Manifest Destiny

“Will it satisfy you if I explain that I scorn the slothful ease of the mollycoddled?”

“Well then,” said Joh

Everyone knew that Roosevelt had to prove himself to Joh

It didn’t begin well for Mr. Roosevelt. Not only did he have to endure it with good nature every time a cow hand ragged him with a hearty “Hasten forward quickly there”—some of them even managed pretty well to mimic his odd Eastern dialect—but then on the third day, after his first assignment on night-herding duty, he came riding into camp in early sunlight, blinking perplexedly behind his glasses. “By Jove, I seem to have been lost. I was trying to find the night herd and it was so pitch-dark I must have got started in the wrong direction.”

A hand—one of Joh

“I’ll stand your next night guard. It’s the only fair thing.”

“You bet you will,” the hand agreed.

After that the boys were even more cool to him. Before, they had teased him; now they avoided him. Wil kept hearing their criticisms—uttered behind Roosevelt’s back:

“Greenhorn got himself lost inside half a mile of camp. I hear at home he needs a map and a lantern to find the outhouse.”

“Appears to me like he’s got more teeth than a man needs.”

“How can you trust a man don’t drink or smoke or swear?”

“He won’t last out the first two weeks. The booger’ll get sick or for certain he’ll get himself a gallopin’ case of cold feet in hot country.”

There were days when Roosevelt rode in, trail-worn and wilted, only to have to saddle a fresh horse and go straight out to nightherding, where twice Wil Dow ventured out with his uncle to keep an eye on the boss and they found him, thinking he was alone, giving way to violent attacks of asthma and cholera morbus. There were days when his hands bled, raw from the rope, and he kept pulling his glasses off to wipe his face because of the scalding sweat that stung his eyes. And still the boys ridiculed him, and Joh

They learned quickly enough that the buckskins they’d bought from the Indians were the only things worth wearing in the brush, for the thorn bushes could wear out a pair of good stout duck pants in two days.

Wil hated it when he drew the middle shift of night-riding; it interrupted his rest and got him so keyed up he couldn’t get back to sleep.

“Quiet one, at least,” said Pierce Bolan one night as their paths intersected. “The ones you want to look out for’s the loud nights—lighting, thunder. Ain’t nothing on earth half as deadly as a night stampede. Lost both my brothers in a stampede—night before we crossed the Red River.”

They all were young men, with one or two exceptions like Dutch Reuter; nobody knew just how old Dutch was—possibly in his forties or fifties. Bill Sewall was thirty-nine years old and the hands called him The Old Man. Sewall was sometimes in a frame of mind to declaim poetry in a very loud voice with his Down-East accent. It caused a good deal of ribbing and laughing. Uncle Bill didn’t seem to mind. He was sure of himself, to the a

As for Dutch Reuter, Wil had developed a keen respect and liking for his cowboy mentor. Dutch had earned that rare encomium from Roosevelt “a capital fellow.” Roosevelt seemed much taken by the fact that Dutch, who could not read or write, could retain in his memory long complicated lists of instructions. Uncle Bill Sewall, with characteristic dour wit, described Dutch’s English as “unspeakable” and in truth the accent sometimes made him nearly impossible to understand; but they’d learned on the ranch that you could recite a lengthy order to him and he would ride away in the morning with his pack animals and return next day to the Elkhorn after sixty miles’ round-trip ride with packsaddles filled with precisely every item on the list, even though he may have had to visit every establishment in town to fulfill them all.

But Dutch was by no means admired by everyone. Once he had been a hunting-guide partner of the surly Frank O’Do

The matter surfaced one noon when a large number of rifle shots was heard in the distance. It was a great fusillade but it only lasted a minute or two. A while later Dutch Reuter and Bill Sewall came separately into camp driving small pick-up herds of strays. The two men were riding parallel on converging courses but they had not been working together. Dutch turned his cattle in, unsaddled and went to the chuck wagon for di

“When?”

“Two hours ago.”

Joh

Dutch looked at him, looked at Sewall, then returned his attention to his meal. He made no answer of any kind.

Sewall said, “And there was a pretty big flock of sheep. Buzzards picking at more than two dozen of them. They’d been rifle-shot.”

“By Fi

“I wouldn’t know that for certain. I heard shooting but I didn’t see it done, and when I saw Fi

Dutch continued to eat. Joh

Dutch only stared at him. After a while Joh

Pierce Bolan said, “It does get dusty on the trail, Joh

“While you’re on horseback?” Joh

“About what?”

“Sheep.”

“Don’t like ’em.”

“Redhead Fi

“I mind my own business, yah?”

“Destroying another man’s livestock—that’s a serious thing, Dutch.”

“You see me destroy?”

“You’re on thin ice, you old bastard.”

Joh

That evening Wil heard it said around camp that Joh