ere are fat now and
they say here that cattle brought from any other part will
improve in size and quality. Theodore thinks I will have
more than $3000.00 in three years if nothing happens. He is
going to put on a lot of cattle next year.

This is a good place for a man with plenty of money to make
more, but if I had enough money to start here I never would
come, think the country ought to have been left to the
annimils that have laid their bones here.

Roosevelt had, ever since the Chicago convention, planned to go on an
extensive hunting trip, partly to take his mind from the political
campaign, from which, in his judgment, the course of events had
eliminated him, and partly to put himself out of reach of importunate
politicians in various parts of the country, who were endeavoring to
make him commit himself in favor of the Republican candidate in a way
that would make his pre-convention utterances appear insincere and
absurd. The tug of politics was strong. He loved "the game" and he
hated to be out of a good fight. To safeguard himself, therefore, he
determined to hide himself in the recesses of the Big Horn Mountains
in Wyoming.

In a day or two I start out [he wrote on August 12th to his
friend Henry Cabot Lodge, who had suffered defeat at his
side at the convention] with two hunters, six riding-ponies,
and a canvas-topped "prairie schooner" for the Bighorn
Mountains. You would be amused to see me, in my broad
sombrero hat, fringed and beaded buckskin shirt, horsehide
chaparajos or riding-trousers, and cowhide boots, with
braided bridle and silver spurs. I have always liked horse
and rifle, and being, like yourself, "ein echter
Amerikaner," prefer that description of sport which needs a
buckskin shirt to that whose votaries adopt the red coat. A
buffalo is nobler game than an anise-seed bag, the
Anglomaniacs to the contrary notwithstanding.

He did not start on the day he had planned, for the reason that the
six riding-ponies which he needed were not to be had for love or money
in the whole length and breadth of the Bad Lands. He sent Sylvane with
another man south to Spearfish in the Black Hills to buy a "string" of
horses. The other man was Jack Reuter, otherwise known as "Dutch
Wannigan." For "Wannigan," like his fellow "desperado," Frank
O'Donald, had returned long since to the valley of the Little Mi