glory with a lavish brush. That is not the kind of book young Roosevelt wrote. He must have gone into the old reports, letters, statistics, studied the ships so as to know just how many guns each of the fighting sea boats carried, what was the weight of metal of all the broadsides, and the range of fire; who had the advantage of the size and reach of the shots. Roosevelt did not write thisWar of 1812 book, without knowing with what force and from what direction the wind blew. The names of the officers on both sides were as familiar to him as those of his schoolmates.

Three years later, the second work of Theodore Roosevelt was published, entitled "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," sketches of sport on the Northern cattle plains, together with "Personal Experiences of Life on a Cattle Ranch." This was not a study from the treasured fragments of authenticity in the private papers of the actors in affairs, the turning and overturning of forgotten works, the contents of precious pigeon holes. It was not looked to for the biographical particulars of the heroes who fought under their respective flags. The second work was a study from nature, the exploration of new lands"Good" and "Bad" Lands, sketches of the picturesque of a people ascertained upon analysis to be a novelty. The first book was of something oldthe second, of something new. We quote the "Nation" again: "His style is simple and devoid of pretense of fine writing, yet his descriptions of scenery are often most eloquent." This eulogy has all the fine quality the severe recommend as the emphasis of understatement, the power of moderation found upon measure by scientific instruments, to be within the facts.

In 1887, "The Life of Thomas Hart Benton," was published; and the same year, "The Life of Governor Morris," and also, "Essays on Practical Politics." The young man was working harder with his pen than he would have been if he had pounded iron into horseshoes and nails and tires of wheels, going into the detail of blacksmithing.

In the same year, his "Ranch Life and Hunting Trail" was issued. Of this book the "Saturday Review" said:

"One of the reasons for the success of the President's books is that he wrote of the 'Winning of the West' in the West. There is a Western atmosphere in the volumes."

So much is said of President Roosevelt as a Ranchman, and his Ranch, that we must quote his own description of it with the annotation that it is evident, from the immense amount of highly wrought literary matter that appears in the book list, and other works, for we have not failed to gather up and formulate the fragments, that the Ranch Life has afforded the retirement, and quiet, the chances of exclusiveness, varied by the hunting experiences, so charming and familiar to the young men of the country. The Statesman of the ranch writes:

"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, on 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 bounding 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 out-buildings, 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 centre, and a wing built out from one side of the gate entrance, so that the saddle band can be driven in without trouble."

The first guide of President Roosevelt in a buffalo hunt, has mentioned it. His name is Ferris, and tells of Roosevelt's railroad arrival, 1883, on a September day, and the buffalo ranges were fifty miles away, over a badly broken country. He describes Roosevelt as a "thin young man, plainly dressed." "It meant hard work to get a buffalo at that time, 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.

"On the first night out, when we were twenty-five or thirty miles from a