ssouri
and taken up again the activities which the Marquis had rudely
interrupted. But, being a simple-hearted creature, he had sold no crop
of hay to the Marquis "in stubble" for a thousand dollars, like his
craftier associate. He had merely "gone to work." The fact that it
happened to be Roosevelt for whom he went to work had something to do,
no doubt, with the subsequent relations between Roosevelt and the
Marquis.

Various forces for which the Marquis himself could claim no
responsibility had, meanwhile, been conspiring with him to "boom" his
new town. The glowing and distinctly exaggerated accounts of farming
conditions in the Northwest, sent broadcast by the railroad companies,
had started a wave of immigration westward which the laments of the
disappointed seemed to have no power to check. "City-boomers," with
their tales of amazing fortunes made overnight, lured men to a score
of different "towns" along the Northern Pacific that were nothing but
two ruts and a section-house. From the south rolled a tide of another
sort. The grazing-lands of Texas were becoming over-stocked, and up
the broad cattle-trail came swearing cowboys in broad sombreros,
driving herds of long-horned cattle into the new grazing-country.
Altogether, it was an active season for the saloon-keepers of Medora.

The Marquis was having endless trouble with the plans for his
stage-line and was keeping Packard on tenterhooks. Packard twiddled
his thumbs, and the Marquis, plagued by the citizens of the Black
Hills whom he had promised the stage- and freight-line months
previous, made threats one day and rosy promises the next. It was the
middle of August before Packard received directions to go ahead.

Roosevelt did not see much of the genial editor of the _Cowboy_ during
those August days while he was waiting for Sylvane and "Dutch
Wannigan" to return from Spearfish with the ponies, for Packard,
knowing that every hour was precious, was rushing frantically to and
fro, buying lumber and feed, pegging out the sites of his
stage-stations, his eating-houses, his barns and his corrals, and
superintending the constructing crews at the dozen or more stops along
the route.

Roosevelt, meanwhile, was obviously restless and seemed to find peace
of mind only in almost continuous action. After two or three days at
the Maltese Cross, he was back at Elkhorn again, forty miles away, and
the next day he was once more on his travels, riding south. Sewall
went