years at Medora had shot and killed an equally objectionable
individual, reminded me how, just twenty years before, when
I was on my first buffalo hunt, he loaned me the hammer off
his Sharp's rifle to replace the broken hammer of mine;
another recalled the time when he and I worked on the
round-up as partners, going with the Little Missouri
"outfit" from the head of the Box Alder to the mouth of the
Big Beaver, and then striking over to represent the Little
Missouri brands on the Yellowstone round-up; yet another
recalled the time when I, as deputy sheriff of Billings
County, had brought in three cattle-thieves named Red
Finnegan, Dutch Chris, and the half-breed to his keeping, he
being then sheriff in Dickinson, etc., etc., etc.

At Medora, which we reached after dark, the entire
population of the Bad Lands down to the smallest baby had
gathered to meet me. This was formerly my home station. The
older men and women I knew well; the younger ones had been
wild tow-headed children when I lived and worked along the
Little Missouri. I had spent nights in their ranches. I
still remembered meals which the women had given me when I
had come from some hard expedition, half famished and
sharp-set as a wolf. I had killed buffalo and elk, deer and
antelope with some of the men. With others I had worked on
the trail, on the calf round-up, on the beef round-up. We
had been together on occasions which we still remembered
when some bold rider met his death in trying to stop a
stampede, in riding a mean horse, or in the quicksands of
some swollen river which he sought to swim. They all felt I
was their man, their old friend; and even if they had been
hostile to me in the old days, when we were divided by the
sinister bickering and jealousies and hatreds of all
frontier communities, they now firmly believed they had
always been my staunch friends and admirers. They had all
gathered in the town hall, which was draped for a
dance--young children, babies, everybody being present. I
shook hands with them all, and almost each one had some
memory of special association with me he or she wished to
discuss. I only regretted that I could not spend three hours
with them.

Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was supposed to be at Gardiner, Wyoming, and
Roosevelt