of the frontier, _unless you mean
to shoot_.

"Marquis," said Merrifield, "we've made our statement once for all. If
you don't see fit to write that order there won't be any more talk. We
will move the cattle ourselves."

The Marquis was courteous and even friendly. "I am sorry you cannot do
this for me," he said; but he issued the order. Merrifield and Sylvane
themselves carried it to the offending superintendent. Matthews was
furious; but he moved the cattle at dawn. The whole affair did not
serve to improve the relations between the groups which the killing of
Riley Luffsey had originally crystallized.

Roosevelt probably remained unaware of the interesting complications
that were being woven for him in the hot-hearted frontier community of
which he was now a part; for Merrifield and Sylvane, as
correspondents, were laconic, not being given to spreading themselves
out on paper. His work in the Assembly and the pre-convention campaign
for presidential candidates completely absorbed his energies. He was
eager that a reform candidate should be named by the Republicans,
vigorously opposing both Blaine and Arthur, himself preferring Senator
Edmunds of Vermont. He fought hard and up to a certain point
successfully, for at the State Republican Convention held in Utica in
April he thoroughly trounced the Old Guard, who were seeking to send a
delegation to Chicago favorable to Arthur, and was himself elected
head of the delegates at large, popularly known as the "Big Four."

He had, meanwhile, made up his mind that, however the dice might fall
at the convention, he would henceforth make his home, for a part of
the year at least, in the Bad Lands. He had two friends in Maine,
backwoodsmen mighty with the axe, and born to the privations of the
frontier, whom he decided to take with him if he could. One was "Bill"
Sewall, a stalwart viking at the end of his thirties, who had been his
guide on frequent occasions when as a boy in college he had sought
health and good hunting on the waters of Lake Mattawamkeag; the other
was Sewall's nephew, Wilmot Dow. He flung out the suggestion to them,
and they rose to it like hungry trout; for they had adventurous
spirits.

The Republican National Convention met in Chicago in the first days of
June. Roosevelt, supported by his friend Henry Cabot Lodge and a group
of civil service reformers that included George William Curtis and
Carl Schurz, led the fight for Edmunds. But the convention