He was known to be a gunman and a risky
man to mix with."

Roosevelt ordered Morrill to resign his inspectorship at once. Morrill
refused.

The annual meeting of the Montana Stock-grower's Association was to be
held in Miles City the middle of the month. Roosevelt knew that the
Association would not consent to sit in judgment on the case as
between Myers and Morrill. He determined, therefore, to demand that
the inspectorship at Medora be abolished on the ground that the
inspector was worse than useless.

Roosevelt presented his charges before the Board of Stock
Commissioners on April 18th. The Board was evidently reluctant to act,
and, at the suggestion of certain members of it, Roosevelt, on the
following day, presented the matter before the Executive Committee of
the Association. He asked that the Committee request the Board of
Stock Commissioners to do away with the inspectorship at Medora, but
the Committee, too, was wary of giving offense. He asked twice that
the Committee hear the charges. The Committee refused, referring him
back to the Board of Stock Commissioners.

That Board, meanwhile, was hearing from other cattlemen in the Bad
Lands. Boyce, of the great "Three-Seven outfit," supported Roosevelt's
charges, and Towers, of the Towers and Gudgell Ranch near the Big Ox
Bow, supported Boyce. Morrill was sent for and made a poor showing. It
was evidently with hesitant spirits that the Board finally acted.
Morrill was dismissed, but the Board hastened to explain that it was
because its finances were too low to allow it to continue the
inspectorship at Medora and passed a vote of thanks for Morrill's
"efficiency and faithful performance of duty."

What Roosevelt said about the vote of thanks is lost to history. He
was, no doubt, satisfied with the general result and was ready to let
Morrill derive what comfort he could out of the words with which it
was adorned.

Through the records of that meeting of the cattlemen, Roosevelt looms
with singular impressiveness. At the meeting of the previous year he
had been an initiate, an effective follower of men he regarded as
better informed than himself; this year he was himself a leader.
During the three years that had elapsed since he had last taken a
vigorous part in the work of an important deliberative body, he had
grown to an extraordinary extent. In the Legislature in Albany, and in
the Republican Convention in Chicago in 1884, he had been nervous,
vociferous,