of work are so long that one does not usually have enough time to sleep. The food, if rough, is good-beef, bread, pork, beans, coffee or tea, always canned tomatoes, and often rice, canned corn, or sauce made from dried apples. The men are good-humored, bold and thoroughly interested in their business, continually vying with one another in the effort to see which can do the best work. It is superbly health-giving and is full of excitement and adventure, calling for the exhibition of pluck, self-reliance, hardihood and dashing horsemanship; and of all forms of physical labor, the easiest and pleasantest is to sit in the saddle." And Mr. Roosevelt has always appreciated in the men with whom he has been brought into contact in public life those very same qualities-pluck, self-reliance and hardihood. Summer on the plains was in the open, but winter was a different story. Then all the land was changed into a place of grim desolation. Furious gales blew from the North, carrying with them the blinding snow. Across the prairie and through the naked cañons howls the breath of the cold season, the cottonwoods shiver, and the pines that cluster in the gorges moan and complain. Or in midwinter not a breath of air may stir, and then the merciless, terrible cold broods over the land, a silent death to all living things that are unprotected from it. The earth becomes stone, the rivers stand still in their beds like sheets of steel. In the long black nights there is no sound to break the silence, and under the stars the snowy plains stretch out like endless wastes of barren white. At such seasons the huge fireplace in the ranch house held blazing logs, and watchers sat beside the fire to see that it did not go out at night when the other men slept under piled-up blankets. In the corral the shaggy ponies huddled together for warmth, icicles often hanging from their lips, while the frost whitened the hollow backs of the cattle. In the winter there is much less work for the ranchman than at other seasons, but there is hardship and exposure in what he does Many of the men go with the summer, and for those that are left there is little to do except to hunt for animal food now and then, and on very bitter days to lounge restlessly about the house. But some are out in the line camps and occasionally the ranchman has to make the round of these; besides, one or more of the cowboys who are at home must every day be out when the cattle have become weak, as they get in the hard weather, so as to pick up and drive in those beasts. that would otherwise perish. The horses shift for themselves and need no help. In the winter the Indians often cut down the cottonwood trees and feed the tops to their ponies, not so much to keep them from starving as to prevent them from wandering off in search of grass. The men in the line camp lead a hard existence, as they are compelled to be out in all kinds of weather and must be especially active and on the alert during storms. The camps are established along some line which it is proposed to make the boundary of the cattle's drift in a given direction. "For example, we care very little whether our cattle wander to the Yellowstone, but we strongly object to their drifting East and SouthEast towards the granger country and the Sioux reservation, especially as when they drift that way they come out on flat, bare plains where there is danger of perishing. Accordingly, the cow-men along the Little Missouri have united in establishing a row of camps to the East of the river, along the line where the broken ground meets the prairie. The camps are usually for two men each, and some fifteen or twenty miles apart; then in the morning the two men start out in opposite ways each riding till he meets his neighbor of the next camp nearest on that side, when he returns. The camp itself is sometimes merely a tent pitched in a sheltered coulée, but ought to be either made of logs or else a dugout in the ground. A small corral and horse-shed is near by, with enough hay for the ponies, of which each rider has two or three. In riding over the beat each man drives any cattle that have come near it back into the Bad Lands, and if he sees by the hoof-marks that a few have strayed out over the line very recently he will follow and fetch them home. They must be forced well back into the Bad Lands before a great storm strikes them, for if they once begin to drift in masses before an icy gale it is impossible for a small number of men to hold them, and the only thing is to let them go, and then to organize an expedition to follow them as soon as possible. Line riding is very cold work and dangerous, too, when the men have to be out in a blinding snow storm or in a savage blizzard that takes the spirit in the thermometer far down below zero." But there are other sorts of work besides line riding that necessitates exposure to the bitter weather of the open western lands. Once while over at Beaver Creek hunting up a lost horse Mr. Roosevelt met a cow-boy who was out on the same errand. They started home together across the prairies, and were caught in a heavy storm of snow almost as soon as they had left the ranch where they had spent the night. They were soon completely turned round in their tracks, the snow blinding them as to locality, and they had to travel entirely by compass. They felt their way along for eight or nine hours, until finally they got down into the broken country and came upon an empty hut. In this hut they passed the night, picketing their horses. in a sheltered nook near by. To while away the time Mr. Roosevelt read "Hamlet" from a pocket Shakespeare he happened to have with him. The Texan cow-boy was much interested in the play and commented freely on those parts of it which most appealed to him-especially Polonius's advice to Laertes, which he translated into his own way of expressing it with considerable relish, and ended with the criticism that "old Shakespeare saveyed human nature some." In the winter life on the plains even those who do not look for horses and are not compelled to ride the line day in and day out are apt to encounter hardship and danger in being abroad in the bitter season. "Yet a ride in midwinter is certainly fascinating. The great white country wrapped in the powdery snow drift seems like another land; and the familiar landmarks are so changed that a man must be careful lest he lose his way, for the discomfort of a night in the open during such weather is very great indeed. When the sun is out the glare from the endless white stretches dazzles the eyes; and if the gray snow clouds hang low and only let a pale, wan light struggle through, the lonely wastes become fairly appalling in their desolation. For hour after hour a man may go on and see no signs of life except perhaps a big white owl sweeping noiselessly by, so that in the dark it looks like a snow wreath; the snow gradually chilling the rider to the bones, as he draws his fur cap tight over his ears and muffles his face in the huge collar of his wolfskin coat, and making the shaggy little steed drop head and tail as it picks its way over the frozen soil. There are few moments more pleasant than the home-coming when in the gathering darkness, after crossing the last chain of ice-covered buttes, or after coming around the last turn in the wind-swept valley, we see through the leafless trees or across the frozen river the red gleam of the firelight as it shines through the ranch windows and flickers over the trunks of the cottonwoods outside, warming a man's blood by the mere hint of the warmth awaiting him inside." In the Bad Lands, with their fantastic formations, the winter scenery is especially notable. The burning mines are among the more interesting features. The coal seams that have taken fire form these. In size they vary greatly. Some send aloft smoke columns that can be seen miles away, while others are scarcely noticeable a few rods off. The old ones burn away gradually, while new ones break out in the most unexpected places. One suddenly appeared |