all, most under thirty, some under twenty-five,
dare-devil adventurers with hot blood, seeing visions.

Roosevelt and Lang talked well into the night. The next morning it was
still raining. Roosevelt declared that he would hunt, anyway. Joe
protested, almost pathetically. Roosevelt was obdurate, and Joe,
admiring the "tenderfoot" in spite of himself, submitted. They hunted
all day and shot nothing, returning to the cabin after dark, covered
with Dakota mud.

Again it was Joe who tumbled into his corner, and the "tenderfoot"
who, after supper, fresh as a daisy, engaged his host in conversation.
They talked cattle and America and politics; and again, cattle. The
emphatic Scotchman was very much of an individual. The eyes behind the
oval glasses were alert, intelligent, and not without a touch of
defiance.

Gregor Lang was one of those Europeans to whom America comes as a
great dream, long before they set foot on its soil. He felt sharply
the appeal of free institutions, and had proved ready to fight and to
suffer for his convictions. He had had considerable opportunity to do
both, for he had been an enthusiastic liberal in an arch-conservative
family, frankly expressing his distaste for any form of government,
including the British, which admitted class distinctions and gave to
the few at the expense of the many. His insistence on naming his son
after the man who had been indirectly responsible for the closing of
England's cotton-mills had almost disrupted his household.

He enjoyed talking politics, and found in Roosevelt, who was up to his
eyes in politics in his own State, a companion to delight his soul.
Lang was himself a good talker and not given as a rule to patient
listening; but he listened to Theodore Roosevelt, somewhat because he
wanted to, and somewhat because it was difficult for any one to do
anything else in those days when Roosevelt once took the floor.
Gregor Lang had known many reformers in his time, and some had been
precise and meticulous and some had been fiery and eloquent, but none
had possessed the overwhelming passion for public service that seemed
to burn in this amazingly vigorous and gay-spirited American of
twenty-four. Roosevelt denounced "boss rule" until the rafters rang,
coupling his denunciation of corrupt politicians with denunciations of
those "fireside moralists" who were forever crying against bad
government yet raising not a finger to correct it. The honest were
always in a maj