man in it.

He accepted the dubious privilege and was shown to a room containing
two double beds. One contained two men fast asleep, the other only one
man, also asleep. He recognized his bedfellow. It was "Three-Seven"
Bill Jones, an excellent cowman belonging to the "Three-Seven outfit"
who had recently acquired fame by playfully holding up the Overland
Express in order to make the conductor dance. He put his trousers,
boots, shaps, and gun down beside the bed, and turned in.

He was awakened an hour or two later by a crash as the door was rudely
flung open. A lantern was flashed in his face, and, as he came to full
consciousness, he found himself, in the light of a dingy lantern,
staring into the mouth of a "six-shooter."

Another man said to the lantern-bearer, "It ain't him." The next
moment his bedfellow was "covered" with two "guns." "Now, Bill," said
a gruff voice, "don't make a fuss, but come along quiet."

"All right, don't sweat yourself," responded Bill. "I'm not thinking
of making a fuss."

"That's right," was the answer, "we're your friends. We don't want to
hurt you; we just want you to come along. You know why."

Bill pulled on his trousers and boots and walked out with them.

All the while there had been no sound from the other bed. Now a match
was scratched and a candle was lit, and one of the men looked round
the room.

"I wonder why they took Bill," Roosevelt remarked.

There was no answer, and Roosevelt, not knowing that there was what he
later termed an "alkali etiquette in such matters," repeated the
question. "I wonder why they took Bill."

"Well," said the man with the candle, dryly, "I reckon they wanted
him," and blew out the candle. That night there was no more
conversation; but Roosevelt's education had again been extended.

XV

When did we long for the sheltered gloom
Of the older game with its cautious odds?
Gloried we always in sun and room,
Spending our strength like the younger gods.
By the wild, sweet ardor that ran in us,
By the pain that tested the man in us,
By the shadowy springs and the glaring sand,
You were our true-love, young, young land.

Badger CLARK

Spring came to the Bad Lands in fits and numerous false starts, first
the "chinook," uncovering the butte-tops between dawn and dusk, then
the rushing of many waters, the flooding of low bottom-lands, the
agony of a world of gumbo, and,