"Is it possible? Well, I've heard a good deal about you."
Theodore Roosevelt has been accused of a good many things, but no one ever accused him of not being able to make friends, or to keep them.
Captain Bill smiled, as who wouldn't.
"Why, Mr. President," he said, "I didn't think you'd ever heard about the Rangers."
The President's teeth shone in an expansive appreciation.
"Yes, indeed I have, and I've heard all about you. I remember very well when you captured Kid Lewis and his partner, Crawford, up here at Wichita Falls, and kept the crowd from lynching them as long as you stayed there."
After that, conversation was easy, and Captain Bill's opinion of his distinguished guest improved steadily. They discussed hunting, marksmanship, the Rough Riders, the capture of bad men and all the subjects of the strenuous life of the frontier.
With the President had come a body-guard of four secret-service men, whose chief duty at this time was to protect him from the crowds who pressed upon him here and there when the train halted and he went out, as he did when there was time, to greet the people and perhaps make a brief address. Captain Bill noticed that the secret-service men did not seem quite equal to these occasions. Perhaps they were not accustomed to handling the range-bred enthusiasm of that elemental region. When the presidential party pulled into Wichita Falls the platform was thronged. The crowds made a rush as the train came to a standstill—trying to climb over one another, it would seem—to get near the President. The secret-service men were helpless—they pushed and protested, but accomplished little. Captain Bill stepped out on the platform. Hardly a man in that crowd but recognized that lean weather-beaten face, and that white hat. A good many remembered that picture from a night and a morning nine years before when, at their jail, a lone Ranger Captain had risen up in wrath and ruled the mob. Some there remembered Bill McDonald a good deal longer than that—for twenty years or more, when he had found that place a lawless settlement on an untamed frontier and brought order out of human chaos and put a governor on the wheels of law. When he spoke, now, they listened.
"Get out of the way, boys! Stay down there, you fellows; don't crowd up here!" he said, and a sudden impulse of order was the result.