ns of water and pasture, to cause loss of weight; when the
"drive" lay through a burnt district for twenty or twenty-five miles
the deterioration of the cattle became a serious matter.

Day after day the cowboys fought the fires. It was peculiarly
harassing work.

The process we usually followed [Roosevelt wrote in his
Autobiography] was to kill a steer, split it in two
lengthwise, and then have two riders drag each half-steer,
the rope of one running from his saddle-horn to the front
leg, and that of the other to the hind leg. One of the men
would spur his horse over or through the line of fire, and
the two would then ride forward, dragging the steer, bloody
side downward, along the line of flame, men following on
foot with slickers or wet horse-blankets to beat out any
flickering blaze that was still left. It was exciting work,
for the fire and the twitching and plucking of the ox
carcass over the uneven ground maddened the fierce little
horses so that it was necessary to do some riding in order
to keep them to their work. After a while it also became
very exhausting, the thirst and fatigue being great, as,
with parched lips and blackened from head to foot, we toiled
at our task.

Work of this sort, day in, day out, did not make for magnanimity on
the part of the cowboys. It was found that seventy-five Indians, who
had received hunting permits from the agent at Berthold, were
responsible for the devastation, and even the Eastern newspapers began
to carry reports about a "serious conflict" which was likely to break
out any minute "between cattlemen and Indian hunters in the Bad Lands
of the Little Missouri."

Some one evidently called a meeting of the Little Missouri River
Stockmen's Association to consider the situation, which was becoming
dangerous, for on November 4th the New York _Herald_ reported that

the Cattle Association on Thursday next will send in a party
of thirty-five cowboys to order the Indians off the Bad
Lands and to see that they go. The Indians, being well armed
and having permits [the report concluded] are expected to
resist unless they are surprised when separated in small
parties.

Whether or not the party was ever sent is dark; but there was no
further trouble with the Indians that year.

Roosevelt did not attend the meeting of the Association he himself
had established.