...................................... 456

"Dutch Wannigan" ............................................. 456

Joe and Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield (1919) ................. 472

Rough Riders Hotel ........................................... 472

Photographs of Bad Lands scenes, unless otherwise indicated, were made
by the author.

The end-paper map is from a drawing made for the book by Lincoln A.
Lang. The town of Mingusville is indicated on it under its present
name--Wibaux.

INTRODUCTION

The trail-tracer of Theodore Roosevelt's frontier life has given the
members of this Advisory Committee of Three of the Roosevelt Memorial
Association the opportunity of a first reading of his book. The duty
of considering the manuscript and making suggestions has been merged
in the pleasure of the revealing account of that young man who forty
years ago founded a personal College of the Plains in raw Dakota.

Three are the essentials of the good biographer--historic sense,
common sense, and human sense. To the mind of the Committee, Mr.
Hagedorn has put into service all three of these senses. Every writer
of history must make himself an explorer in the materials out of which
he is to build. To the usual outfit of printed matter, public records,
and private papers, Mr. Hagedorn has added an unexpected wealth of
personal memories from those who were part of Roosevelt's first great
adventure in life. The book is a thorough-going historical
investigation into both familiar and remote sources.

The common sense of the work is in its choice of the things that
counted in the experience of the ranchman, hunter, and citizen of a
tumultuous commonwealth. All the essential facts are here, and also
the incidents which gave them life. Even apart from the central
figure, the book reconstructs one of the most fascinating phases of
American history.

That is not all that is expected by the host of Roosevelt's friends.
They want the man--the young Harvard graduate and New York clubman who
sought the broader horizon of the Far West in making, and from it drew
a knowledge of his kind which became the bed-rock of his later career.
The writer's personal affection for and understanding of Roosevelt
have illuminated the whole story. He paints a true portrait of an
extraordinary man in a picturesque setting.

William A. DUNNING
Albert BUSHNELL