b'5continued from page 45RooseveltROOSEVELT WAS SEEMINGLY NOT AFRAID OF ANYONE AND WAS ALWAYS READYTO MEET A CHALLENGE, WHETHER VERBAL OR PHYSICAL, BUT HE WAS ALSO ALWAYS OPEN TO BEING FRIENDS WITH ADVERSARIES.Buoyed with the success of the Maltese Cross, Roosevelt decided to purchase a spot of fertile, wooded land about 20 miles south also located alongside the Little Missouri to establish another ranch. This time he invited two Maine lumberjacks named Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow, who had been his guides on earlier hunting trips in the Maine woods, to come out and make a go of it at the new ranch nps.govhe was building, the Elkhorn. At first, both Sewall and Dow were not too keen on leavingMaltese Cross Cabinan established life in the Maine woods for the great unknown of the Dakota Badlands, but in a combination of enthusiasm and sheer willpower, i.e., not taking no for an answer, Roosevelt was able to persuade his two friends to take over the venture.By the end of 1884, Theodore Roosevelt had invested $40,000 into his two ranches and owned several thousand cattle. He had taken to ranching as a duck took to water. As described by Roosevelt\'s reminisces earlier in this narrative it was a wonderful life in the wilderness. While Roosevelt did go back to New York on occasion for family matters, to dabble in politics, or to encourage investment in the West, he had spent the most of a year in the Badlands, seriously thinking that this might become his eventual life, that of a gentleman rancher.Of that time developing, building and renovating his two ranches in the land of the big blue sky and vast mountain ranges, Roosevelt would later write:"We worked under the scorching sun when the wide plains simmered and wavered in the heat, and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle of the late fall roundup. We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst, and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another, but we felt the beat of hardy work in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living" (Caleb Pirtle and the Texas Cowboy Artists Association, XIT Being a New and Original Exploration, in Art and in Words, into the Life and Times of the American Cowboy, Oxmoor Books, Birmingham, Alabama, 1975, p. 106).Roosevelt admired and respected the men he had encountered in the West; they too admired and respected him in kind. He was fearless as proven once when he was alone on the prairie when he was confronted by a group of young Sioux off the reservation, intent on stealing his horses - or worse. Roosevelt dismounted from his favorite horse Manitou, took out his Winchester, and aimed it right at the leader of the band, letting him and his braves know that it would not be prudent to get any closer. They rode away, the leader cursing in perfect English. When Roosevelt mentioned the incident to some frontiersmen, one of them let him know he was lucky to get off that easy as they had stolen two of his horses (Theodore Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, Time-Life Books, 1981 (reprint from the 1888 Century Publishers edition), pp. 102-104).By 1885 Roosevelt was attuned in Western ways. He became even more self-reliant, confident, and assertive, but he was also more willing to know about, work with, and cooperate well with others. This was a character trait so essential if one were ready to run for public office. Simply put, he thrived, and for a time, prospered in the great open spaces of the West.To quote Sprague: "As early as 1884 Joe (Ferris) told friends in his Medora store that he wouldn\'t be surprised if Roosevelt was president someday (echoing his friend Gregor Lang). Life in the Badlands did contribute to the qualities that made Joe so sure of his man. It solved Roosevelt\'s physical problem certainly.(he was able to control his asthma in the clean air of the mountains. While he couldn\'t completely get past his depression, he was also able to control that black care. He put on weight too, but it was weight easily converted to muscle).the indifferent health, the mediocre reflexes. During those many months of hardship in the saddle, he became permanently rugged and proved to himself that the steadfast spirit triumphs over physical handicaps. In the meantime, he observed how freedom flowered in a classless society and flowering, produced self-reliant men. By coming to understand his Badland Cowboys he was able to emerge from his narrow Eastern world so that he could understand the aspirations of Americans everywhere. On the Maltese Cross and the Elkhorn, he began to develop ideas of conservation which he would use to bring about some of the great achievements of modern America" (Sprague, A Gallery of Dudes, pp.240-241).Roosevelt originally went out West to hunt game, but he quickly realized, even as he shot that first buffalo,the species wouldn\'t last forever. They would become extinct if unrestricted hunting continued unabated. It was on one of those return visits to New York during this time that he and the naturalist George Bird Grinnell, founded the Boone and Crockett Society to preserve the wildlife that was so quickly disappearing and to conserve 963RealCountry.com our resources. Next month, Part 246 June 2020'