ed descent on
the maternal side from Caius Mucius, who, as Livy relates, crossed the
Tiber to slay King Porsena and killed the King's secretary by mistake,
a piece of business so similar to certain actions of the man who
claimed him for an ancestor as to lend some color to the claim. De
Mores was related more or less nearly to the Orleans family which had
never renounced what it regarded as its title to the throne of France;
and he himself had his eye on a crown. Behind all his activities in
the Bad Lands loomed a grandiose purpose. To one or two of his
associates he revealed it. He would make a great fortune in America,
he declared, then return to France and, with the glitter of his
dollars about him, gain control of the French army and by a _coup
d'etat_ make himself King of France.

It was a gorgeous piece of day-dreaming; but its fulfillment was, in
those middle eighties, not beyond the border of the possible.

As the only rival for leadership in the Bad Lands of this aspirant for
a throne stood, by one of Fate's queerest whimsies, a man who also had
his eye on one of the high places of this world. The Marquis de Mores
was the leader, or if not the leader at least the protector, of the
forces of reaction; Theodore Roosevelt was the leader of the forces of
progress. They were both in the middle twenties, both aristocrats by
birth, both fearless and adventurous; but one believed in privilege
and the other believed in equality of opportunity.

"When it came to a show-down, the Marquis was always there," said Dr.
Stickney, who watched the quiet struggle for supremacy with a
philosophic eye, "but he had no judgment. You couldn't expect it. He
was brought up in the army. He was brought up in social circles that
didn't develop judgment. He didn't know how to mix with the cowboys.
When he did mix with any of them, it was always with the worst
element. Now, when Roosevelt came to the Bad Lands he naturally
attracted the better element among the cowboys, such men as the
Ferrises and Merrifield, men of high character whose principles were
good."

And Packard said: "Roosevelt was the embodiment of the belief of
obedience to the law and the right of the majority to change it. The
Marquis was equally honest in his belief that he himself was the law
and that he had a divine right to change the law as he wished."

The conflict between the two forces in the community was quiet but
persistent. Roosevelt dined on occasion with t