Roosevelt in the Bad Lands Part 32

Bill Sewall regarded him with frank disapproval. "You're too valuable a man to use yourself up chasing foxes," he remarked. "There's some men that can afford to do it. There's some men that it don't make much difference if they do break their necks. But you don't belong to that cla.s.s."

Roosevelt took the lecture without protest, giving his mentor the impression that it had sunk in.

Roosevelt remained in the Bad Lands until after Christmas, shooting his Christmas dinner in company with Sylvane. Before the middle of January he was back in New York, writing articles for _Outing_ and the _Century_, doing some work as a publisher in partners.h.i.+p with a friend of his boyhood, George Haven Putnam, delivering an occasional lecture, and now and then making a political speech. Altogether, life was not dull for him.

Meanwhile, winter closed once more over the Bad Lands. The Marquis went to France, followed by rumors disquieting to those who had high hopes for the future of what the Marquis liked to call "my little town." J. B. Walker, who "operated the Elk Hotel," as the phrase went, "skipped out," leaving behind him a thousand dollars' worth of debts and a stock of strong drink. n.o.body claimed the debts, but h.e.l.l-Roaring Bill Jones took possession of the deserted cellar and sold drinks to his own great financial benefit, until it occurred to some unduly inquisitive person to inquire into his rights; which spoiled everything.

The event of real importance was the arrival of a new bride in Medora.

For early in January, 1886, Joe Ferris went East to New Brunswick; and when he came back a month later he brought a wife with him.

It was a notable event. The "boys" had planned to give Joe and his lady a "s.h.i.+varee," such as even Medora had never encountered before, but Joe, who was crafty and knew his neighbors, succeeded in misleading the population of the town concerning the exact hour of his arrival with his somewhat apprehensive bride. There was a wild scurrying after tin pans and bells and other objects which were effective as producers of bedlam, but Joe sent a friend forth with a bill of high denomination and the suggestion that the "boys" break it at Bill Williams's saloon, which had the desired effect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Joseph A. Ferris.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Joe Ferris's store.]

The "boys" took the greatest interest in the wife whom Joe (who was popular in town) had taken to himself out in New Brunswick, and there was real trepidation lest Joe's wife might be the wrong sort.

Other men, who had been good fellows and had run with the boys, had married and been weaned from their old companions, bringing out women who did not "fit in," who felt superior to the cowboys and did not take the trouble to hide their feelings. The great test was, whether Joe's wife would or would not like Mrs. c.u.mmins. For Mrs. c.u.mmins, in the minds of the cowpunchers, stood for everything that was reprehensible in the way of sn.o.bbery and lack of the human touch. If Mrs. Ferris liked Mrs. c.u.mmins, it was all over; if she properly disliked her, she would do.

Mrs. c.u.mmins called in due course. Merrifield was on the porch of the store when she came and in his excited way carried the news to the boys. As soon as she left by the front steps, Merrifield bounded up by the back. His eyes were gleaming.

"Well, now, Mrs. Ferris," he cried, "how did you like her?"

Mrs. Ferris laughed.

"Well, what did she say?" Merrifield pursued impatiently.

"Why," remarked Mrs. Joe, "for one thing she says I mustn't trust any of you cowboys."

Merrifield burst into a hearty laugh. "That's her!" he cried. "That's her! What else did she say?"

"She told me how I ought to ride, and the kind of horse I ought to get, and--"

"Go on, Mrs. Ferris," cried Merrifield.

"Why, she says I never want to ride any horse that any of you cowboys give me, for you're all bad, and you haven't any consideration for a woman and you'd as lief see a woman throwed off and killed as not."

Merrifield's eyes sparkled in the attractive way they had when he was in a hilarious mood. "Say, did you ever hear the like of that? You'd think, to hear that woman talk, that we was nothing but murderers.

What else did she say?"

"Well," remarked the new bride, "she said a good many things."

"You tell me, Mrs. Ferris," Merrifield urged.

"For one thing she said the cowboys was vulgar and didn't have any manners. And--oh, yes--she said that refined folks who knew the better things of life ought to stick together and not sink to the level of common people."

"Now, Mrs. Ferris," remarked Merrifield indignantly, "ain't that a ree-di-culous woman? Ain't she now?"

Mrs. Ferris laughed until the tears came to her eyes. "I think she is," she admitted.

Merrifield carried the news triumphantly to the "boys," and the new bride's standing was established. She became a sort of "honorary member-once-removed" of the friendly order of cowpunchers, a.s.sociated with them by a dozen ties of human understanding, yet, by her s.e.x, removed to a special niche apart, where the most irresponsible did not fail, drunk or sober, to do her deference. For her ears language was washed and scrubbed. Men who appeared to have forgotten what shame was, were ashamed to have Mrs. Ferris know how unashamed they could be. Poor old Van Zander, whom every one in Billings County had seen "stewed to the gills," pleaded with Joe not to tell Mrs. Ferris that Joe had seen him drunk.

It became a custom, in antic.i.p.ation of a "s.h.i.+varee," to send round word to Mrs. Ferris not to be afraid, the shooting was all in fun.

A woman would have been less than human who had failed to feel at home in the midst of such evidences of warmth and friendly consideration.

Joe Ferris's store became more than ever the center of life in Medora, as the wife whom Joe had brought from New Brunswick made his friends her friends and made her home theirs also.

She had been in Medora less than a month when news came from Roosevelt that he was getting ready to start West and would arrive on the Little Missouri sometime about the middle of March. Joe's wife knew how to get along with "boys" who were Joe's kind, but here was a different sort of proposition confronting her. Here was a wealthy, and, in a modest way, a noted, man coming to sleep under her roof and eat at her table. The prospect appalled her. Possibly she had visions, for all that Joe could say, of a sort of male Mrs. c.u.mmins. "I was scairt to death," she admitted later.

Roosevelt arrived on March 18th. His "city get-up" was slightly distracting, for it had a perfection of style that Mrs. Joe was not accustomed to; but his delight at his return to the Bad Lands was so frank and so expressive that her anxiety began to dissolve in her wonder at this vehement and attractive being who treated her like a queen. He jumped in the air, clicking his heels together like a boy let unexpectedly out of school, and at odd moments clapped Joe on the back, crying, "By George! By George!" with the relish of a cannibal reaching into the pot for a second joint.

She tried to treat him like the city man that he looked, but he promptly put a stop to that.

"Just use me like one of the boys, Mrs. Ferris," he said decisively.

His words sounded sincere; but, being a shrewd-minded lady, she wondered, nevertheless.

She did not know him when he came down to breakfast next morning.

Vanished was the "dude," and in his place stood a typical cowpuncher in shaps and flannel s.h.i.+rt and knotted handkerchief. And his clothes revealed that they had not been worn only indoors.

He gave an exclamation of delight as he entered the dining-room. "A white tablecloth in the Bad Lands! Joe, did you ever expect to see it?"

There was no more ice to break after that.

XXII

"Listen, gentle stranger, I'll read my pedigree: I'm known on handling tenderfeet and worser men than thee; The lions on the mountains, I've drove them to their lairs; The wild-cats are my playmates, and I've wrestled grizzly bears;

"The centipedes have tried and failed to mar my tough old hide, And rattlesnakes have bit me, and crawled away and died.

I'm as wild as the wild horse that roams the boundless plains, The moss grows on my teeth and wild blood flows through my veins.

"I'm wild and woolly and full of fleas, And never been curried below the knees.

Now, little stranger, if you'll give me your address,-- How would you like to go, by fast mail or express?"

Buckskin Joe

That spring of 1886 Roosevelt had a notable adventure. He arrived at Elkhorn on March 19th.

I got out here all right [he wrote his sister "Bamie" the following day] and was met at the station by my men; I was really heartily glad to see the great, stalwart, bearded fellows again, and they were as honestly pleased to see me.

Joe Ferris is married, and his wife made me most comfortable the night I spent in town. Next morning snow covered the ground; we pushed down, in a rough four-in-hand (how our rig would have made the estimable Mrs. Blank open her eyes!) to this ranch which we reached long after sunset, the full moon flooding the landscape with light.

It was like coming home from a foreign country to see the Little Missouri once more, and the strangely fascinating desolation of the Bad Lands, and the home ranch and the "folks" from Maine and the loyal friends of the Maltese Cross. He had good friends in the East, but there was a warmth and a stalwart sincerity in the comrades.h.i.+p of these men and women which he had scarcely found elsewhere. Through the cold evenings of that early spring he loved to lie stretched at full length on the elk-hides and wolf-skins in front of the great fireplace, while the blazing logs crackled and roared, and Sewall and Dow and the "womenfolks" recounted the happenings of the season of his absence.

Spring came early that year and about the 20th of March a great ice-jam, which had formed at a bend far up the river, came slowly past Elkhorn, roaring and crunching and piling the ice high on both banks.