n boys" was visiting his sons. "Old man" Eaton was a Republican;
Lang was a Democrat. They began arguing at supper, and they argued all
night long. To Eaton, his Republicanism was a religion (as it was to
many in those middle eighties), and he wrestled with the error in
Lang's soul as a saint wrestles with a devil. As the day dawned,
Gregor Lang gave an exclamation of satisfaction. "It's been a fine
talk we've had, Mistur-r Eaton," he cried. "Now suppose you tak' my
side and I tak' yours?" What Eaton said thereupon has not been
recorded; but Gregor Lang went home happy.

With all his love for forensics as such, Lang had solid convictions.
They were a Democrat's, and in consequence many of them were not
Roosevelt's. Roosevelt attacked them with energy and Lang defended
them with skill. Roosevelt, who loved rocking-chairs, had a way of
rocking all over the room in his excitement. The debates were long,
but always friendly; and neither party ever admitted defeat. The best
that Gregor Lang would say was, "Well, Mr. Roosevelt, when you ar-re
Pr-resident of the United States, you may r-run the gover-rnment the
way you mind to." He did admit in the bosom of his family, however,
that Roosevelt made "the best ar-rgument for the other side" he had
ever heard.

Lang's love of an argument, which to unfriendly ears might have
sounded like contentiousness, did not serve to make the excellent
Scotchman popular with his neighbors. He had a habit, moreover, of
saying exactly what he thought, regardless of whom he might hit. He
was not politic at all. He had, in fact, come to America and to Dakota
too late in life altogether to adapt a mind, steeped in the manners
and customs of the Old World, to the new conditions of a country in
almost every way alien to his own. He was dogmatic in his theories of
popular government and a little stubborn in his conviction that there
was nothing which the uneducated range-rider of the Bad Lands could
teach a thinking man like him. But his courage was fine. Against the
protests of his Southern neighbors, he insisted on treating a negro
cowboy in his outfit as on complete equality with his white employees;
and bore the storm of criticism with equanimity. Such a spirit was
bound to appeal to Roosevelt.

At the Maltese Cross there was a steady stream of callers. One of
them, a hawk-eyed, hawk-nosed cowpuncher named "Nitch" Kendley, who
was one of the first settlers in the region, arrived one day when
Ro