Roosevelt in the Bad Lands. Hermann Hagedorn
his redeeming wit. His record of achievement covered a broader field than that of either of his associates, for it began with a sub-contract on the New York water system, involved him with the United States Government in connection with a certain "phantom mail route" between Bismarck and Miles City, and started him on the road to affluence with the acquisition of twenty-eight army mules which, with the aid of Bill Williams and the skillful use of the peculiar type of intelligence with which they both seemed to be endowed, he had secured at less than cost from Fort Abraham Lincoln at Mandan.
Associated with Williams, Hogue, and Maunders, in their various ventures, was a man of thirty-eight or forty named Paddock, with florid cheeks, and a long, dark moustache and goatee that made him look something like Buffalo Bill and something like Simon Legree. He conducted the local livery-stable with much profit, for his rates were what was known to the trade as "fancy," and shared with Maunders whatever glory there was in being one of the most feared men in Little Missouri. Like Maunders, he had his defenders; and he had a pleasant-faced wife who gave mute tribute to a side of Jerry Paddock which he did not reveal to the world.
The banks of the Little Missouri in those days of September, 1883, were no place for soft hands or faint hearts; and a place for women only who had the tough fiber of the men. There were scarcely a half-dozen of them in all the Bad Lands up and down the river. In Little Missouri there were four—Mrs. Roderick, who was the cook at the Pyramid Park Hotel; Mrs. Paddock, wife of the livery-stable keeper; Mrs. Pete McGeeney who kept a boarding-house next to Johnny Nelson's store; and her neighbor and eternal enemy, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Pete McGeeney was a section-boss on the railroad, but what else he was, except the husband of Mrs. McGeeney, is obscure. He was mildly famous in Little Missouri because he had delirium tremens, and now and then when he went on a rampage had to be lassoed. Mrs. McGeeney's feud with Mrs. Fitzgerald was famous throughout the countryside. They lived within fifty feet of each other, which may have been the cause of the extreme bitterness between them, for they were both Irish and their tongues were sharp.
Little Missouri had, until now, known only one child, but that one had fully lived up to the best traditions of the community. It was Archie Maunders, his father's image and proudest achievement. At the age of twelve he held up Fitzgerald, the roadmaster, at the point of a pistol, and more than once delayed the departure of the Overland Express by shooting around the feet of the conductors.
Whether he was still the waiter at the Pyramid Park Hotel when Roosevelt arrived there is dark, for it was sometime that autumn that a merciful God took Archie Maunders to him before he could grow into the fullness of his powers. He was only thirteen or fourteen years old when he died, but even the guidebook of the Northern Pacific had taken notice of him, recounting the retort courteous he had delivered on one occasion when he was serving the guests at the hotel.
"Tea or coffee?" he asked one of the "dudes" who had come in on the Overland.
"I'll take tea, if you please," responded the tenderfoot.
"You blinkety blank son of a blank!" remarked Archie, "you'll take coffee or I'll scald you!"
The "dude" took coffee.
His "lip" was, indeed, phenomenal, and one day when he aimed it at Darius Vine (who was not a difficult mark), that individual bestirred his two hundred and fifty pounds and set about to thrash him. Archie promptly drew his "six-shooter," and as Darius, who was not conspicuous for courage, fled toward the Cantonment, Archie followed, shooting about his ears and his heels. Darius reached his brother's store, nigh dead, just in time to slam the door in Archie's face. Archie shot through the panel and brought Darius down with a bullet in his leg.
Archie's "gayety" with his "six-shooter" seemed to stir no emotion in his father except pride. But when Archie finally began to shoot at his own brother, Jake Maunders mildly protested. "Golly, golly," he exclaimed, "don't shoot at your brother. If you want to shoot at anybody, shoot at somebody outside the family."
Whether or not the boy saw the reasonableness of this paternal injunction is lost in the dust of the years. But the aphorism that the good die young has no significance so far as Archie Maunders is concerned.
The lawless element was altogether in the majority in the Bad Lands and thieving was common up and down the river and in the heart of the settlement itself. Maunders himself was too much of a coward to steal, too politic not to realize the disadvantage in being caught red-handed. Bill Williams was not above picking a purse when a reasonably safe occasion offered, but as a rule, like Maunders, he and his partner Hogue contrived to make some of the floaters and fly-by-nights, fugitives from other communities, do the actual stealing.
Maunders ruled by the law of the bully, and most men took him at the valuation of his "bluff." But his attempt to intimidate Mrs. McGeeney was a rank failure. One of his hogs wandered south across the railroad track and invaded Mrs. McGeeney's vegetable garden; whereupon, to discourage repetition, she promptly scalded it. Maunders, discovering the injury to his property, charged over to Mrs. McGeeney's house with blood in his eyes. She was waiting for him with a butcher-knife in her hand.
"Come on, ye damn bully!" she exclaimed. "Come on! I'm ready for ye!"
Maunders did not accept the invitation, and thereafter gave Mrs. McGeeney a wide berth.
There had been talk early in 1883 of organizing Billings County in which Little Missouri was situated. The stimulus toward this project had come from Jake Maunders, Bill Williams, and Hogue, backed by the unholy aggregation of saloon rats and floaters who customarily gathered around them. Merrifield and the Ferrises, who had taken the first steps in the community toward the reign of law when they had refused to buy stolen horses, were heartily anxious to secure some form of organized government, for they had no sympathy with the lawlessness that made the settlement a perilous place for honest men. But they were wise enough to see that the aim of Jake Maunders and his crew in organizing the county was not the establishment of law and order, but the creation of machinery for taxation on which they could wax fat. The Maltese Cross group therefore objected strenuously to any attempt on the part of the other group to force the organization of the county. Merrifield, Sylvane and Joe, and two or three ranchmen and cowboys who gathered around them, among them Gregor Lang and Bill Dantz (an attractive youngster of eighteen who had a ranch half a dozen miles south of the Maltese Cross), were in the minority, but they were respected and feared, and in the face of their opposition even such high-handed scoundrels as Maunders, Hogue, and Williams developed a vein of caution.
Meanwhile public safety was preserved in ways that were not altogether lawful, but were well known to all who lived in frontier communities.
"Many is the man that's cleared that bend west of Little Missouri with bullets following his heels," said Merrifield, years after. "That's the way we had of getting rid of people we didn't like. There was no court procedure, just a notice to get out of town and a lot of bullets, and, you bet, they got out."
Little Missouri's leading citizens were a wild crew, but with all their violence and their villainy, they were picturesque beings, and were by no means devoid of redeeming traits. Frank Vine, who evidently thought nothing of robbing his employers and was drunk more than half the time, had an equable temper which nothing apparently could ruffle, and a good heart to which no one in trouble ever seemed to appeal in vain. Mrs. McGeeney was a very "Lady of the Lamp" when any one was sick. Even Maunders had his graces. Roosevelt could not have lived among them a week without experiencing a new understanding of the inconsistencies that battle with each other in the making of men's lives.[Back to Contents]
IV.
No, he was not like other men.
He fought at Acre (what's the date?),
Died, and somehow got born again
Seven hundred years too late.
It wasn't that he hitched his wagon
To stars too wild to heed his will—
He was just old Sir Smite-the-dragon