was
chairman of a committee which investigated certain phases of New York
City official life, and carried through the Legislature a bill taking
from the Board of Aldermen the power to reject the Mayor's
appointments. He was chairman and practically the only active member
of another committee to investigate living conditions in the tenements
of New York, and as spokesman of the worn and sad-looking foreigners
who constituted the Cigar-Makers' Union, argued before Governor
Cleveland for the passage of a bill to prohibit the manufacture of
cigars in tenement-houses. His energy was boundless, it seemed, but
the heart had gone out of him. He was restless, and thought longingly
of the valley of the Little Missouri.

The news that came from the boys at Chimney Butte was favorable. The
three hundred head of young cattle which Sylvane and Merrifield had
bought in Iowa, were doing well in spite of a hard winter. Roosevelt,
struck by Sylvane's enthusiastic report, backed by a painstaking
account-sheet, wrote Sylvane telling him to buy a thousand or twelve
hundred head more.

Sylvane's reply was characteristic and would have gratified Uncle
James. "Don't put in any more money until you're sure we've scattered
the other dollars right," he said in effect. "Better come out first
and look around."

That struck Roosevelt as good advice, and he accepted it.

While Roosevelt was winning clear, meanwhile, of the tangles and
snares in Albany, he was unconsciously being enmeshed in the web that
was spinning at Medora.

It came about this way. The Marquis, who had many likable qualities,
did not possess among them any strict regard for the rights of others.
He had a curious obsession, in fact, that in the Bad Lands there were
no rights but his; and with that point of view had directed his
superintendent, a man named Matthews, to drive fifteen hundred head of
cattle over on an unusually fine piece of bottom-land northwestward
across the river from the Maltese Cross, which, by all the laws of the
range, belonged to the "Roosevelt outfit." Matthews declared that the
Marquis intended to hold the bottom permanently for fattening
beef-cattle, and to build a cabin there.

"You'll have to move those cattle by daylight," said Merrifield, "or
we'll move them for you. You can take your choice."

"I've got my orders from the Marquis to keep the cattle here,"
answered Matthews. "That's all there is to it. They'll stay here."

It was late at nig