TIM-: ROCKY .MOINI'AIXS loT 



;mil came on ao-ain like one distrauHil. If looked .^oiioiis, 

 l)iit Siicll. now lliorouo-lil\- ;ilive to the situation, snrano; 

 upon liiiu. I was told al'lcrwards that I should have 

 received notliini>- Init uratitude if I had then and there rid 

 the territory of the ]iestilent "' rustler," InU Iviieh htw is 

 out (»f fashion, and I look the >inii>h'r course ot J^iyiug 

 him his due, and bidding him ■" slope." From a compari- 

 son of notes with \\\x friend, j\lr. Theodore Koosevelt, I 

 have some reason to think that this miscreant is now doing 

 his ten years, having been one of a band of thieves whom 

 that gentleman overtook and captured, and brought down 

 in the depth of winter, after guarding them day and 

 night. The tak^ is admirably told at length in Mr. 

 Koosevelt's charmnig book un Ivanche kife, but as that 

 work is not very generally known on this side ui tlie 

 Atlantic. T niav be ]^ermitted to give a brief sketch of the 

 incident as 1 had it from the author's lips. 



At his ranche on the Little Missouri, jMr. Roosevelt 

 kept a boat, the only craft of the kind on that part 

 of the river. Three bad characters, for whom the country 

 had l)ecome too hot, came down one night in a flat- 

 bottomed " scow," and, seizing the boat, proceeded down 

 the river. The loss was soon discovered, but pursuit in 

 the depth of wdnter seemed hopeless. But these were men 

 who were not easily to be deided. and they set to work, 

 and in three days laiib anothei- tiat-bottomed scow, and 

 started down stream in the wake of the thieves, a task all 

 the more critical because the ice was jn>i 1>rcaking up and 

 the rivei' full of float ing masses of il. In(h'e(k this ice had 

 formed a lofty l)arrier across the stream, which liad ground 

 down past the ranche a few days before, ripping the bark 



