nces
that were merely the day's work to his companions to him were edged
with the shimmer of spiritual adventure.

"We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst," Roosevelt wrote
thirty years later, "and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked
among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another;
but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the
glory of work and the joy of living."

"It was a wonderful thing for Roosevelt," said Dr. Stickney. "He
himself realized what a splendid thing it was for him to have been
here at that time and to have had sufficient strength in his character
to absorb it. He started out to get the fundamental truths as they
were in this country and he never lost sight of that purpose all the
time he was here."

To the joy of strenuous living was added, for Roosevelt, the
satisfaction of knowing that the speculation in which he had risked so
large a part of his fortune was apparently prospering. The cattle were
looking well. Even pessimistic Bill Sewall admitted that, though he
would not admit that he had changed his opinion of the region as a
place for raising cattle.

I don't think we shall lose many of our cattle this winter
[he wrote his brother]. I think they have got past the worst
now. Next year is the one that will try them. It is the cows
that perish mostly and we had but few that had calves last
spring, but this spring thare will be quite a lot of them.
The calves suck them down and they don't get any chance to
gain up before they have another calf and then if the
weather is very cold they are pretty sure to die. It is too
cold here to raise cattle that way. Don't believe there is
any money in she cattle here and am afraid thare is not much
in any, unless it is the largest heards, and they are
crowding in cattle all the time and I think they will eat us
out in a few years.

Sewall, being a strong individualist, was more than dubious concerning
the practicality of the cooeperative round-up. The cowmen were
passionately devoted to the idea of the open range; to believe in
fences was treason; but it was in fences that Bill Sewall believed.

I don't like so free a country [he wrote]. Whare one man has
as good a right as another nobody really has any right, so
when feed gets scarce in one place they drive their cattle
whare it is good without regard to whose