Great Heart The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt 4

Great Heart The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt 4

On another occasion, Welshy, a saloon-keeper, and a man named Hay had

been at odds for some time. One day Hay entered Welshy’s saloon out of

temper and became very abusive. Suddenly Welshy took out his revolver

and fired at Hay. The saloon-keeper almost fainted with surprise when

Hay, after staggering slightly, shook himself, stretched out his hand

and gave back to his would-be slayer the ball. It had glanced along

his breast-bone, gone into the body and come out at the point of the

shoulder, then dropped down the sleeve into his hand. Roosevelt thought

the story worthy of the pen of a Wister or a Bret Harte, but the editor

of “The Bad Lands Cowboy” mentioned the event merely as an “unfortunate

occurrence between two of our most esteemed fellow citizens.”

 

On still another occasion a Scotchman and a Minnesota man, both with

“shooting” records, had a furious quarrel, and later the Scotchman

mounted his horse, with rifle in hand, and rode to the door of the

American’s mud ranch, breathing threats of slaughter. The latter,

however, was not caught napping. From behind a corner of his building

he instantly shot down his foolish assailant.

 

Soon afterward there was a cowboy ball held in the place. Whether

or not this was in celebration of the victory is not stated, but a

historic fact in connection with the ball is that Roosevelt was

selected to open the dancing with the wife of the victor of the

shooting affair. The husband himself danced opposite, instructing

Roosevelt in the steps of the lanciers.

 

Sometimes Roosevelt found himself involved in situations that required

both a cool head and a sense of humor. When he entered a strange place

it always took him a day or two to live down the fact that he wore

spectacles, and he found it a justifiable policy to ignore remarks

about “four-eyes” until it became apparent to him that his keeping

still was being mistaken for cowardice, on which occasion he went at

the aggressor hammer and tongs.

 

An amusing happening in which he was a central figure occurred when he

was out on a search for a lost horse. He stopped for the night at a

little cow town, but was informed by the owner of the only hotel that

the only accommodation left was a room containing two double beds, and

that three men were already occupying these beds. Roosevelt accepted

the offer of the vacant half bed and turned in.

 

Two hours later a lantern flashed in his face and he awoke to find

himself staring into the muzzle of a revolver. Two men bent over him.

“It ain’t him!” said one, and the next moment his bedfellow was

covered by their guns, and one of them said, persuasively: “Now, Bill,

don’t make a fuss, but come along quiet.”

 

“I’m not thinking of making a fuss,” said Bill.

 

“That’s right,” was the answer, “we don’t want to hurt you; we just

want you to come along. You know why.”

 

Bill dressed himself and went with them. “I wonder why they took Bill?”

Roosevelt asked naively.

 

“Well,” drawled one of his neighbors, “I guess they wanted him.”

 

Roosevelt heard later that Bill had held up a Northern Pacific train

and by shooting at the conductor’s feet, made him dance. Bill was

more a joker than a train robber, but the holding up of the train had

delayed the mails, and the United States Marshal had sent for him.

 

 

ROOSEVELT MEETS BAD INDIANS

 

A peril Roosevelt faced arose from his proximity to bad Indians. In

roaming through the uninhabited country surrounding his ranch there was

constant danger of meeting bands of young bucks. These redskins were

generally insolent and reckless, and if they met a white man when the

chances of their detection and punishment were slight they would take

away his horse and rifle, if not his life.

 

One morning Roosevelt had set out on a solitary trip to the country

beyond his ranch. He was near the middle of a plateau when a small

band of Indians suddenly rode over the edge in front of him. The

minute they saw him, out came their guns. Full tilt they dashed at

him, whooping and brandishing their weapons in typical Indian style.

Roosevelt reined up and dismounted. His horse, Manitou, stood steady

as a rock. When the Indians were a hundred yards off, Roosevelt threw

his rifle over Manitou’s back and drew a bead on the foremost redskin.

Instantly the party scattered, doubled back on their tracks and bent

over alongside their horses to shield themselves from Roosevelt’s

gun. Out of rifle range, they held a consultation, and then one came

forward alone, dropping his rifle and waving a blanket over his head.

When he was within fifty yards he yelled out: “How! Me good Indian.”

Roosevelt returned the “How,” and assured him that he was delighted

to know that he was a good Indian, but that he would not be permitted

to come closer. The other Indians came closer, but Roosevelt’s rifle

covered them. After an outburst of profanity, they galloped away in an

opposite direction from Roosevelt’s route. Later in the day Roosevelt

met two trappers, who told him that his assailants were young Sioux

bucks, who had robbed them of two horses.

 

In his account of this episode, Roosevelt takes care to point out that

there is another side to the Indian character, as indeed all America

has found out since the gallantry of our Indian brothers in the world

war. He illustrates this by telling how, while spending the night

in a small cow ranch on the Beaver, he lay in his bunk listening to

the conversation of two cowboys. They were speaking of Indians, and

mentioned a jury that had acquitted a horse-thief of the charge of

stealing stock from a neighboring tribe, though the thief himself had

openly admitted its truth. One of these cowboys suddenly remarked

that he had once met an Indian who was a pretty good fellow, and he

proceeded to tell the story.

 

A small party of Indians had passed the winter near the ranch at which

he was employed. The chief had two particularly fine horses. These so

excited the cowboy’s cupidity that one night he drove them off and

hid them in a safe place. The chief looked for them high and low, but

without success. Soon afterward one of the cowboy’s own horses strayed.

When spring came the Indians went away, but three days afterward the

chief returned, bringing with him the strayed horse, which he had

happened to run across. “I couldn’t stand that,” said the narrator, “so

I just told him I reckoned I knew where his own lost horses were, and I

saddled up my bronco and piloted him to them.”

 

Still another story is cited by Roosevelt in denial of the saying, “The

only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Once, on visiting a neighboring

ranch, he found waiting there three well-behaved and self-respecting

Sioux. The woman on the ranch told him that a white man had come along

and tried to run off with their horses. Running out, they had caught

him, retaken their horses, deprived him of his guns and released him.

 

“I don’t see why they let him go,” exclaimed Roosevelt’s hostess. “I

don’t believe in stealing Indians’ horses any more than white folks’ so

I told them they could go along and hang him--I’d never cheep.”

 

When, many years later, Roosevelt became President, his knowledge of

the condition of the Indians led him to become their stanch champion.

There was then an enormous amount of fraud practised by white men in

obtaining possession of Indian lands. Roosevelt used his executive

power to protect Indian rights and appointed as Indian Commissioner

Francis E. Leupp, one of the best friends the Indians ever had.

 

 

POLICE WORK ON THE PLAINS

 

There was much horse-stealing and cattle-killing in this part of the

country while Roosevelt was a resident of it. Under the direction of

the big cattle-owners, vigilantes were organized to rid the territory

of the “rustlers”--the cowboys’ name for horse and cattle-thieves.

 

Roosevelt admitted the need of these stringent methods, but his own way

of fighting lawlessness was to accept the office of deputy sheriff for

his locality.

 

It was while filling this office that Roosevelt first made the

acquaintance of Seth Bullock, who later became one of his warmest

friends and greatest admirers, and who served as marshal of South

Dakota under Roosevelt when the latter became President.

 

Roosevelt first met Seth when the latter was sheriff in the Black Hills

district. A horse-thief Seth wanted escaped into Roosevelt’s territory

and was captured by him, a matter that led Seth to give some attention

to the young cub of a deputy two or three hundred miles north of him.

 

Later, Bill Jones, Ferris and Roosevelt went down to Deadwood on

business. At the little town of Spearfish they met Seth. The trip had

been a hard one, and the three travelers were dusty and unkempt. Seth’s

reception of them at first was decidedly stand-offish, but when their

identity became known he unbent. “You see,” he explained to the future

President, “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!”

 

Roosevelt’s reputation as an upholder of the law was further enhanced

by his arrest of the three desperadoes from whom his neighborhood

had suffered. The vigilantes had almost cleared the country of

scoundrels, but there remained three men who had long been suspected

of cattle-killing and horse-stealing. One was a half-breed, another

was an old German of the shiftless type, while the leader was a

strapping fellow named Finnigan, with a crop of red hair reaching to

his shoulders. These men, finding the neighborhood becoming too hot

for them, were anxious to quit that section of the country. Roosevelt

possessed a clinker-built boat that had been used to ferry his men

across the river.

 

One day one of the men brought back to the house news that the boat had

been stolen. The end of the rope had been cut off with a sharp knife.

Near the stream lay a red woolen mitten with a leather palm. These

three desperadoes were at once suspected. Undoubtedly they knew that

to travel on horseback in the direction they wanted to go was almost

impossible and that the river offered them the best avenue of escape.

They must also have reasoned that by taking Roosevelt’s boat they would

possess the only one on the river and that, therefore, they could not

be pursued.

 

They reckoned without Roosevelt’s fighting spirit, however. With the

aid of two of his cowboys, Sewall and Dow, who, coming from Maine

woods, were therefore skilled in woodcraft and in the use of the ax,

paddle and rifle, they turned out in two or three days a first-class

flat-bottomed scow. This was loaded with supplies, and early one

morning Roosevelt, Sewall and Dow started down the river in chase of

the thieves. On the third day of their pursuit, as they came around a

bend, they saw the lost boat moored against a bank. Some yards from

the shore a campfire smoke arose. The pursuers shoved their scow into

the bank and approached the camp. They found the German sitting by

the campfire with his weapons on the ground. His two companions were

off hunting. When the two thieves returned they walked into three

cocked rifles. Roosevelt shouted to them to hold up their hands. The

half-breed obeyed at once. Finnigan hesitated, but as Roosevelt walked

a few paces toward him, covering his chest with his rifle, the man,

with an oath, let his own rifle drop and threw his hands high above his head.