture of "Steve"—with a little of the air of one sportsman when another has shot a quail that either might have claimed—"My bird, I believe?"

In a letter to John Hay, Roosevelt described that meeting.

When somebody asked Seth Bullock to meet us, he at first expressed disinclination. Then he was told that I was the Civil Service Commissioner, upon which he remarked genially, "Well, anything civil goes with me," and strolled over to be introduced.

During these years, while Roosevelt was working on the Civil Service Commission, fighting the spoilsmen and rousing the conscience of the American people with a new ideal of public service, even while he stimulated their national pride with a fresh expression of the American spirit, his old rival, the Marquis de Mores, was noticeably stirring the Old World. A year in India had been succeeded by a long stay in China, where the Marquis had conceived a scheme to secure concessions for France, which somehow went the way of all the Marquis's schemes; nothing came of it.

He returned to France. The French people were in a restless, unhappy state. More than once, war with Germany seemed imminent. The Government was shot through with intrigue and corruption. The Marquis, with all the faults of his temperament, was an idealist, with a noble vision for his country. He saw that it had fallen into the hands of base, self-seeking men, and he grasped at every means that presented itself to overthrow the powers that seemed to him to be corrupting and enfeebling France. He became an enthusiastic follower of Boulanger; when Boulanger fell, he became a violent anti-Semite, and shortly after, a radical Socialist. Meanwhile, he fought one duel after another, on one occasion killing his man. More than once he came into conflict with the law, and once was imprisoned for three months, accused of inciting the populace to violence against the army. There were rumors of plots with the royalists and plots with the anarchists. It did not apparently seem of particular importance to the Marquis by whom the Government was overthrown, so it was overthrown.

His plans did not prosper. Anti-Semitism grew beyond his control. The Dreyfus affair broke, and set the very foundations of France quivering. What the Marquis's part in it was, is obscure, but it was said that he was deeply involved.

His attention was turning in another direction. France and England were struggling for the possession of Central Africa, and the Marquis conceived the grandiose dream of uniting all the Mohammedans of the world against England. He went to Tunis in the spring of 1896, commissioned, it was said, by the French Government to lead an expedition into the Soudan to incite the Arabs to resist the English advance in Africa.

Whether the Marquis actually had the support of the Government is more than dubious. When he set out on his expedition to the wild tribes of the Tunisian desert, he set out practically alone. At the last moment, the Marquis changed his Arab escort for a number of Touaregs, who offered him their services. They were a wild, untrustworthy race, and men who knew the country pleaded with him not to trust himself to them. But the Marquis, who had prided himself on his judgment in Little Missouri in 1883, had not changed his spots in 1896. His camel-drivers led him into an ambush near the well of El Ouatia. He carried himself like the game fighting man that he had always been, and there was a ring of dead men around him when he himself finally succumbed.

Nineteen days later an Arab official, sent out by the French military commander of the district, found his body riddled with wounds and buried in the sand near a clump of bushes close to where he had fallen. His funeral in Paris was a public event.

It was a tragic but a fitting close to a dreamer's romantic career. But the end was not yet, and the romance connected with the Marquis de Mores was not yet complete. The investigation into his death which the French Government ordered was abandoned without explanation. The Marquis's widow protested, accusing the Government of complicity in her husband's death, and charging that those who had murdered the Marquis were native agents of the French authorities and had been acting under orders.

The Marquise herself went to Tunis, determined that the assassins of her husband should be brought to justice. There is a ring in her proclamation to the Arabs which might well have made the stripped bones of the Marquis stir in their leaden coffin.

In behalf of the illustrious, distinguished, and noble lady, the Marquise of Mores, wife of the deceased object of God's pity, the Marquis of Mores, who was betrayed and murdered at El Ouatia, in the country of Ghadames, salutations, penitence, and the benediction of God!

Let it herewith be known to all faithful ones that I place myself in the hands of God and of you, because I know you to be manly, energetic, and courageous. I appeal to you to help me avenge the death of my husband by punishing his assassins. I am a woman. Vengeance cannot be wreaked by my own hand. For this reason I inform you, and swear to you, by the one Almighty God, that to whosoever shall capture and deliver to the authorities at El-Qued, at Ouargia, or at El-Goleah one of my husband's assassins I will give 1000 douros ($750), 2000 douros for two assassins, 3000 douros for three assassins. As to the principal assassins, Bechaoui and Sheik Ben Abdel Kader, I will give 2000 douros for each of them. And now, understand, make yourselves ready, and may God give you success.

Marquise de MORES

The murderers were captured, convicted, and executed. Then the little American woman, with her hair of Titian red, whom the cowboys of Little Missouri had christened "The Queen of the West," quietly withdrew from the public gaze; and the curtain fell on a great romantic drama.

Theodore Roosevelt was just coming into national eminence as Police Commissioner of New York City when the Marquis de Mores died beside the well of El Ouatia. As a member of the Civil Service Commission in Washington he had caught the imagination of the American people, and a growing number of patriotic men and women, scattered over the country, began to look upon him as the leader they had been longing for. He came to Medora no more for the round-up or the chase.

In May, 1897, Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Less than a year later the Spanish War broke out. The dream he had dreamed in 1886 of a regiment recruited from the wild horsemen of the plains became a reality. From the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, the men he had lived and worked with on the round-up, and thousands of others whose imaginations had been seized by the stories of his courage and endurance, which had passed from mouth to mouth and from camp-fire to camp-fire through the cattle country, offered their services. The Rough Riders were organized, and what they accomplished is history. There were unquestionably more weighty reasons why he should become Governor of New York State than that he had been the successful leader of an aggregation of untamed gunmen in Cuba. But it was that fact in his career which caught the fancy of the voters, and by a narrow margin elected him a Republican Governor of his State in what, as everybody knew, was a "Democratic year."

The men and women of the Bad Lands, scattered far and wide over the Northwest, watched his progress with a glowing feeling in their hearts that was akin to the pride that a father feels at the greatness of a son whom he himself has guided in the way that he should go. There was none of them but felt that he had had a personal share in the making of this man who was beginning to loom larger and larger on the national horizon. They had been his mentors, and inasmuch as they had shown him how to tighten a saddle cinch or quiet a restless herd, they felt that they had had a part in the building of his character. They had a great pride, moreover, in the bit of country where they had spent their ardent youth, and they felt assured that the experiences which had thrilled and deepened them, had thrilled and deepened him also. In their hearts they felt that they knew something of what had made him—"the smell, the singing prairies, the spirit that thrilled the senses there, the intoxicating exhilaration, the awful silences, the mysterious hazes, the entrancing sunsets, the great storms and blizzards, the quiet, enduring people, the great, unnoted tragedies, the cheer, the humor, the hospitality, the lure of fortunes at the end of rainbows"—all those things they felt had joined to build America's great new leader; and they, who had experienced these things with him, felt that they were forever closer to him than his other countrymen could ever possibly be.

Roosevelt was nominated for the vice-presidency in June, 1900, and in July he began a campaign tour over the country which eclipsed even Bryan's prodigious journeyings of 1896. Early in September he came to Dakota.

Joe Ferris was the first to greet him after he crossed the border at a way-station at six o'clock in the morning.[25]

[Footnote 25: The account of Roosevelt's triumphant return to Medora is taken verbatim from contemporary newspapers.]

"Joe, old boy," cried Roosevelt exuberantly, "will you ever forget the first time we met?"

Joe admitted that he would not.

"You nearly murdered me. It seemed as if all the ill-luck in the world pursued us."

Joe grinned.

"Do you remember too, Joe," exclaimed Roosevelt, "how I swam the swollen stream and you stood on the bank and kept your eyes on me? The stream was very badly flooded when I came to it," said the Governor, turning to the group that had gathered about them. "I forced my horse into it and we swam for the other bank. Joe was very much distressed for fear we would not get across."

"I wouldn't have taken that swim for all of Dakota," said Joe.

At Dickinson, a gray-faced, lean man pushed his way through the crowd. It was Maunders, who had prospered, in spite of his evil ways. "Why," exclaimed Roosevelt, "it does me good to see you. You remember when I needed a hammer so badly and you loaned it to me? You loaned me a rifle also. I never shall forget how badly I needed that hammer just then."

Maunders, who had always been affable, grinned with delight and joined the Governor's party.

The train moved on to Medora. Roosevelt and Joe Ferris sat by the window, and it seemed that every twisted crag and butte reminded them of the days when they had ridden over that wild country together.

As the train neared Medora, Roosevelt was palpably moved. "The romance of my life began here," he said.

There were forty or fifty people at the station in Medora. They hung back bashfully, but he was among them in an instant.

"Why, this is Mrs. Roberts!" he exclaimed. "You have not changed a bit, have you?"

She drew his attention to George Myers, who was all smiles.

"My, my, George Myers!" exclaimed Roosevelt, "I did not even hope to see you." Roosevelt turned to the crowd. "George used to cook for me," he said, with a wry expression.

"Do you remember the time I made green biscuits for you?" asked George, with a grin.

"I do," said Roosevelt emphatically, "I do, George. And I remember the time you fried the beans with rosin instead of lard. The best proof in the world, George, that I have a good constitution is that I ate your cooking and survived."

"Well, now, Governor," exclaimed George, "I was thinking it would be a good idea to get that man Bryan up here and see what that kind of biscuit would do for him."

Roosevelt looked about him, where the familiar buttes stretched gray and bleak in every direction. "It does not seem right," he exclaimed, "that I should come here and not stay."

Some one brought a bronco for Roosevelt. A minute later he was galloping eastward toward the trail leading up to the bluff that rose a thousand feet behind Medora. "Over there is Square Butte," he cried eagerly, "and over there is Sentinel Butte. My ranch was at Chimney Butte. Just this side of it is the trail where Custer marched westward to the Yellowstone and the Rosebud to his death. There is the church especially erected for the use of the wife of the Marquis de Mores. His old house is beyond. You can see it."

For a minute he sat silent. "Looking back to my old days here," he said, "I can paraphrase Kipling and say, 'Whatever may happen, I can thank God I have lived and toiled with men.'"

Roosevelt was inaugurated as Vice-President in March, 1901. Six months later he was President of the United States. From a venturesome cowpuncher who made his way shyly into the White House, the glad tidings were spread to the Bad Lands and through the whole Northwest that Roosevelt was the same Roosevelt, and that everybody had better take a trip to Washington as soon as he could, for orders had gone forth that "the cowboy bunch can come in whenever they want to."

Occasionally one or the other had difficulty in getting past the guards. It took Sylvane two days, once, to convince the doorkeeper that the President wanted to see him. Roosevelt was indignant. "The next time they don't let you in, Sylvane," he exclaimed, "you just shoot through the windows."

No one shot through the windows. It was never necessary. The cowboys dined at the President's table with Cabinet ministers and ambassadors.

"Remember, Jim, that if you shot at the feet of the British Ambassador to make him dance," Roosevelt whispered to one of his cowboy guests on one occasion, "it would be likely to cause international complications."

"Why, Colonel, I shouldn't think of it," exclaimed Jim. "I shouldn't think of it!"

The cowpunchers were the only ones who refused to take altogether seriously the tradition that an invitation to the White House was equivalent to a command. John Willis on one occasion came down from Montana to discuss reclamation with the President, and Roosevelt asked him to take dinner at the White House that night. Willis murmured that he did not have a dress-suit, and it would not do to dine with the President of the United States "unless he were togged out proper."

"Oh, that needn't bother you," exclaimed the President.

"It makes a heap of difference," said Willis. "I may not always do the right thing, but I know what's proper."

"You would be just as welcome at my table if you came in buckskin trousers."

"I know that's true," Willis replied, "but I guess I will have to side-step this trip. If you are taking any horseback rides out on the trail here to-morrow, I'm your man, but I guess I will get my grub downtown at the hashery where I'm bunking."

That was all there was to it. John Willis could not be persuaded.

Once more, for the last time, Roosevelt in 1903 went back to Medora. As they came into the Bad Lands, he stood on the rear platform of his car, gazing wistfully over the forbidding-looking landscape.

"I know all this country like a book," he said to John Burroughs, who was beside him. "I have ridden over it and hunted in it and tramped over it in all seasons and weather, and it looks like home to me."

As soon as I got west of the Missouri I came into my own former stamping-ground [he wrote to John Hay, describing that visit]. At every station there was somebody who remembered my riding in there when the Little Missouri round-up went down to the Indian reservation and then worked north across the Cannon Ball and up Knife and Green Rivers; or who had been an interested and possibly malevolent spectator when I had ridden east with other representatives of the cowmen to hold a solemn council with the leading grangers on the vexed subject of mavericks; or who had been hired as a train-hand when I had been taking a load of cattle to Chicago, and who remembered well how he and I at the stoppages had run frantically down the line of the cars and with our poles jabbed the unfortunate cattle who had lain down until they again stood up, and thereby gave themselves a chance for their lives; and who remembered how when the train started we had to clamber hurriedly aboard and make our way back to the caboose along the tops of the cattle cars.

At Mandan two of my old cow-hands, Sylvane and Joe Ferris, joined me. At Dickinson all of the older people had known me and the whole town turned out with wild and not entirely sober enthusiasm. It was difficult to make them much of a speech, as there were dozens of men each earnestly desirous of recalling to my mind some special incident. One man, how he helped me bring in my cattle to ship, and how a blue roan steer broke away leading a bunch which it took him and me three hours to round up and bring back; another, how seventeen years before I had come in a freight train from Medora to deliver the Fourth of July oration; another, a gray-eyed individual named [Maunders], who during my early years at Medora had shot and killed an equally objectionable individual, reminded me how, just twenty years before, when I was on my first buffalo hunt, he loaned me the hammer off his Sharp's rifle to replace the broken hammer of mine; another recalled the time when he and I worked on the round-up as partners, going with the Little Missouri "outfit" from the head of the Box Alder to the mouth of the Big Beaver, and then striking over to represent the Little Missouri brands on the Yellowstone round-up; yet another recalled the time when I, as deputy sheriff of Billings County, had brought in three cattle-thieves named Red Finnegan, Dutch Chris, and the half-breed to his keeping, he being then sheriff in Dickinson, etc., etc., etc.

At Medora, which we reached after dark, the entire population of the Bad Lands down to the smallest baby had gathered to meet me. This was formerly my home station. The older men and women I knew well; the younger ones had been wild tow-headed children when I lived and worked along the Little Missouri. I had spent nights in their ranches. I still remembered meals which the women had given me when I had come from some hard expedition, half famished and sharp-set as a wolf. I had killed buffalo and elk, deer and antelope with some of the men. With others I had worked on the trail, on the calf round-up, on the beef round-up. We had been together on occasions which we still remembered when some bold rider met his death in trying to stop a stampede, in riding a mean horse, or in the quicksands of some swollen river which he sought to swim. They all felt I was their man, their old friend; and even if they had been hostile to me in the old days, when we were divided by the sinister bickering and jealousies and hatreds of all frontier communities, they now firmly believed they had always been my staunch friends and admirers. They had all gathered in the town hall, which was draped for a dance—young children, babies, everybody being present. I shook hands with them all, and almost each one had some memory of special association with me he or she wished to discuss. I only regretted that I could not spend three hours with them.

Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was supposed to be at Gardiner, Wyoming, and Roosevelt, arriving there a few days later for a camping trip through the Yellowstone, asked eagerly for his old friend. Bill Jones was down in the world. He had had to give up his work as sheriff in Medora because he began to lose his nerve and would break down and weep like a child when he was called upon to make an arrest. He was driving a team in Gardiner outside the Park, and during the days preceding Roosevelt's arrival took so many drinks while he was telling of his intimacy with the man who had become President of the United States, that he had to be carried into the sagebrush before Roosevelt actually arrived. Roosevelt left word to keep Bill Jones sober against his return, and when Roosevelt emerged from the Park, they met for the last time. It was a sad interview, for what was left of Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was only a sodden, evil-looking shell.



"Bill Jones did not live long after that," said Howard Eaton. "The last I saw of him was two or three miles from Old Faithful. He said, 'I'm going to the trees.' We went out to look for him, but couldn't find a trace. This was in March. He wandered way up one of those ravines and the supposition is that he froze to death. Some fellow found him up there in June, lying at the edge of a creek. The coyotes had carried off one of his arms, and they planted him right there. And that was the end of old Bill Jones."

Years passed, and bitter days came to Roosevelt, but though other friends failed him, the men of the Bad Lands remained faithful.

In 1912, four of them were delegates to the Progressive Convention—Sylvane Ferris from North Dakota, where he was president of a bank; Joe Ferris, George Myers, and Merrifield from Montana. Even "Dutch Wannigan," living as a hermit in the wilderness forty miles west of Lake MacDonald, became an ardent Progressive. "I can't afford to go to Helena," he wrote in answer to an appeal from Merrifield to attend the State Progressive Convention, "but if you think there'll be a row, I'll try to make it." Packard and Dantz gave their pens to the cause.

George Myers was the last of the "cowboy bunch" to see him. They met in Billings in October, 1918. The town was filled with the crowds who had come from near and far to see the man who, everybody said, was sure again to be President of the United States.

"Have you got a room, George?" cried Roosevelt, as they met.

Myers shook his head cheerfully.

"Share mine with me," said Roosevelt, "and we'll talk about old times."

Three months later to a day, the man who had been Little Missouri's "four-eyed tenderfoot" was dead.

* * * * *

The Bad Lands are still the Bad Lands, except that the unfenced prairies are fenced now and on each bit of parched bottom-land a "nester" has his cabin and is struggling, generally in vain, to dig a living out of the soil in a region which God never made for farming. The treacherous Little Missouri is treacherous still; here and there a burning mine still sends a tenuous wisp toward the blue sky; the buttes have lost none of their wild magnificence; and dawn and dusk, casting long shadows across the coulees, reveal the old heart-rending loveliness.

Medora sleeps through the years and dreams of other days. Schuyler Lebo, who was shot by the Indians, delivers the mail; "Nitch" Kendley operates the pump for the water-tank at the railroad station; a nonogenarian called "Frenchy," who hunted with Roosevelt and has lost his wits, plays cribbage all day long at the "Rough Riders Hotel." These three are all that remain of the gay aggregation that made life a revel at the "depot" and at Bill Williams's saloon. And yet, even in its desolation, as the cook of the "Rough Riders Hotel" remarked, "There's something fascinating about the blinkety-blank place. I don't know why I stay here, but I do."

The ranch-house of the Maltese Cross has been moved to Bismarck, where it stands, wind-beaten and neglected, in the shadow of the capitol. The Elkhorn ranch-house is gone, used for lumber, but the great foundation stones that Bill Sewall and Will Dow laid under it remain, and the row of cottonwoods that shaded it still stand, without a gap. Near by are the ruins of the shack which Maunders claimed and Roosevelt held, in spite of threats. The river flows silently beneath a grassy bank. There is no lovelier spot in the Bad Lands.



THE END



APPENDIX

ROOSEVELT'S FIRST CONTRACT WITH SYLVANE FERRIS AND A. W. MERRIFIELD.

(A copy of this contract, in Mr. Roosevelt's handwriting, is in the ranch-ledger, kept, somewhat fitfully, by Mr. Roosevelt and his foremen. This ledger, which contains also the minutes of the first meeting of the Little Missouri River Stockmen's Association, held in Medora on December 19, 1884, is now in the possession of Mr. Joseph A. Ferris, of Terry, Montana.)

We the undersigned, Theodore Roosevelt, party of the first part, and William Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris, parties of the second part, do agree and contract as follows:

1. The party of the first part, Theodore Roosevelt, agrees and contracts with the parties of the second part, William Merrifield and Sylvanus Ferris, to put in on their ranch on the Little Missouri River, Dakota, four hundred head of cattle or thereabouts, the cost not to exceed twelve thousand dollars ($12,000) and the parties of the second part do agree to take charge of said cattle for the party of the first part; said cattle to be thus placed and taken charge of for the term of seven years.

2. At the end of said seven years the equivalent in value of said four hundred head of cattle, as originally put in, is to be returned to the party of the first part; provided that the parties of the second part are to have the privilege of paying off at any time or times prior to the expiration of said seven years, in sums of not less than one thousand dollars at any one time, said claim of the party of the first part to the equivalent in value of the original herd of cattle.

3. Any additional cattle put into the herd by said party of the first part are to be put in on the same terms as the original herd, and are to remain in the herd for as much of the seven years mentioned in this contract as is unexpired at the time they are put in.

4. One half of the increase of value of said herd is to belong to the party of the first part and one-half to the parties of the second part.

5. The parties of the second part are to have the power from time to time to make such sales as they in the exercise of their best judgment shall deem wisest, provided that no sale shall be made sufficient in amount to decrease the herd below its original value except by the consent of all parties in writing.

6. All monies obtained by such sales of cattle from the herd shall be divided equally between said party of the first part and said parties of the second part.

7. During the continuance of said contract the parties of the second part agree not to take charge of nor have interest in any other stock than that of said party of the first part without his consent in writing.

8. Said parties of the second part are to keep accurate and complete accounts in writing of the purchases and sales of stock and of the expenditures of all monies entrusted to their care, which accounts are to be submitted to said party of the first part whenever he may desire it.

9. Any taxes upon said cattle are to be paid half by the party of the first part, half by the parties of the second part.

10. Said cattle are to be branded with the maltese cross on the left hip and are to have the cut dewlap, these brands to be the property of the owner of the cattle; the vent mark to be the letter R under the maltese cross.

Witness: Signed:

Roger S. KENNEDY Theodore ROOSEVELT M. HANLEY (party of the first part) William MERRIFIELD Sylvanus FERRIS (parties of the second part)

St. Paul, Minn., September 27th, 1883.



ROOSEVELT'S CONTRACT WITH WILLIAM W. SEWALL AND WILMOT S. DOW

LITTLE MISSOURI, DAKOTA June 20, 1885

We the undersigned, Theodore Roosevelt, party of the first part, and William Sewall and Wilmot S. Dow, parties of the second part, do agree and contract as follows:

(1) The party of the first part having put eleven hundred head of cattle, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) on the Elkhorn Ranche, on the Little Missouri River, the parties of the second part do agree to take charge of said cattle for the space of three years, and at the end of this time agree to return to said party of the first part the equivalent in value of the original herd (twenty-five thousand dollars); any increase in value of the herd over said sum of twenty-five thousand dollars is to belong two-thirds to said party of the first part and one-third to said parties of the second part.

(2) From time to time said parties of the second part shall in the exercise of their best judgment make sales of such cattle as are fit for market, the moneys obtained by said sales to belong two-thirds to said party of the first part and one-third to said parties of the second part; but no sales of cattle shall be made sufficient in amount to reduce the herd below its original value save by the direction in writing of the party of the first part.

(3) The parties of the second part are to keep accurate accounts of expenditures, losses, the calf crop, etc.; said accounts to be always open to the inspection of the party of the first part.

(4) The parties of the second part are to take good care of the cattle, and also of the ponies, buildings, etc., belonging to said party of the first part.

Signed:

Theodore ROOSEVELT (party of the first part) W. W. SEWALL W. S. DOW (parties of the second part)



ROOSEVELT'S DAKOTA INVESTMENT

Mr. Roosevelt's accounts were kept by Mr. Frank C. Smith, confidential clerk in the office of his brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson. The ledgers reveal the following facts concerning his Dakota investments:

Expended from September, 1884, to July, 1885 $82,500.00 Returns from cattle sales, from September, 1885, to December, 1891 42,443.32 Estimated value of cattle on the range, December, 1891 16,500. Loss, not considering the interest on the investment 23,556.68

On March 28, 1892, Roosevelt formed the Elkhorn Stock Company, incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, with Archibald D. Russell, R. H. M. Ferguson, and Douglas Robinson, and on December 5, 1892, transferred his cattle holdings to this Company at a valuation of $16,500. Subsequently he invested a further sum of $10,200.

Investment, Elkhorn Stock Company $26,700.00 Returns in capital and dividends from January, 1893, to February, 1899 29,964.05 Profit, not considering interest 3,264.05 Loss on two ventures 20,292.63

The computation of Roosevelt's loss in interest on his investment of $82,500.00 figured at 5 per cent from September 1884, to February, 1899, the author gladly leaves to any class in arithmetic which may care to grapple with it. It approximates $50,000.



INDEX

Axelby, Mr., 140, 141.

Bad Lands, the, their appearance, 5-7, 18, 23; the name, 6; the opening up of, 24, 25; the lawless element in, 54, 126-30, 136; horse and cattle thieves in, 139-42; winter in, 223-28, 236-38; spring in, 248-50; styles in, 321, 322; religion in, 325-28; law and order enter, 328-30; obtain organized government, 387; a hard winter in, 430-39; to-day, 474.

Bad Lands Cowboy, The, 76, 77, 131-33, 329; burned out, 451.

Bear-hunting, 185-88.

"Ben Butler," 276, 289-91.

Bennett, Hank, 252, 253.

Benton, Thomas Hart, Roosevelt's Life of, 371, 397-99.

Bernstead, 375, 386 n.

Berry-Boyce Cattle Co., 94.

Big Horn Mountains, hunting in, 168, 175-88.

"Big Jack" and "Little Jack," 141, 142.

Bismarck, Dakota, 73.

Bismarck Tribune, on Roosevelt, 341.

Black Jack, 135.

Blaine, James G., nomination of, 88.

Blizzard, a, 431-33.

Boice, Henry, 25.

Bolan, Pierce, 143, 197, 198.

Bronco-busting, 225-27.

Buffalo, hunting, 23, 24, 28-39, 44, 45; extermination of, 29.

Bullock, Seth, 459.

Buttes, 6, 7, 13, 18, 202, 203.

Carow, Edith, engagement to Roosevelt, 426; marriage of, 430.

Cattle, trailing, 268-70.

Cattle companies, 242.

Cattle torture, 266, 267.

Chicago Tribune, on Roosevelt, 350.

Chimney Butte, trail to, 13; account of, 15.

Coeur d'Alenes, 419.

County organization, 55, 133-35, 324, 387.

Cowboys, talk of, 100; their attitude toward Roosevelt, 101, 102; reading of, 228; a song of, 280; diversions of, 281; character of, 282; profanity of, 283; practical jokes of, 283, 284.

Cummins, Mr., 111, 323.

Cummins, Mrs., and Mrs. Roberts, 111, 112; her views, 259, 260; Roosevelt dines with, 293, 294; and Mrs. Ferris, 361, 362; the last of, 456.

"Custer Trail," 13, 109, 110.

Dantz, Bill, 56; a singer of songs and a spinner of yarns, 281; made Superintendent of Education at Medora, 319; elected superintendent of schools, 390; the last of, 456, 473.

Day, Chancellor, 289 n.

Deadwood stage-line, the Marquis's project of, 77, 78, 120-24, 170, 209-14.

"Devil, The," 271-75.

Dickinson, first Fourth of July celebration of, 405-11; growth of, 452.

Dickinson Press, the, helps county organization, 133, 134; fashion notes in, 321, 322.

Dow, Wilmot, 88, 159, 163; Roosevelt's contract with, 156, 157, 481; as a cowhand, 189, 190, 206, 225; and the vigilantes, 191, 192, 195; good company, 217; his andirons, 240; goes East to get married, 307; character of, 313, 314; on a thief hunt, 372-80; terminates engagement with Roosevelt, 424-28; the last of, 457.

Dow, Mrs., 313.

Dutch Chris, 386 n.

"Dutch Wannigan." See Reuter.

Dynamite Jimmie. See McShane.

Eaton, Howard, 8, 13; and the Marquis de Mores, 60, 61; his appearance, 110; calls on Roosevelt, 164, 165; neighbor of Roosevelt, 315.

Eaton Ranch, 456.

Eatons, the, 25, 109, 110, 260, 263, 456.

Elkhorn, ranch, 202, 240; life at, 310-17; to-day, 475.

Elkhorn Stock Co., 458.

Ferguson, R. H. M., 458.

Ferris, Joe, 10, 11; his career, 14-16; and the extra saddle horse, 17; brings down a buck, 24; on the buffalo hunt, 28-39, 44, 45; firm for law and order, 55, 56, 328; becomes storekeeper, 80, 81; prophesies Presidency for Roosevelt, 258; removes to Medora, 319; banker of Bad Lands, 347; gets married, 360; in Medora in its desolation, 454; greeted by Roosevelt in 1900, 465; delegate to Progressive Convention, 473.

Ferris, Mrs. Joe, 360-64.

Ferris, Sylvane, 12; his career, 14-16; becomes partner of Roosevelt, 42-44; for law and order, 55, 56; signs contract with Roosevelt, 69, 70, 479, 480; and the Marquis's cattle, 84-86; confident of success in cattle raising, 255; rides Ben Butler, 290, 291; gets involved in the law, 300-04; in Medora in its desolation, 454; marries, 455; delegate to Progressive Convention, 473.

Finnegan, Redhead, 368-86, 457.

Fisher, John C, and Roosevelt, 102-04; for county commissioner, 134; and horse thieves, 143; and Maunders, 199; and Medora's Great White Way, 319; at Medora's first election, 390, 391; the last of, 456.

Fitzgerald, Mrs., 52.

Fitz James, Count, 59.

Flopping Bill, 195.

Foley, 457.

Frazier, George, 417.

Frenchy, 474.

Gentling the Devil, 271-75.

Goat hunting, 419-24.

Goodall, Johnny, 334, 390.

Gorringe, H. H., 8, 9, 20, 23, 25.

Hainsley, Jake, 85.

Haupt brothers, the, 61, 67-69, 79, 456.

Herrig, Fred, 453.

Hewitt, Abram S., 20.

Hobson, H. H., 394.

Hoffman, Baron von, 210, 450.

Hoffman, Medora von, 59.

Hogue, Jess, 7, 9, 51, 55, 420-23.

Hollenberg, Carl, 258 n.

Horse-thieves. See Thieves.

Huidekoper, A. D., 25, 110.

Indians, shooting-match with, 183, 184; trouble between whites and, 351-54, 357, 358; Roosevelt's view of, 355; the psychology of, 356.

Jameson, Mr., 146.

Jones, Hell-Roaring Bill, 113-16; Roosevelt makes friends with, 116; of the gay life of Medora, 128, 322; expresses his opinion on the scions of British aristocracy, 261, 262; and "Deacon" Cummins, 323; and the Elk Hotel, 360; watches at the polling-places, 389, 390; in later years, 454, 455; the last of, 472, 473.

Jones, Three-Seven Bill, 246, 247, 278.

Kelly, Pat, 446.

Kendley, Nitch, 264, 265, 474.

La Pache, Louis, 195.

Lang, Gregor, 11, 12; his cabin, 19; enjoys talks with Roosevelt, 19, 24-28; how he established himself at Little Missouri, 20-22; ranching offer made by Roosevelt to, 41; makes prophecy concerning Roosevelt, 46; refuses to make friends with Marquis de Mores, 62; the Marquis braves grudge against, 118; his ranch, 160; his love of argument, 263, 264; dogmatic in his theories, 264; relations with Roosevelt and the Marquis, 338; in later years, 456.

Lang, Mrs. Gregor, 160, 161.

Lang, Lincoln, 23, 27, 28, 41; biscuits made by, 34; his description of Bill Williams, 50; refuses Roosevelt's shot-gun, 96; his description of Bill Jones, 115 n.; on grudge of Marquis for Gregor Lang, 118 n.; on anecdote concerning Roosevelt and Mrs. Maddox, 150 n.; on the round-up, 277 n.; in later years, 456.

Langs, the, on the "Three Seven" ranch, 93, 94, 261-63.

Lebo, Norman, 175, 176, 180, 185.

Lebo, Schuyler, 353, 474.

Little Missouri, 7, 8; society in, 47-57; proceedings of Marquis de Mores at, 58-65; begins to flourish, 65, 66; continues to grow, 70-73; setback for, 77; the jail in, 135; to-day, 474.

Little Missouri Land and Stock Co., the, 20, 61, 77.

Little Missouri Stock Association. See Stockmen's Association.

Luffsey, Riley, 63, 64, 119.

Macdonald, 214 n.

Mackenzie, Dan, 390.

MacNab, 49.

Maddox, Mrs., 95, 96, 150, 356.

Maltese Cross, the, 15, 91, 148; outfit of, 92; first year of, 255; callers at, 264, 265; to-day, 474.

Mandan Pioneer, the, 65, 154, 158.

Marlow, Pete, 84, 85.

Matthews, 84-86.

Maunders, Archie, 53, 54.

Maunders, Jake, 7, 9, 12, 49, 54-57; disliked Roosevelt, 58; and the Marquis de Mores, 62-65; cleans out Johnny Nelson, 80, 81; clings to the Marquis, 126; and horse and cattle thieves, 142; marked for hanging, 198; his discreetness, 199; visits Sewall in the dugout, 199-201; threatens to shoot Roosevelt, 207, 208; a bona-fide "bad man," 320; in Dickinson, 457; greets Roosevelt, 466.

McFay, 345.

McGee, Chris, 110, 165.

McGeeney, Pete, 52.

McGeeney, Mrs. Pete, 7, 52, 55, 56.

McShane, Jimmie, 347.

Medicine buttes, 202, 203.

Medora, 8, 48; founded by Marquis de Mores, 61; blossoms forth, 77; life of, dominated by the Marquis, 116-18; gay life of, 127; notorious for its iniquity, 128-30; attempts at reform in, 131-35; in need of a jail, 135; mass meeting at, 136, 137; police force and fire department of, 137, 138; growth of, 170, 318-20; possessed deputy marshal, 221; the coming of law in, 323, 328; religion at, 325; first election at, 389-91; its glory departed, 451, 452, 454; visited by Roosevelt as nominee for vice-presidency, 466; Roosevelt's last visit to, 469; to-day, 474.

Merrifield, A. W., 12; his career, 14-16; becomes partner of Roosevelt, 42-44; tries to establish law in Little Missouri, 56; signs contract with Roosevelt, 69, 70, 479, 480; and the Marquis's cattle, 84-86; tries out Roosevelt on the Sully Trail, 103, 104; on hunting trip, 175-88; confident of success in cattle raising, 255; carries news of Mrs. Ferris's adherence to cowboys, 361, 362; marries, 447; delegate to Progressive Convention, 473.

Mexico, flurry over, 413, 414.

Miles City, 392-95.

Mingusville, 151-54, 242-47.

Montana Live Stock Association, 219.

Montana Stockgrowers' Association, 392-95, 444-46.

Mores, Marquis de, 25; arrival at Little Missouri, 58-60; his views, 60, 61; and the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Co., 61, 79; founds Medora, 61; tries to win supporters, 62; and Maunders, 62-65; and Riley Luffsey, 63, 64, 119; in business, 67-69; extends his business, 70-72; and The Bad Lands Cowboy, 76; and the Deadwood stage, 77, 78, 120-24, 170, 209-14; loss of his sheep, 78; his cabbage project, 79, 80; removes his cattle from the Roosevelt bottom-land, 84-86; description of, 116; dominates life of Medora, 117; his grudge against Gregor Lang, 118; lacked judgment, 119; and Roosevelt, 124; on the side of violence, 125, 130; tries to join Stuart's vigilantes, 147; claims Roosevelt's range, 165, 191; member of stockmen's association, 234; his idea of the Western climate, 236; and his abattoir, 331-34: and kaoline, 334; without friends in Medora, 334; liked the Bad Lands, 335; his genealogy, 335, 336; relations with Roosevelt, 336-42, 345-49; indicted for murder, 342, 343; in jail, 344; his trial, 345, 346; goes to France, 359; new schemes of, 447-50; leaves for India, 450; article in Sioux Falls Press on, 450; later career and death of, 460-63.

Mores, Marquise de, 462, 463.

Morrill, Joe, 143; deputy marshal in Medora, 221, 222; stock inspector, 324; sheriff, 390; vs. George Myers, 442-44; dismissed from inspectorship, 444, 445; later encounters with Roosevelt, 457.

Mountain sheep, hunting, 228-32.

Mugwumps, the, 88, 172, 208.

Myers, George, cowpuncher, 93; his cookery, 106, 107, 232; invests in cattle, 255; accused of cattle stealing, 442-44; in later years, 467, 473.

Nelson, Johnny, 7, 80, 81.

Nesters, 194-96.

Newburyport Herald, quoted, 384.

Nolan, Mrs., 242, 245-47.

Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Co., 61, 79, 117.

Nugent, Lord, 25.

O'Donald, Frank, 63, 64, 66, 67.

O'Hara, Johnny, 329.

Olmstead, Mrs., 96 n.

Osterhaut, 278, 324.

Packard, A. T., arrival in Little Missouri, 73; and the cowboy, 73-75; starts a newspaper, 76; and the Deadwood stage-line, 123, 124, 170, 209-14; a civilizing influence, 130, 131; endeavors to introduce law and order in the Bad Lands, 131-35; issues call for mass meeting, 136; chief of police at Medora, 137-39; announces demise of horse-thieves, 193, 194; enthusiastic over the Bad Lands, 254; his account of Roosevelt and the Devil, 271-75; tries again for county organization, 324, 387; firm for order and decency, 328, 329; realizes bigness of Roosevelt, 411; excoriates Morrill, 443; supports Progressive cause, 473.

Paddock, Jerry, 51, 52, 62.

Paddock, Mrs., 52.

Pender, Sir John, 20-22, 25, 455.

Prairie fires, 351, 357, 358.

Presidential Convention, the, 1884, 88.

Putnam, George Haven, 359.

Ranges, cattle, 91, 92; claims on, 219; need of law of, 220.

Religion, in the Bad Lands, 325-28.

Reuter, John, 16; and Riley Luffsey, 63, 64; returns to old occupations, 169; one of Roosevelt's scow-hands, 338, 339; and the Marquis, 347; becomes Progressive, 473.

Roberts, Lloyd, 456.

Roberts, Margaret, in, 112, 258-60, 456.

Robins, Captain, 160, 189; his bout with Sewall, 161-64.

Robinson, Douglas, 458.

Roderick, Mrs., 52.

Roosevelt, Anna, 104-06.

Roosevelt, James, 40, 70.

Roosevelt, Theodore, arrives in Little Missouri, 3-5; his reason for going to the Bad Lands, 8; starts on buffalo hunt, 12-14; gets an extra saddle horse, 16, 17; enjoys talks with Gregor Lang, 19, 24-28; hunting buffalo, 28-39; desirous of buying a large farm, 39; interested in ranching projects, 40, 41; secures two partners, 42, 43; gives check for fourteen thousand dollars without receipt, 43; kills his buffalo, 44-46; relished things blood-curdling, 47; signs contract with Sylvane and Merrifield, 69, 70, 479, 480; his cattle venture is disapproved of by family, 70; enters upon third term in New York Legislature, 81, 82; death of mother and wife, 82; of public activities of, 82, 83, 87, 88; refuses to join Mugwumps, 88, 172, 208; description of, 89; describes Presidential Convention, 90, 91; makes new contract, 94; gets buckskin suit, 95, 96; shoots antelope, 97; enters into life of ranchman, 97, 98; on the round-up, 99, 275-307, 400-03; attitude of cowboys toward, 101, 102; tried out on the Sully Trail, 103, 104; his life as cowboy, 104, 105; on solitary hunting trip, 105, 106; tries cooking, 107; his reading and writing, 108, 109; a good mixer, 112; and Bill Jones, 115, 116; and the Marquis, 124; tries to join Stuart's vigilantes, 146; determines upon spot for home-ranch, 149; and Mrs. Maddox, 150; adventures at Mingusville, 150-54, 244-47; editorial on, in the Mandan Pioneer, 154; on the Bad Lands, in the New York Tribune, 156; contract with Sewall and Dow, 156, 157, 481; interviewed by the Pioneer, 158, 159; on the ranch, 159-65; prepares for hunting trip, 168, 169, 173, 174; demanded as first Congressional representative of Dakota, 171; his political standing in the East, 172; always wanted to make the world better, 174, 219; his hunting trip in the Big Horn Mountains, 175-88; shoots a grizzly, 185-88; returns to Elkhorn, 202-05; threatened by Maunders, 207, 208; makes campaign speeches in New York, 208; night ride of, 216, 217; depression of, 217-19; starts a reform, 219, 222; in winter on the ranch, 223-28; hunts mountain sheep, 228-32; forms stockmen's association, 231-34. Returns to New York and works on "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," 235, 239; his derby hat, 239; illness of, 240, 241; swims the Little Missouri, 249-52; and his ranching companions, 252, 253; a capable ranchman, 255; intolerant of dishonesty and ineffectiveness, 256, 257; how esteemed by the ranchmen, 257, 258; and the buttermilk, 259; and the neighbors, 260-64; tries cooking again, 265; trailing cattle, 268-70; his horsemanship, 270, 271; gentles the Devil, 271-75; on the round-up, 275-307; breaks bronco, 287-89; tries Ben Butler, 289-91; breaks point of shoulder, 290, 291, 293; attends dinner at Mrs. Cummins's, 293, 294; in the stampede, 295-97; rescues Englishman with lasso, 297, 298; his enjoyment of the cowboy life, 305, 306; interviewed at St. Paul, 308, 309; his life at Elkhorn, 310-12, 316, 317; adventure with Wadsworth's dog, 315, 316; relations with the Marquis, 336-42, 345-49; did not intend to enter Dakota politics, 350, 351; adventure with Indians, 353, 354; his attitude toward the Indians, 355, 356; breaks his arm, 359; writes articles for press, 359; and Mrs. Ferris, 363, 364; anger at theft of boat, 365-71; undertakes Life of T. H. Benton, 371; on a thief hunt, 372-86; representative of stockmen's association, 392-95; his cattle prospects, 395-97; continues his Life of Benton, 397-99; his enjoyable summer of 1886, 401, 402; his influence over the cowboys, 403; Fourth of July oration, 407-11; restlessness of, 412; feelings at prospect of war with Mexico, 413-15; what he got from the Western life, 416; his human sympathy, 417; holds up train, 418, 419; goes goat hunting with John Willis, 419-24; terminates engagement with Sewall and Dow, 424-28; becomes engaged to Edith Carow, 426; nominated for Mayor of New York City, 429; marriage, 430; his losses, 440, 441; assumes leadership in stockmen's association, 446; later visits to Bad Lands, 453, 454, 458; books of, 453, 454; member of Civil Service Commission, 454; later encounters with Morrill, 457, 458; meets Seth Bullock, 459; member of Civil Service Commission, Police Commissioner, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 463; in Spanish War, 463, 464; Governor of New York, 464; goes to Dakota as nominee for vice-presidency, 465-68; becomes President, 468; entertains cowboys at White House, 468, 469; visits Medora for last time, 469-72; death, 473; Dakota investment, 482.

Rough Riders, the, 464.

Round-up, the, 99, 220, 275-307, 403-03.

Rowe, 313, 314.

Russell, Archibald D., 458.

St. Paul Pioneer Press, its version of the Roosevelt-Mores bargain, 341.

Sewall, Bill, 87; Roosevelt's contract with, 156, 157, 481; his opinion of the West as a cattle-raising country, 159, 160, 206, 238, 240, 254, 306, 307, 396; his bout with Captain Robins, 162-64; his description of the Bad Lands, 167, 168, 190; begs off on hunting trip, 175; as a cowhand, 189, 190, 206, 225; and the vigilantes, 191, 192, 195; visited by Maunders in the dugout, 199-201; had good knowledge of the ways of cattle, 206, 207; consoles Roosevelt, 217-19; refuses to ride broncos, 225-27; on the cold of the Bad Lands, 236, 238; describes "cattle torture," 266, 267; superintends the house at Elkhorn, 312; level-headed, 313; helps clean up country of thieves, 324; lectures Roosevelt, 359; on a thief hunt, 372-80; terminates engagement with Roosevelt, 424-28; in later years, 457.

Sewall, Mrs., 310-13.

Simpson, John, 25, 385.

Sioux Falls Press, on Roosevelt, 429.

Smith, "Vic," 9 n.

Snyder, Jack, 436.

Stage-line, the Deadwood, 77, 78, 120-24, 170, 209-14, 334.

Stampede, 295-97.

Starr, Western, 303, 304, 385.

Stickney, Dr., 291-93, 325, 382, 383.

Stockmen's association, Roosevelt makes move to form, 222, 223; formation of, 232-34; activity of, 323, 324; its action on prairie fires, 358; Roosevelt representative of, 390.

Stranglers, the, 192-94.

Stuart, Granville, 144-46; his vigilantes, 146, 147, 157-59, 192-94.

Styles in the Bad Lands, 321, 322.

Sully Trail, the, 102-04.

"Tepee Bottom," 111.

Thieves, horse and cattle, 139-47; rounding up of, 157-59, 192-94.

"Three Seven," the, 94.

"Tolu Tonic," 22.

Trimble, Richard, 40.

Truscott, J. L., 390.

Valentine scrip, 61.

Vallombrosa, Antoine de. See Mores.

Van Brunt, 110.

Van Driesche, 334, 390.

Van Zander, 128, 322, 363, 457.

"V-Eye," 110.

Vigilantes, Stuart's, 146, 147, 157-59, 192-94; other, 192, 194-96.

Vine, Captain, 10, 21.

Vine, Darius, 21, 53, 54.

Vine, Frank, 10, 22-24, 56, 61; his joke on Packard, 73-75.

Vines, the, 456.

Wadsworth dog, the, 315, 316.

Wadsworth family, 15, 25.

Walker, J. B., 360.

Wannigan. See Reuter.

Watterson, Walter, 275.

Wharfenberger, 375.

Wibaux, Pierre, 242.

Williams, Bill, 7, 9; description of, 50, 51; thief, 54, 81; starts freight-line, 120; and stage-line, 122; in the gay life of Medora, 128; hissaloon, 319, 320; a bona-fide "bad man," 320; and the preacher, 325 n.; the last of his saloon, 454.

Willis, John, 419-24. 454, 469.

Wister, Owen, The Virginian, 214 n.

Young, Farmer, 315.

THE END