ion may be trusted, he came
in all the glory of what were known as "store clothes." The Pittsburgh
_Despatch_, which sent out a reporter to the train to interview him as
he passed through that city, westward-bound, refers to "the high
expanse of white linen which enclosed his neck to the ears," which
sounds like a slight exaggeration. Tradition does insist, however,
that he wore a derby hat when he arrived, which was considered highly
venturesome. Derby hats as a rule were knocked off on sight and then
bombarded with six-shooters beyond recognition. Roosevelt informed his
fellow citizens early in his career as a cowpuncher that he intended
to wear any hat he pleased. Evidently it was deemed expedient to
suspend the rule in his case, for he was not molested.

After a brief sojourn at the Maltese Cross, Roosevelt made his way
north to Elkhorn Ranch. The house was nearing completion. It was a
one-story log structure, with a covered porch on the side facing the
river; a spacious house of many rooms divided by a corridor running
straight through from north to south. Roosevelt's bedroom, on the
southeast corner, adjoined a large room containing a fireplace, which
was to be Roosevelt's study by day and the general living-room by
night. The fireplace, which had been built by an itinerant Swedish
mason whom Sewall looked upon with disapproval as a dollar-chaser, had
been designed under the influence of a Dakota winter and was enormous.
Will Dow, who was somewhat of a blacksmith, had made a pair of
andirons out of a steel rail, which he had discovered floating down
the river loosely attached to a beam of yellow pine.[10]

[Footnote 10: The andirons are still doing service at
the ranch of Howard Eaton and his brothers in Wolf,
Wyoming.]

The cattle, Roosevelt found, were looking well. "Bill," he said to
Sewall, remembering the backwoodsman's pessimism, "you were mistaken
about those cows. Cows and calves are all looking fine."

But Sewall was not to be convinced. "You wait until next spring," he
answered, "and see how they look."

Roosevelt was himself physically in rather bad shape, suffering from
that affliction which has, by common consent, been deemed of all of
Job's troubles the one hardest to bear with equanimity. Douglas
Robinson wrote Sewall telling him that Theodore's sisters were worried
about him and asking him for news of Roosevelt's health. Roosevelt
heard of the request