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LIFE AND WORK OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

CHAPTER FIVE 

LIFE ON THE RANCH

Getting Acquainted with the Wild West—Thrilled by the Plains—He Buys a Ranch—Gains by Western Life— Fight with a Bully—His Moral Strength—Hunting Big Game—The Roosevelt Ranch.
While he was a member of the New York Legislature, Mr. Roosevelt, between legislative sessions, "surrendered to his impulses'' and determined to become acquainted with the "Wild West." On his first western trip, with buffalo-hunting as the primary object of his quest, he left the train at the little town of Medora, North Dakota, a typical frontier town of those days. It stood then in the midst of the immense cattle country, long believed to be fit for nothing but cattle raising.

The Marquis de Mores, a French nobleman, had a ranch at Medora, and the town was named after the Marchioness. It was the day of the "free range," and the cattle barons usually owned only a small part of the range over which their herds grazed. Here Mr. Roosevelt saw the Wild West "in the last glow of its golden age," soon to vanish before the advancing tide of settlement.

The vast plains thrilled him with a new joy and gave him glimpses of a new life. In his book, "The Wilderness Hunter," he has described the impressions of one who, like himself, felt the charm of the boundless plains:
"In after years there shall come forever to his mind the memory of endless prairies shimmering in the bright sun; of vast, snow-clad wastes, lying desolate under gray skies; of the melancholy marshes; of the rush of mighty rivers; of the breath of the evergreen forest in summer; of the crooning of ice-armored pines at the touch of the winds of winter; of cataracts roaring between hoary mountain passes; of all the innumerable sights and sounds of the wilderness and of the silences that brood in its still depths."

Before he left Medora he had purchased a ranch and identified himself with the West. He had hunted and camped with typical plainsmen and proved himself a man among men. Inquiring how much money it would take to go into the business of cattle-ranching, he was told that it would take at least $45,000. The Chimney Butte Ranch near Medora was available, and next morning Mr. Roosevelt drew a check for $10,000 as first payment on the ranch.

In February of 1884, his mother died and two days later his first wife, who was Miss Alice Hathaway Lee, of Boston, whom he had married in 1880, shortly after he left Harvard, passed away as her daughter, now Alice Roosevelt Longworth, entered the world. These domes-tie sorrows were followed by the defeat of his party with Blaine at the polls in November, 1884, and he then turned his face to the West and sought solitude and distraction on his ranch on the banks of the Little Missouri.

Sending for his old friend and guide, Bill Sewall of the Maine woods, he entered earnestly and practically into the business of ranching. Keeping his ranch at Chimney Butte, a few miles below Medora, he acquired another, many miles above that town. There, on a bluff above the Little Missouri, he found the skulls and interlocked antlers of two big, round-horned elk who had fought until they died. He built a comfortable log-house on the spot and called the place Elkhorn Ranch. Here he spent the greater part of the next two years, living the life of the typical cow-puncher and studying the wildest West so thoroughly that the tang of it ever after was with him. On his ranch he laid the foundation for a series of books, "The Winning of the West," which were published at intervals from 1889 to 1896. Undoubtedly his Bad Lands experiences had much to do, years after, with his organization of the Rough Riders.

Gains by Western Life
From ranching life he acquired skill with horse and gun and the rugged constitution such as he had long sought. At the same time he learned the lesson of valuing associates on their individual worth as men. No one has ever denied to Mr. Roosevelt an understanding of the mind and temper of the man of the plains. His sympathies with the North and the South were bred in him, but "his intimate knowledge of the West was his own achievement."

This rough and unconventional life, amid surroundings where a man's position was measured not by pedigree or bank account, but by his own worth, had a powerful influence on the future President's career. It resulted for him not only in an entire readjustment of values, but gave him an object-lesson in democracy that he never forgot. He entered into the life of the frontier region, not as an outsider with the message of a more highly developed civilization, but as one with the desire to enter into the life about him and accept things as they were. Yet through it all there ran an insistence on the recognition of the reign of law. More than once he taught by example. On one occasion he organized and led a posse in midwinter on a month's chase after cattle thieves, and hroke all precedents by bringing his prisoners safely back to jail, instead of following the usual custom of hanging them where they were captured.

Fight With a Bully
He had not been long in the West before he discovered that certain peculiar social conditions prevailed, and commentators have observed that it was from adapting himself to these circumstances that he learned that a man stands or falls as he masters natural conditions and the circumstances about him. How well he adapted himself to circumstances, with instant decision and fearless action, is illustrated by the oft-told story of his encounter with a swaggering fellow who tried to force him to drink when he did not care to do so. The drawn and smoking gun of his assailant had no terrors for him and his refusal to be bullied resulted in the downfall of the bully and added respect for the young ranchman in the eyes of his fellows. Details of the story will be found among the "Anecdotes of Roosevelt" later on.

Referring to this incident after he had ceased to be a tenderfoot, Mr. Roosevelt himself made this comment: "I was never shot at maliciously but once. My assailant was a broad-hatted ruffian of a cheap type. The fact that I wore glasses, together with my evident desire to avoid a fight, apparently gave him the impression—a, mistaken one—that I would not resent an injury."

Though at first the ranchers were disposed to laugh, at the "four-eyed dude," they changed their opinion when they found that no work was too hard for him, no hardship too severe, no peril too great. From that day to this the cowpunchers and ranchmen have sworn by Theodore Roosevelt, and it was due to this that he was able to get such a fine class of frontiersmen in his regiment of Rough Riders .

Showed His Moral Strength, Too
A characteristic incident showing Roosevelt's readiness to thrown down the moral gauntlet occurred later at Medora at a meeting of cattle men. The county had three prisoners who were the last of a gang of outlaws, and it was shown that a deputy sheriff, who was in his "unofficial moments" a cow thief, was in alliance with them. The ranchmen hesitated to denounce the sheriff when he strolled in to take part in the meeting of protest. He was a "two-gun" man with a nasty temper and "wore a brace of the most restless six shooters in the Kildeer region of the Bad Lands."

Mr. Roosevelt was the one who explained to the sheriff in no uncertain terms the evil of cow stealing. The disappearance of the next cow, he said, might become the signal for declaring the corrupt official's office vacant, and it was not without the pale of possibility that certain of Roosevelt's friends, whom he might be unable to restrain, might invoke the assistance of a rope or a "Winchester in preventing their herds from depredations.

Contrary to expectations, the sheriff drew neither of the guns projecting from his belt; gave no resentful sign. His look at Roosevelt was one of startled understanding of an unpleasant determination. But that was all—and the ranchmen of the Kildeer mountain region came to have a serene feeling as they turned into their blankets at night that their cows would not diminish in number before morning.
From that time on Roosevelt's position in the West was one of distinction among men. His real business was raising cattle and caring for them on the plains, and if anything could have raised him in their estimation more than his determination to be a real "cattle man" as distinct from a "sheep man" it was the display of nerve, which he never lacked.

Captured Boat Thieves
Once on returning from his ranch, says James Morgan in "Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man," he found that some horse thieves, in making their escape, had taken his boat. They felt sure that this would make them safe from pursuit because there was no other boat. Bill Sewall, however, built a rude craft in great haste, and on this he and Mr. Roosevelt and another man started down the Little Missouri. They floated probably for one hundred and fifty miles before they saw the camp of the fugitives.

Mr. Roosevelt, unseen, stole ashore and upon the camp. When near enough he cried, with his weapon pointed, "Hands up, or I will shoot!" The only man about the place was asleep, so it chanced, and, thus rudely awakened, he was in great alarm. He rolled over and over on the ground" in his anxiety not to be shot. He proved to be no more than a poor tool of the robbers and could hardly make himself understood in English. The thieves, two in number, made their appearance towards dark. They were in the stolen boat. Mr. Roosevelt and one of his men crept down by the river, where they sprang from their hiding as the outlaws drew near, and covered them with their guns. There was nothing for the men in the boat to do but to throw up their hands and surrender.
Nearly a week was required to take the captives to the county seat, a distance of two hundred miles. The boats stuck in the ice-jams and were almost upset. Each night a fire was built on the river bank and the two culprits were compelled to lie on opposite sides of it, while Mr. Roosevelt sat on watch until midnight and the rest of the night was divided between his two assistants.

Lived the Hardest of Lives
During his two years in the West as a ranchman Mr. Roosevelt lived the life of the hardiest plainsman. On round-ups he endured all the hardships of his men. He spent much of his time hunting, and killed specimens of all the game to be found on the plains and in the mountains. He was particularly fond of bear hunting, which requires a nerve as steady and an aim as sure as the pursuit of any game in the United States.

But Roosevelt was never a "dead shot." He always talked and wrote in a most dispassionate way about his "misses." He was called by guides a "mighty good game shot," his success being due to enacting faithfully his own description of the hunter which he wrote for his "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman":

"He [the hunter] must be persevering, watchful, hardy, and with good judgment; and a little dash and energy at the proper time often help immensely. I myself am not and never will be more than an ordinary shot; for my eyes are bad and my hand not over steady; yet I have killed every kind of game to be found on the plains.''

Hunted Big Game
Even earlier than his ranching experiences—in 1883— Mr. Roosevelt had attracted notice as a hunter of big game in the Rockies and elsewhere. Characteristically enough, small game had no attraction for him, and it is doubtful whether he ever shot a rabbit. Only when the beast had some chance against the hunter did sport appeal to him, and, naturally enough, the game that seemed most to his taste was the grizzly bear of the Rockies, that incarnation of strength, fury, and cunning.

When Mr. Roosevelt arrived in the Rocky Mountain country and announced his intention of tracking the grizzly bear, the toughs of the region declared their intention of '' doing him up.'' He was a tenderfoot. One of them went so far as to send a message to Roosevelt to the effect that if he proceeded to track the grizzlies there would be shooting. Upon receipt of the message Roosevelt inquired where this person with the propensity for shooting lived, and rode at once into his camp. The man, however, had forgotten why he wanted to shoot.

That incident put an end to any inclination to treat Roosevelt as a tenderfoot, and before the hunting campaign was ended he had won the respect of all those rough men of the West, and when the time came many of those who had been ready to "do him up" as a tenderfoot were the most eager to follow him into the jungles of Cuba.

Kills His First Buffalo
The first guide of Mr. Roosevelt in a buffalo hunt, Ferris by name, has told us about it. On a September day in 1883 the future President arrived at a lonely railroad station, with the buffalo ranges fifty miles away over a badly broken country. The guide describes Roosevelt as a "thin young man, plainly dressed."

"It meant hard work to get a buffalo at that time," says Ferris, "and whether the thin young man could stand the trip was a question, but Roosevelt was on horseback and he rode better than I did, and could stand just as much knocking about as I could.

"In the first night out, when we were twenty-five or thirty miles from a settlement, we went into camp on the open prairie, with our saddle blankets over us, our horses picketed, and the picket ropes tied about the horns of our saddles, which we used for pillows. In the middle of the night there was a rush, our pillows were swept from under our heads and our horses went tearing off over the prairie, frightened by wolves.

"Roosevelt was up and off in a minute after the horses.

"On the fourth or fifth day out, I think it was, our horses pricked up their ears, and I told Roosevelt there was a buffalo close at hand. We dismounted and advanced to a big 'washout' near, peered over its edge, and there stood a huge buffalo bull, calmly feeding and unaware of our presence.

" 'Hit Mm where that patch of red shows on his side,' said I, 'and you've got him.'

"Roosevelt was cool as a cucumber, took a careful aim, and fired. Out came the buffalo from the washout, with blood pouring from his mouth and nose. "You've got him,' I shouted, and so it proved, for the buffalo plunged a few steps and fell."

The Roosevelt Home Ranch
So much has been said of Mr. Roosevelt as a ranchman that one cannot refrain from quoting his own description of the Elkhorn Ranch and its surroundings:

"My home ranch lies on both sides of the Little Missouri, the nearest ranchman above me being about twelve, and the nearest below me about ten miles distant. The general course of the stream here is northerly, but, while flowing through my ranch, it takes a great westerly reach of some three miles, walled in, as always, between chains of steep, high bluffs, half a mile or more apart. The stream twists down through the valley in long sweeps, leaving oval wooded bottoms, first on one side and then on the other; and in an open glade among the thick growing timber stands the long, low house, of hewn logs.

''Just in front of the ranch veranda is a line of old cottonwoods that shade it during the fierce heats of summer, rendering it always cool and pleasant. But a few feet beyond these trees comes the cut-off bank of the river, through whose broad, sandy bed the shallow stream winds as if lost, except when a freshet fills it from brim to brim with foaming yellow water. The bluffs that wall in the river valley curve back in semi-circles, rising from its alluvial bottom generally as abrupt cliffs, but often as steep, grassy slopes that lead up to great level plateaus; and the line is broken every mile or two by the entrance of a coulee; or dry creek, whose head branches may be twenty miles back. Above us, where the river comes round the bend, the valley is very narrow, and the high buttes abounding rise sheer and barren, into scalped hill peaks and naked knife-blade ridges. The other buildings stand in the same open glade with the ranch house, the dense growth of cottonwoods and matted, thorny underbrush making a wall all about through which we have chopped our wagon roads and trodden out our own bridle paths. The cattle have now trampled down this brush a little, but deer still lie in it, only a couple of hundred yards from the house; and from the door sometimes in the evening one can see them peer out into the open or make their way down, timidly and cautiously, to drink at the river. The stable, sheds, and other outbuildings, with the hayricks and the pens for such cattle as we bring in during winter, are near the house; the patch of fenced garden land is on the edge of the woods; and near the middle of the glade stands the high, circular horse corral, with a snubbing-post in the center, and a wing built from one side of the gate entrance, so that the saddle band can be driven in without trouble.''
Not a Broncho Buster
When Mr. Roosevelt went into the cattle business, he started with five hundred steers, and we are told: "He worked for a part of a season as a cowboy. He had his own 'string' of horses and they were as ugly and ill-tempered as the majority of cow-horses. He was not a broncho-breaker, as he has been pictured to be, and he took no unnecessary chances in mounting or endeavoring to tame an especially ugly horse. But he did not shrink from riding his own horses when they cut up the customary capers of mustangs, and although he was sometimes thrown and on one or two occasions pretty badly bruised and hurt, he stuck to his mounts until he had mastered them."

One of the early and useful friends of Mr. Roosevelt in the Wild West was the late Colonel William F. Cody, the famous Buffalo Bill, and many a wild ride they had. Their friendship lasted to the day of Cody's death.

In his life on the ranch, Mr. Roosevelt realized all the benefits he had anticipated, and it appealed to him because "the charm of ranch life comes in its freedom, and the vigorous open-air existence it forces a man to lead."

On his own ranch he experienced the very hardest part of the work. On one occasion he was for thirty-six hours in the saddle, dismounting only to change horses or to eat.
At another time he was helping to bring a thousand head of young cattle down to his lower range. At night he and a cowboy stood guard. The cattle had been without water that day, and in their thirst they tried to break away. In the darkness Mr. Roosevelt could dimly see the shadowy outlines of the frantic herd. With whip and spurs he circled around the herd, turning back the feasts at one point just in time to wheel and keep them in at another. After an hour of violent exertion, by which time he was dripping with sweat, he and his companion finally quieted the herd.

On still another occasion he was out on the plains when a regular blizzard came. The cattle began to drift before the storm. They were frightened and maddened by the quick, sharp flashes of lightning and the stinging rain. The men darted to and fro before them and beside them, heedless of danger, checking them at each point where they threatened to break through. The thunder was terrific. Peal followed peal. Each flash of lightning Ishowed a dense ray of tossing horns and staring eyes. At last, however, when the storm was raging in fury, and when it seemed impossible to hold the herd together any longer, the corrals were reached, and by desperate efforts Mr. Roosevelt and his companions managed to turn the herds into the barns. It was such work as this that brought the future President self-reliance and hardihood and made him in later life a firm advocate of horsemanship.