Roosevelt in the Bad Lands Part 28

Roosevelt's first call on Mrs. Wadsworth had its serio-comic aspects.

The Wadsworths had a great wolf-hound whom Roosevelt himself described as "a most ill-favored hybrid, whose mother was a Newfoundland and whose father was a large wolf," and which looked, it seemed, more like a hyena than like either of its parents. The dog both barked and howled, but it had a disconcerting habit of doing neither when it was on business bent. The first intimation Roosevelt had of its existence one day, as he was knocking at the door of the Wadsworth cabin, was a rush that the animal made for his trousers.

Pete Pellessier, a round-faced, genial cowpuncher from Texas, subsequently told about it. "It was one of those dogs that come sneaking around, never a growl or anything else--just grab a hunk of your leg to let you know they're around. That's the kind of a dog this was. Roosevelt just started to make a bow to Mrs. Wadsworth, 'way over, real nice. Well, that dog flew and grabbed him in the seat of the pants--he had on corduroy pants.

"'Get out of here, you son-of-a-gun!' he says; 'get out of here, I tell you!'

"Then he turns to Mrs. Wadsworth. 'I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wadsworth,'

he says politely, 'that dog was grabbing me an'--'

"Just then the dog reached for another helping. 'Get out of here!'

Roosevelt shouts to the dog, and then turns back, 'How do you do?' he says to Mrs. Wadsworth. But the dog came back a third time, and that time Roosevelt gave that wolf-hound a kick that landed him about ten rods off. An' Roosevelt went on with his visiting."

It was a free and joyous life that Roosevelt lived with his warm-hearted companions at Elkhorn those late summer days of 1885. Now and then, when work was done, he would sit on the porch for an hour or two at a time, watching the cattle on the sand-bars, "while," as he wrote subsequently, "the vultures wheeled overhead, their black shadows gliding across the glaring white of the dry river-bed." Often he would sink into his rocking-chair, grimy and hot after the day's work, and read Keats and Swinburne for the contrast their sensuous music offered to the vigorous realities about him; or, forgetting books, he would just rock back and forth, looking sleepily out across the river while the scarlet crests of the b.u.t.tes softened to rose and then to lavender, and lavender gave place to shadowy gray, and gray gave place to the luminous purple of night. The leaves of the cottonwood trees before the house were never still, and often the cooing of mourning doves would come down to him from some high bough.

He heard the thrush in the thicket near by, and in the distance the clanging cries of the water-fowl. He knew the note of every bird, and they were like friends calling to him.

XIX

We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men, But we had to come to town to get the mail.

And we're ridin' home at daybreak--'cause the air is cooler then-- All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail.

Shorty's nose won't bear paradin', Bill's off eye is darkly fadin', All our toilets show a touch of disarray; For we found that City life is a constant round of strife, And we ain't the breed for shyin' from a fray.

Chant your war-whoops, pardners dear, while the east turns pale with fear, And the chaparral is tremblin' all aroun'; For we're wicked to the marrer; we're a midnight dream of terror, When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town!

Badger CLARK

Meanwhile, as the months pa.s.sed by, Medora was growing, and stretching itself. Even the Mandan _Pioneer_, a hundred and fifty miles to the east, thought it worth its while to brag about it.

Medora is distinctively a cattle town [runs the comment], and is ambitious to be the cattle market of the Northwest.

In two years it has grown from absolutely nothing to be a town which possesses a number of fine buildings, and represents a great many dollars of capital. The Black Hills freight depot is a well-built, substantial building. A number of brick houses have been built during the last year, including a very neat and attractive Catholic church, and a large hotel.

The _Pioneer_ did not see fit to say that most of the "fine buildings"

had been built by one man and that on the slender reed of that man's business ac.u.men the prosperity of the whole community rested. To have done so would possibly have seemed like looking a gift-horse in the mouth. And Medora's prosperity appeared solid enough, in all conscience. Things were, in fact, humming. There was now a clothing store in town, a drug store, a hardware store, a barber shop. Backed by Roosevelt, Joe Ferris had erected a two-story structure on the eastern bank and moved his store from Little Missouri to be an active rival of the Marquis's company store. A school was built (by whom and with what funds remains mysterious) and Bill Dantz was made Superintendent of Education; and next to Joe's store, opposite the office of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, Fisher laid the beginnings of Medora's Great White Way with a roller-skating pavilion, where the cowboys who drifted into town, drunk or sober, exhibited their skill to the hilarious delight of their friends.

But the architectural monuments in which Medora's opulence most vigorously expressed itself were the saloons. The number of these varied, according to the season. Sometimes there were a dozen, sometimes there were more, for no one bothered about a license and any one with ten dollars and a jug of rum could start his own "liquor parlor."

Among the saloons Bill Williams's stood in a cla.s.s by itself. He, too, had followed civilization to Medora, establis.h.i.+ng himself first in a small building near Joe's store, and, when that burnt down, in an imposing two-story frame structure which the Marquis de Mores built for him. The bar-room was on the first floor and above it was a huge hall which was used for public meetings and occasionally for dances.

The relation of the dance-hall to the bar-room had its disadvantages, especially when the shooting began. The bar-room itself was a sumptuous affair, for Williams had the shrewdness to know that it was not only rum that the lonely cowpuncher sought when he pushed in the swinging doors. The place was never closed, night or day, and the faro wheel was seldom silent.

The other saloons could not compete with the gorgeousness with which Bill Williams edged the cloud of robbery and ruin that hung about his iniquitous saloon; when they seemed for a night to compete, drawing to their own hospitable bars the cowpunchers whom Williams looked upon as his own legitimate prey, he had a way of standing at his door and shooting indiscriminately into the night. Out of a dozen rum-shops would pour excited cowboys eager to know "what the shooting was about," and as they crowded inquisitively about his bar, trade would once more become brisk in Bill Williams's saloon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: h.e.l.l-Roaring Bill Jones.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bill Williams's saloon (1919).]

Bill Williams was a _bona-fide_ "bad man." So also was Maunders. But they were of Medora's hundred-odd permanent inhabitants during that summer of 1885, the only ones who might with complete fidelity to facts have been so designated. Others blew in and blew out again, creating a little disturbance and drifting west. The great majority of Medora's noisy population were merely light-hearted youngsters who had not yet outgrown their love for fire-crackers.

Under the t.i.tle "Styles in the Bad Lands," the d.i.c.kinson _Press_ reprinted certain "fas.h.i.+on notes" from the columns of an enterprising contemporary:

The Estelline (Dak.) _Bell_ has been at some trouble to collect the following latest fas.h.i.+on notes for the benefit of its Bad Lands readers: The "gun" is still worn on the right hip, slightly lower down than formerly. This makes it more convenient to get at during a discussion with a friend.

The regular "forty-five" still remains a favorite. Some affect a smaller caliber, but it is looked upon as slightly dudish. A "forty," for instance, may induce a more artistic opening in an adversary, but the general effect and mortality is impaired. The plug of tobacco is still worn in the pocket on the opposite side from the shooter, so when reaching for the former, friends will not misinterpret the move and subsequently be present at your funeral. It is no longer considered necessary to wait for introductions before proceeding to get the drop. There will be time enough for the mere outward formalities of politeness at the inquest.

The tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of the "iron" is still cla.s.sic and severe, only a row of six cartridges grouped around the central barrel being admissible. Self-c.o.c.kers are now the only style seen in the best circles.[19] Much of the effectiveness of the gun was formerly destroyed by having to thumb up the hammer, especially when the person with whom you were conversing wore the self-c.o.c.king variety. It has been found that on such occasions the old-style gun was but little used except in the way of circ.u.mstantial evidence at the inquest.

Shooting from the belt without drawing is considered hardly the thing among gentlemen who do not wish to be considered as attempting to attract notice. In cases where the gentleman with whom you are holding a joint debate already has the drop, his navy six having a hair trigger, and he being bound to shoot, anyway, this style of discussion is allowable, though apt to cause a coldness to spring up. As regards the number of guns which it is admissible to wear, great lat.i.tude is allowed, from one up to four being noted on the street and at social gatherings. One or two is generally considered enough, except where a sheriff with a reputation of usually getting his man and a Winchester rifle is after you, when we cannot too strongly impress upon the mind of the reader the absolute necessity for going well heeled.

[Footnote 19: "Whoever wrote that was badly off his base. The simon-pure cowpuncher would not accept a self-c.o.c.ker as a gift. They laughed at them in fact.

Once, on a bet, a cowpuncher shot off all six shots with his single-action Colt .45 while his opponent was getting off three with his self-c.o.c.ker."--_Lincoln Lang._]

In Medora in those midsummer days of 1885, h.e.l.l-Roaring Bill Jones was the life of every party. Wherever there was deviltry, there was Bill Jones, profane and obscene beyond description, but irresistibly comical. He was as lean and muscular as John Falstaff was short and fat, but the divergences between the genial old reprobate of Eastcheap and the saturnine, but by no means unlovable, rapscallion of Medora were less striking than the qualities they had in common. He had good friends, none better than the gay, infinitely pathetic patrician's son, Van Zander, who played Prince Hal to him, light-heartedly flipping a fortune in the air as others, essentially less admirable, might have flipped a dollar.

"Deacon" c.u.mmins thought Bill Jones dreadful, which naturally incited Bill Jones always to do the worst that was in him to do whenever the "Deacon" was within earshot. He found delight in drawing up beside him on the round-up and pouring forth every evil tale he knew.

"Jones, I don't know why you tell those stories when I'm around," the "Deacon" would exclaim, not without pathos. "You know I don't like them."

After his first encounter with Roosevelt in the office of the _Bad Lands Cowboy_, Bill Jones told him no foul stories. The contrast between Bill Jones's att.i.tude toward a virtuous man who was strong and a virtuous man who was weak might furnish a theme for many sermons.

The antics of Sat.u.r.day nights were many and some of them were explosive, but on the whole men looked more tolerantly on the shackles of civilization in Medora in 1885 than they had in 1884. The vigilantes' raid had undoubtedly chased the fear of G.o.d into the hearts of the evil-doers.

Whatever can be said against the methods adopted by the "stranglers" who came through here last fall [remarked the _Bad Lands Cowboy_], it cannot but be acknowledged that the result of their work has been very wholesome. Not a definite case of horse-stealing from a cowman has been reported since, and it seems as though a very thorough clean-up had been made.

The ranch-owners, evidently, did not find the situation as satisfactory as Packard found it, for in July the Little Missouri River Stockmen's a.s.sociation, of which Roosevelt was chairman, determined to organize a posse to "clean up" the country north of the railroad between the Missouri and the Little Missouri rivers.

Osterhaut, captain of the round-up, was appointed leader and half a dozen ranchmen contributed a cowboy apiece. Roosevelt sent Sewall as his representative.

The route was through about as wild and unsettled a portion of the country as can be found now, so the people here say [Sewall wrote his brother on his return], and the oldest heads seemed to think thare might be some danger, but we saw nothing worse than ourselves.

Once more, that August, Packard raised his voice in favor of the organization of the county, but once more mysterious forces blocked his efforts. Meanwhile, the Stockmen's a.s.sociation was exerting a stabilizing influence that was as quiet as it was profound. No one talked about it, or thought much about it. But to evil-doers, it loomed uncomfortably in the background. Sometime during the year 1885, the a.s.sociation voted to employ a stock inspector at Medora to examine the brands of all cattle s.h.i.+pped thence to Chicago. This was a distinct check to the thieves, and might have been checkmate, if the a.s.sociation had not seen fit to appoint to the position the same Joe Morrill who as United States deputy marshal had already exhibited a tenderness toward the lawbreakers which was almost if not altogether criminal. What Roosevelt's att.i.tude was to this appointment is not known; but he was under no illusions in regard to Morrill.

Amid the tumult and excitement of life in Medora that summer of 1885, the consolations of organized religion were more inaccessible even than the services of an earthly physician, and there was no servant of Christ, of any creed or any denomination, who ministered to the men and women scattered through that wild region in a manner even remotely comparable to the self-sacrificing devotion with which Dr. Stickney ministered to them. That excellent disciple of the Lord doctored broken spirits even as he doctored broken bodies. The essentials of religion, which are love and service, he gave with both hands from a full heart; the "tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs" he left to the parsons.

These "tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs" were, it seemed, the only things which the few professional men of G.o.d who drifted into Medora were able to contribute. With the exception of the Roman Catholic chapel, erected by the Marquise de Mores as a thank-offering after the birth of her two children, there was no church of any denomination in Little Missouri or Medora, or, in fact, anywhere in Billings County; and in the chapel there were services not more than once or twice a month.

Occasionally an itinerant Methodist or Baptist, whom no one knew anything about, blew in from anywhere, and blew out again; and if he was seen no more there were no lamentations.[20] Services of a sort were held in the "depot," in one of the stores or in the dance-hall over Bill Williams's saloon, but attendance was scanty.

[Footnote 20: The d.i.c.kinson _Press_ burst into verse in describing the exploits of one of the preachers.

"Of a gospel preacher we now will tell Who started from Glendive to save souls from h.e.l.l.

At the Little Missouri he struck a new game, With the unregenerate, 'Honest John' is its name.

"He indulged too much in the flowing bowls, And forgot all about the saving of souls, But 'dropped' his three hundred, slept sweetly and well, And let the Little Missourians wander to ---- that place whose main principles of political economy are brimstone and caloric."

But the verses tell only half the story. As Sylvane Ferris relates it Bill Williams, conniving with Jess Hogue to fleece the preacher, gave him the impression that he too was losing heavily; and actually shed tears.

The preacher was heard to murmur, as he staggered into the night, "I don't mind losing my own money, but I am so sorry for that nice Mr. Williams."]

The inhabitants of the Bad Lands did not greatly feel the need of spiritual instruction, and were inclined to seek consolation, when they needed it, in "Forty-Mile Red-Eye" rather than in theology.

"Anything or any one a.s.sociated with religion or spiritual living was shunned," Bill Dantz explained in after days, "religion being looked on as an inst.i.tution for old women and weaklings. Such traveling evangelists and, later, regular pastors as came to the Northwest were treated with respect, but never came within miles of the intimacy or confidence of the cowboys. Such early congregations as cl.u.s.tered about the pioneer churches were the newly arrived 'nesters' or homesteaders of the towns; the cowboys never. There could be no possible community of interests between book-learned men of sedentary profession and a half-tamed, open-range horseman."