38 AMONG THE COWBOYS AND IN THE HUNTING FIELD 
His ranch lay on both sides of the Little Missouri, in Dakota 
Territory, that section of it which is now the State of North 
Dakota. He lived here in the open, making friends with the un¬ 
disciplined ranchmen and frontiersmen, taking part in all the duties 
of the ranch, and varying 
this with hunting excur¬ 
sions for big game in the 
surrounding plains and 
on the not distant flanks 
of the Rocky Mountains. 
Vignettes of his life 
here stand out pictur¬ 
esquely. Thus he tells 
us, not without a sense of 
exultation, of being thir¬ 
ty-six hours in the saddle 
as one of a party, dis¬ 
mounting only to change 
horses and to eat. Again 
we behold him with one 
cowboy keeping night 
guard over a herd of a 
thousand cattle in a dry 
camp, spending the whole 
night on horseback in 
strenuous efforts to keep 
the thirsty cattle from 
stampeding in search of 
water. 
More interesting still is the story of the round-up of a herd of 
some two thousand in the midst of a driving blizzard, with pouring 
rain that stretched out in stinging level sheets before the wild wind. 
With this were blinding lightning flashes and terrific thunder which 
maddened the frightened animals, rendering it next to impossible to 
hold them. It reads like the story of a Homeric battle. Round and 
round rode Roosevelt and his men, wheeling and swaying, galloping 
