The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-07-12
RANCHMAN ROOSEVELT,
AS Tommy Harold Knew Him.


station in this city one day this week
and sat him down for a quiet look
about. A by-stander, attracted by the
lvnce familiar sight of high-heeled bboots
and sombrero, engaged the cowman in
conversation. He learned that Mr..
Harold was on his way to his former
home in Toledo. where e>still has rela-
tives living and which town he left at
his mothers death thirty years ago to
seek his fortune in the great west.
do / know ROOSEVELT" asked Mi,
Harold. "Well, l ought to know him.
Him and me had a scrap one day out
there in Medora, and | surely would ha'
made him hard to catch if one of his
punchers hadn't mashed me over the
bead with the butt end of qulrt.
Reckon it's a good thing, for | was just
foolish enough to turned loose my old
gun on him and then there'd been war.
After that bump on my head got down
so'st l could wear a hat l made up with
Rosy and | Rl-ays found him pretty
decent sort of citizen. He wears a
heap too many frills to be enticin' to
| the average man and brother at the
] first sight, but after you get to know
him right we'll you kind O. overlook
them things and just remember that
he's not bad sort.
you see Medora was a pretty rough
sort of a seaport them days. There pos
| itively wasn't no limit to the game, and
| any one lookin' for anything could get
| it or a dern good imitation quick.
| Roosevelt had a ranch not far away,
| and a mighty good one, too / was
punchin' cows for the Bar Y outfit that
! run about twenty punchers then. Since
| then it's only good for a cook and three
men. Then hard winters up in Dakota
surely take the pride out of cowmen.
We on the Bar Y used to think we We're
| pretty good medicine Life insurance
rates alays took a sudden jump when
you got on Steam Creek where the Bar
Y was located.
The boys aiays allowed to kind O.
take the taste out of their mouths by a
blittle fun in the city after the beef
roundup was over. l went along. You
couldn't keep me out of Medora with a
bard wire fence, and after I got in there
you couldn't pulled me out with four
yoke Of bulls, till got what came for
and was clean busted. Then I was will
ling enough to get back to the ranch
and get the sore outa by bones by bein
good for awhile. That's the way it used
to be with all of us. We surely did
have plum good times in them days
Too bad they're done for.
well, we from the Bar run across
Roosevelt in Medora. kinda close-herdin'
his men. You see, his punchers weren't
no angels neither, and could come about
as nigh prying hell loose as any bunch
on the creek when they onst started.
But they thought a heap of Rosy" as
they called him when he was ioollin' at
EN- and they cert'nly stuck by him.
He'd got his everlasting a million times
if it hadn't been for that bunch of
brutes he carried with him. But he
paid EN- good wages, and they stood for
his tenderfoot ways first rate. One
thing, he didn't like EN- to fight booze.
Cert'nly he couldn't keep EN- out of the
saloons. for that would'a started EN-
millin' round and then there'd been war
medicine amakin near there. But he'd
run EN- through a saloon quick and get
EN- on the outside before they had
chance to soak enough to make EN-
mean.
THAT day I was all wrong. I didn't
like the way he stacked up. He was a
heap too new and vanished to suit me,
and | undertook to scratch some Of that
enamel Off him. Where I made the
bad play was by buttin' into the game
alone. There was plenty of Bar men
around there, and all I'd had to do was
to raise the long yell and they'd focked
to me like flies to dead COW. But no
/ was plenty foolish about my ability
as a bad man, and thought I'd Just
have little quiet fun with this tender
foot before my own people come around.
Il offered him chew of tobacco, be-
in as his teeth was so white and nu-
merous, thought it'd do 'em good. He
passed sayin' nothin', and me ben' To-
coed by that time with the booze in me,
/ took it as deadly insult, and began
to gesture at him with my gun. Then
some one raped me on the cabeza and
I dropped. When l come too they were
all gone and I was mighty glad that no
harm had been done, although my head
was almighty sore.
Natural, / thought I was none popu-
lar with Roosevelt after that, and kind
O SHE'D away from him. But that sum
mer | left the Bar Y, and went out look
in for a job. I didn't find none too
easy, and one day I located myself up
on the Roosevelt ranch, and rode up
and asked for job. I lowed maybe
he'd forget that little soiree I had with
him down at Medora, but he hadn't
none. Whe I began to talk to him he
skinned them teeth of his and began to
ask me about my habits. Me, I told
min I hadn't none. But I saw he didn't
forget easy, so / began to pat him on
the back, and tell him how much every
one thought of him. and how if I'd
knowed it was him I surely wouldn't
gone projectin' around him with my
gun. He sopped up all that mess I fed
him like tame cat. and first thing I
knowed | had a good job Dustin bron-
cos. Then the other boys told me that
to get along with Rosy the first thing
to do was to kind o. boost him on his
ridin' and shootin That's the way
they all did, and say, he was easy. I
reckon he paid out most of the profits
of that ranch hrin' men that liked his
looks, and said so.
He was a game kind of a rooster at
that. The cook got on a rampage one
night. bein' half Indian, and therefore
to be expected He gave us a bucket of
hot slop, with dried backberries in it,
and called it pudding. Some one passed !
few remarks his way about there he |