44 CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT 



in a presentable condition. I forget now how he had 

 earned his name, but no doubt he had come honestly 

 by it ; it was a part of his history, as was that of " The 

 Pike," "Cold Turkey Bill," "Hash Knife Joe," and 

 other classic heroes of the frontier. 



It is curious how certain things go to the bad in the 

 Far West, or a certain proportion of them, bad 

 lands, bad horses, and bad men. And it is a degree 

 of badness that the East has no conception of, land 

 that looks as raw and unnatural as if time had never 

 laid its shaping and softening hand upon it; horses 

 that, when mounted, put their heads to the ground 

 and their heels in the air, and, squealing defiantly, re- 

 sort to the most diabolically ingenious tricks to shake 

 off or to kill their riders; and men who amuse them- 

 selves in bar-rooms by shooting about the feet of a 

 "tenderfoot" to make him dance, or who ride along 

 the street and shoot at every one in sight. Just as the 

 old plutonic fires come to the surface out there in the 

 Rockies, and hint very strongly of the infernal regions, 

 so a kind of satanic element in men and animals 

 an underlying devilishness crops out, and we have 

 the border ruffian and the bucking broncho. 



The President told of an Englishman on a hunting 

 trip in the West, who, being an expert horseman at 

 home, scorned the idea that he could not ride any of 

 their "grass-fed ponies." So they gave him a bucking 

 broncho. .He was soon lying on the ground, much 

 stunned. When he could speak, he said, "I should 

 not have minded him, you know, but 'e 'ides 'is 'ead." 



At one place in Dakota the train stopped to take 

 water while we were at lunch. A crowd soon gathered, 

 and the President went out to greet them. We could 



