RANCHLANDS 113 



the best-known cattlemen in our own Western 

 cow country, was an old friend of mine. Dur 

 ing my term as President he was, on the whole, 

 the most influential of the Western cattle- 

 growers. He was a leader of the far-seeing 

 and enlightened element. He was a most 

 powerful supporter of the government in the 

 fight for the conservation of our natural re 

 sources, for the utilization without waste of our 

 forests and pastures, for honest treatment of 

 everybody, and for the shaping of governmental 

 policy primarily in the interest of the small set 

 tler, the home-maker. 



We rode first to Mackenzie s home ranch, 

 about a mile from the railway, and then to an 

 outlying set of ranch buildings ten miles off. 

 At the home ranch were the American fore 

 man and his American wife and their children. 

 The buildings and the food and the whole life 

 were typical of all that was best in the old- 

 time &quot;Far West,&quot; in the days when I knew it 

 as a cattle country. We were given a most 

 delicious and purely American lunch, including 

 all the fresh milk we could drink; and the fore 

 man himself piloted us over the immense 

 stretches of rolling country, and in every ac 

 tion showed himself the born cattleman, the 

 born and trained stockman. Half of the em- 



