But it accentuates this fact: A man carries his character with him. And it seems to have been impossible for this man to leave behind him. at any time the bond that holds the true American to the interests and activities of the nation. An effect of it was that when he returned to the East, it was by no means the coming from the banishment that his friends there imagined. They had little of importance to tell him. He had kept pace with events, as they had; and even the comment of the world was in his possession. It may have been a wise dispensation of Providence which denied large financial returns to the men who risked such fortunes, and expended such effort in developing the cattle country of the Northwest. There is just a possibility that much prosperity would have diverted Mr. Roosevelt, at least for some years, from these public labors in his native State which came to make up so much of his subsequent life. But, in any event, neither the distance from the center of government nor the exactions of ranch life left a void. in his career. He must have been an exceedingly industrious man; for in the years while there in the Bad Lands, he did much of the writing which has proved him a master of composi

tion, as well as a man of the most tireless action. As in the case of all new countries, there was a very lax moral code in the Bad Lands at the time Mr. Roosevelt established himself there as a ranchman. It had been the habit of some cowboys to drive into the herds they were keeping any stray cattle they encountered in riding about the range; and it was equally the habit of some ranchmen, even with knowledge of this irregular possession, to accept the "findings" and have the animals branded as their own.

One of the first rules enunciated by Mr. Roosevelt was that his cowboys would not be permitted to "rustle." That is, they should not permit cattle not his own to come into his herds. He was very positive about this, and his riders acted accordingly. But there was another rule, equally positive. He would permit no man to take cattle belonging to him. The habit had become too well established for instant breaking, and his stock continued to be stolen. He established one case very clearly, and with one of his men rode two weeks straight after the two culprits who had robbed him, captured them, brought them back to Medora, and sent both to the penitentiary at Mandan.

That was the end of the "rustling" in the Bad Lands. He established a better grade of morals than had existed before; and he quickened the sense of respect for law and order throughout the whole cattle country.

As to the details of ranch work, he has himself left a sufficient record. In one of his volumes he gives a most graphic description of the now almost forgotten "round-up." "A ranchman is kept busy most of the time, but his hardest work comes with the spring and fall roundups, when the calves are branded, or the beeves gathered for market. Our round-up district includes the Beaver and Little Beaver creeks. All the ranches along the line of these two creeks, and the river spaces between, join in sending from one to four men to the round-up, each man taking eight ponies; and for every six or seven men there will be a four-horse wagon to carry the blankets and mess kit. The whole, including perhaps forty or fifty cowboys, is under the head of one first-class foreman, styled the captain of the round-up.

"Beginning at one end of the line, the cowboys, divided into small parties, scour the neighboring country, and in the evening come to the