Manifest Destiny

By the next morning it was Wil who was grateful. For the others there followed two days of painful sobering up as the round-up moved its memorable hangover downriver. Uncle Bill and Deacon Osterhaut regarded the suffering cowboys with smug satisfaction. The boys joked with Uncle Bill while they returned Osterhaut’s surliness in kind. Some men simply had a sweeter flavor than others, Wil observed.

Mr. Roosevelt wisely held his own counsel. One afternoon he was out with his glass-plate camera making pictures of the roundup. Joh

“Fair enough,” Roosevelt replied. Perhaps he didn’t realize he’d just been ordered to ride more than a hundred miles without rest and to perform nearly forty hours’ work in the next forty-eight. Wil Dow was on the point of speaking a protest but Uncle Bill shushed him.

Then Joh

Joh

If he heard, Joh

Wil Dow said to his uncle, “Looks like Joh

“I doubt it. He’s not sorry for anything he said or did. He’s just being practical. Wants to keep things calm and head off any mutinies.”

“You think he’s that calculating?”

Wil Dow knew he invariably presented an i

“For one hundred dollars a month,” Joh

Reason enough, perhaps. It was three times the wage of a top hand.

Joh

Wil’s kaleidoscope kept spi

They were near the Killdeers. Headquarters camp had been pitched in the vast curve of the Little Missouri where it emerged from the Bad Lands onto the virgin prairie. Wil Dow and Dutch Reuter were pushing a batch of cows into the herd. Roosevelt swung by them, neck-reining one-handed. “You want to keep a careful eye on that steer over there—the one with the tip broken off the left horn. Bed him down and watch him, for he’ll keep getting up again and he’ll lead the others to mischief if you let him.”

He went to turn his mount again—and the horse slipped and fell hard, pi

Wil leaped down and tugged the horse. Dutch was with him; they worked together until the beast scrambled off the boss. Wil had his own horse by the reins and used it as a shield to fend off milling cattle. Dutch was trying to help Roosevelt to his feet but when he pulled at Roosevelt’s hand the boss cried out with pain.

Dutch let go. Roosevelt stood up slowly by himself and tried to lift his arm. It wouldn’t move.

“Well,” he said offhandedly, “probably just a strain.”

Dutch took him by forearm and elbow and began gently to manipulate the limb. “That hurt?”

“Like the devil.”

“Something broken in the shoulder, I think. Dr. Stickney you go see.”

The clenched fist of Roosevelt’s uninjured hand revealed his pain; but he said, “No doctors.”

Wil said to Dutch, “Boss has a low opinion of doctors. They’ve told him a lot of lies.”

“I’ve broken plenty of bones in my time,” Roosevelt said, as if he were some sort of old man rather than a youth of twenty-four. “No doubt I’ll break plenty more before I’m finished. It’s nothing.”

Dutch said, “All right. Then you wait.” He borrowed Wil’s horse to go after his own. After a lively chase he caught his mount and brought it back, dismounted and dipped into a saddlebag, poured a few drops from a small bottle into a metal cup half full of water and offered the stain to Mr. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt regarded it suspiciously. “What’s this?”

“Laudanum. You’ll ride better.”

“Very well.” Roosevelt swallowed the mixture and made a face.

He carried his arm in a sling thereafter but he did not stop working. Once Wil Dow saw him rassling a calf one-handed. Joh

It was agreed, grudgingly in some quarters, that the dude New Yorker, who was five-foot-eight and weighed no more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds, had acquitted himself some better than anybody expected. He was an indifferent roper—his eye was poor—and an inferior horseman; he talked like a priggish schoolmistress and he would never make a fair cow puncher, let alone a top hand. Nevertheless he had carried his share; he had kept up. He had a tenacity that amazed the Westerners. As Pierce Bolan put it, “He ain’t a pretty rider but he’s got grit.”

He was given the nearest thing to an official stamp of approval when Joh

Roosevelt and his men drove their cattle onto the De Morès siding. Wil Dow helped Uncle Bill; they began to chute the beeves into a holding corral.

Flanked by Joh

Roosevelt was on foot outside the corral, examining his cattle. He still carried his arm in the sling; evidently it was quite painful but he didn’t allow that to show if he thought anyone was looking. When he saw the Marquis he came pounding forward with his choppy aggressive stride.

They exchanged good-afternoons. The Marquis said, “It’s unfortunate you couldn’t have brought them in yesterday.”

“Why is that?”

“The price has dropped.”

Roosevelt said, “We agreed on a price yesterday, did we not?”

“That is true. Seventy cents less than the Chicago price. This morning there has been a drop in the price of beef on the Chicago market. I can show you the telegram if you like.”

Roosevelt said, “If the Chicago price had gone up I still should have made delivery at the agreed terms. A bargain is a bargain.”

“Just so. Seventy cents less than the Chicago price.”

“Seventy cents less than the price as quoted when we made the bargain.”

De Morès’s reply was a dissenting grunt. “No. I do not control the Chicago market.”

“But you control your own actions, Mr. De Morès. I insist you keep your word.”

Wil Dow saw the rising roughness in the Marquis’s face. “I have offered to do just that.” The brim of his white sombrero cast a sharp line of shadow across his face. “I am not trying to Jew you down.”