Joe received him with mingled devotion and amazement. "Landsake, man!" he cried, "weren't you afraid?"
"I was riding Manitou," Roosevelt responded quietly. "Just," exclaimed Joe later, "as though Manitou was a steam engine." He bought a new pair of socks, put them on, and proceeded on his journey.
Fisher saw him shortly after and accused him of being reckless.
"I suppose it might be considered reckless," Roosevelt admitted. "But it was lots of fun."
Roosevelt spent his time alternately at the two ranches, writing somewhat and correcting the proofs of his new book, but spending most of his time in the saddle. The headquarters of his cattle business was at the Maltese Cross where Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield were in command. Elkhorn was, for the time being, merely a refuge and a hunting-lodge where Sewall and Dow "ran" a few hundred cattle under the general direction of the more experienced men of the other "outfit."
Elkhorn Ranch Buildings From The River.
Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt.
At the Maltese Cross there were now a half-dozen hands, Sylvane and "our friend with the beaver-slide," as Merrifield, who was bald, was known; George Myers, warm-hearted and honest as the day; Jack Reuter, known as "Wannigan," with his stupendous memory and his Teutonic appetite; and at intervals "old man" Thompson who was a teamster, and a huge being named Hank Bennett. Roosevelt liked them all immensely. They possessed to an extraordinary degree the qualities of manhood which he deemed fundamental,—courage, integrity, hardiness, self-reliance,—combining with those qualities a warmth, a humor, and a humanness that opened his understanding to many things. He had come in contact before with men whose opportunities in life had been less than his, and who in the eyes of the world belonged to that great mass of "common people" of whom Lincoln said that "the Lord surely loved them since he made so many of them." But he had never lived with them, day in, day out, slept with them, eaten out of the same dish with them. The men of the cattle country, he found, as daily companions, wore well.
They called him "Mr. Roosevelt," not "Theodore" nor "Teddy." For, though he was comrade and friend to all, he was also the "boss," and they showed him the respect his position and his instinctive leadership merited. More than once a man who attempted to be unduly familiar with Roosevelt found himself swiftly and effectively squelched. He himself entered with enthusiasm into the work of administration. He regarded the ranch as a most promising business venture, and felt assured that, with ordinary luck, he should make his livelihood from it. On every side he received support for this assurance. The oldest cattleman as well as the youngest joined in the chorus that there never had been such a country for turning cattle into dollars. In the Territorial Governor's Report for 1885, Packard is quoted, waxing lyric about it: