ew Year.

In another letter he wrote, "Unless we have a big accident, I shall
get through this all right, if only I can get started square with no
debt!" And a little later he sent "Bamie" a clipping from a review of
his "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," which referred to him as "a man of
large and various powers in public matters _as well as shrewd and
enterprising in the conduct of business_." "I send the enclosed slip,"
he wrote, "on account of the awful irony of the lines I have
underscored; send it to Douglas when you write him."

"Douglas" was Douglas Robinson, the husband of Roosevelt's sister
Corinne, and distinctly the business man of the family.

Bill Sewall was apprehensive. "There was always a cloud over me," he
said long afterward, "because I never could see where he was going to
get his money. I tried to make him see it. He was going to buy land. I
urged him not to. I felt sure that what he was putting into those
cattle he was going to lose."

Roosevelt admitted that spring that Sewall's conviction, that the cows
would not be able in the long run to endure the hard winters, was not
without reason. "Bill," he said, after he had made a careful study of
the herd, "you're right about those cows. They're not looking well,
and I think some of them will die."

But on the whole the herd was in good condition. He had every right to
believe that with average luck his investment would emphatically
justify itself.

While I do not see any great fortune ahead [he wrote to his
sister Corinne], yet, if things go on as they are now going,
and have gone for the past three years, I think I will each
year net enough money to pay a good interest on the capital,
and yet be adding to my herd all the time. I think I have
more than my original capital on the ground, and this year I
ought to be able to sell between two and three hundred head
of steer and dry stock.

Sewall as usual, was less sanguine.

As for hard times [he wrote his brother that April] they are
howling that here, and lots are leaving the country. Lots
more would if they could. We are all right. Roosevelt is the
same good fellow he always has been and though I don't think
he expects to make much, his upper lip is stiff and he is
all right.

Meanwhile, he was hammering ahead on his Life of Benton. He was a slow
and rather laborious writer, but his persistence evidently atoned for
his lac