dy said, was
sure again to be President of the United States.

"Have you got a room, George?" cried Roosevelt, as they met.

Myers shook his head cheerfully.

"Share mine with me," said Roosevelt, "and we'll talk about old
times."

Three months later to a day, the man who had been Little Missouri's
"four-eyed tenderfoot" was dead.

* * * * *

The Bad Lands are still the Bad Lands, except that the unfenced
prairies are fenced now and on each bit of parched bottom-land a
"nester" has his cabin and is struggling, generally in vain, to dig a
living out of the soil in a region which God never made for farming.
The treacherous Little Missouri is treacherous still; here and there a
burning mine still sends a tenuous wisp toward the blue sky; the
buttes have lost none of their wild magnificence; and dawn and dusk,
casting long shadows across the coulees, reveal the old heart-rending
loveliness.

Medora sleeps through the years and dreams of other days. Schuyler
Lebo, who was shot by the Indians, delivers the mail; "Nitch" Kendley
operates the pump for the water-tank at the railroad station; a
nonogenarian called "Frenchy," who hunted with Roosevelt and has lost
his wits, plays cribbage all day long at the "Rough Riders Hotel."
These three are all that remain of the gay aggregation that made life
a revel at the "depot" and at Bill Williams's saloon. And yet, even in
its desolation, as the cook of the "Rough Riders Hotel" remarked,
"There's something fascinating about the blinkety-blank place. I don't
know why I stay here, but I do."

The ranch-house of the Maltese Cross has been moved to Bismarck, where
it stands, wind-beaten and neglected, in the shadow of the capitol.
The Elkhorn ranch-house is gone, used for lumber, but the great
foundation stones that Bill Sewall and Will Dow laid under it remain,
and the row of cottonwoods that shaded it still stand, without a gap.
Near by are the ruins of the shack which Maunders claimed and
Roosevelt held, in spite of threats. The river flows silently beneath
a grassy bank. There is no lovelier spot in the Bad Lands.

THE END

APPENDIX

ROOSEVELT'S FIRST CONTRACT WITH SYLVANE FERRIS AND A. W. MERRIFIELD.

(A copy of this contract, in Mr. Roosevelt's handwriting, is
in the ranch-ledger, kept, somewhat fitfully, by Mr.
Roosevelt and his foremen. This ledger, which contains also
the minutes of the first meeting o