150   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

stone Park were of special benefit to me from the standpoint of the comprehension which they gave me of the absolute sympathy which my brother felt both with the nature and the human nature of the great West. No period of the life of Theodore Roosevelt seems to me quite as important, in the influence which it was to bear upon his future usefulness to his country, as was that period in which, as man to man, he shared the vigorous work and pastimes of the men of that part of our country. Had he not actually lived the life not only of the hunter and cattleman, but had he not taken actual part as sheriff in the methods of government of that part of our country, he would never have been able to interpret the spirit of the West as he did. He would never have been recognized as such an interpreter, and when the time came that America could no longer look from an uninterested distance at the Spanish iniquities in Cuba, the fact that Theodore Roosevelt had become so prominent a figure in the West proved the essential factor in the flocking to his standard of that mass of virile manhood which, under his leadership, and that of the then army doctor, Leonard Wood, became the picturesque, well-known "Rough Rider" Volunteer Cavalry of the Spanish-American War.

At Elkhorn Ranch, also, the long silences and stretches of solitude had much to do with the mental growth of the young man. There he read and wrote and thought deeply. His old guide Bill Sewall was asked not long since about his opinion of my brother as a religious man. His answer was as follows: "I think he read the Bible a great deal. I never saw him in formal prayer, but as prayer is the desire of the heart, I think he prayed without ceasing, for the desire of his heart was always to do right." Thus, sharing the hardships and the joys of their primitive life with his comrades of the West, the young rancher became an integral part of that country, which never failed to rouse in him the spirit of high adventure and romance.

Theodore Roosevelt, himself, in a letter to John Hay, written long after our visit to his ranch and our gay excursion to the

Yellowstone, describes the men of that part of the world. He was taking an extended trip, as President, in 19o3, on the first part of which journey Mr. Hay had accompanied him, and at Oyster Bay, on his return, he writes to his secretary of state in order to give him further details of the trip:

"From Washington, I turned southward, and when I struck northern Montana, again came to my old stamping grounds and among my old friends. I met all kinds of queer characters with whom I had hunted and worked and slept and sometimes fought. From Helena, I went southward to Butte, reaching that city in the afternoon of May 27th. By this time, Seth Bullock had joined us, together with an old hunting friend, John Willis, a Donatello of the Rocky Mountains,-wholly lacking, however, in that morbid self-consciousness which made Hawthorne's `faun' go out of his head because he had killed a man. Willis and I had been in Butte some seventeen years before, at the end of a hunting trip in which we got dead broke, so that when we struck Butte, we slept in an outhouse and breakfasted heartily in a two-bit Chinese restaurant. Since then I had gone through Butte in the campaign of igoo, the major part of the inhabitants receiving me with frank hostility, and enthusiastic cheers for Bryan.

"However, Butte is mercurial, and its feelings had changed. The wicked, wealthy, hospitable, full-blooded, little city, welcomed me with wild enthusiasm of a disorderly kind. The mayor, Pat Mullins, was a huge, good-humored creature, wearing, for the first time in his life, a top hat and a frock coat, the better to do honor to the President.

"National party lines counted very little in Butte where the fight was Heinze and anti-Heinze, Ex-Senator Carter and Senator Clark being in the opposition. Neither side was willing to let the other have anything to do with the celebration, and

they drove me wild with their appeals, until I settled that the

afternoon parade and speech was to be managed by the Heinze

group of people, and the evening speech by the anti-Heinze

The Elkhorn Ranch

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