nd the skillful use of the peculiar type of intelligence
with which they both seemed to be endowed, he had secured at less than
cost from Fort Abraham Lincoln at Mandan.

Associated with Williams, Hogue, and Maunders, in their various
ventures, was a man of thirty-eight or forty named Paddock, with
florid cheeks, and a long, dark moustache and goatee that made him
look something like Buffalo Bill and something like Simon Legree. He
conducted the local livery-stable with much profit, for his rates were
what was known to the trade as "fancy," and shared with Maunders
whatever glory there was in being one of the most feared men in Little
Missouri. Like Maunders, he had his defenders; and he had a
pleasant-faced wife who gave mute tribute to a side of Jerry Paddock
which he did not reveal to the world.

The banks of the Little Missouri in those days of September, 1883,
were no place for soft hands or faint hearts; and a place for women
only who had the tough fiber of the men. There were scarcely a
half-dozen of them in all the Bad Lands up and down the river. In
Little Missouri there were four--Mrs. Roderick, who was the cook at
the Pyramid Park Hotel; Mrs. Paddock, wife of the livery-stable
keeper; Mrs. Pete McGeeney who kept a boarding-house next to Johnny
Nelson's store; and her neighbor and eternal enemy, Mrs. Fitzgerald.
Pete McGeeney was a section-boss on the railroad, but what else he
was, except the husband of Mrs. McGeeney, is obscure. He was mildly
famous in Little Missouri because he had delirium tremens, and now and
then when he went on a rampage had to be lassoed. Mrs. McGeeney's feud
with Mrs. Fitzgerald was famous throughout the countryside. They lived
within fifty feet of each other, which may have been the cause of the
extreme bitterness between them, for they were both Irish and their
tongues were sharp.

Little Missouri had, until now, known only one child, but that one had
fully lived up to the best traditions of the community. It was Archie
Maunders, his father's image and proudest achievement. At the age of
twelve he held up Fitzgerald, the roadmaster, at the point of a
pistol, and more than once delayed the departure of the Overland
Express by shooting around the feet of the conductors.

Whether he was still the waiter at the Pyramid Park Hotel when
Roosevelt arrived there is dark, for it was sometime that autumn that
a merciful God took Archie Maunders to him before he could grow into
the fullne