he joints on the outside. It had, in
fact, originally served as the Marquis's blacksmith shop, and the
addition of a wooden floor had not altogether converted it into a
habitable dwelling, proof against Dakota weather. On this particular
June night the thermometer was in the thirties and a cannon stove
glowed red from a steady application of lignite.

A half-dozen voices greeted Roosevelt with pleas for the latest news
of the "great Republican round-up." Roosevelt was not loath to
unburden his soul. For an hour he told of the battles and the
manipulations of the convention, of the stubborn fight against an
impending nomination which he had known would be a fatal mistake, but
which the majority seemed to be bound to make.

Packard told about it years afterward. "He gave us such a swinging
description of the stirring scenes of the convention that the eyes of
the boys were fairly popping out of their heads. But it was when he
told how Roscoe Conkling attempted to dominate the situation and
override the wishes of a large portion of the New York delegation that
the fire really began to flash in his eyes. I can see him now as
plainly as I did then, as he straightened up, his doubled fist in the
air, his teeth glittering, and his eyes squinting in something that
was far from a smile as he jerked out the words, 'By Godfrey! I will
not be dictated to!'"

Roosevelt rode to the Maltese Cross next morning. The old stockade
shack, with the dirt floor and dirt roof, had, as he had suggested,
been converted into a stable, and a simple but substantial
one-and-a-half story log cabin had been built with a shingle roof and
a cellar, both luxuries in the Bad Lands. An alcove off the one large
room on the main floor was set aside for Roosevelt's use as combined
bedroom and study; the other men were quartered in the loft above.
East of the ranch-house beside a patch of kitchen-garden, stood the
strongly made circular horse-corral, with a snubbing-post in the
middle, and at some distance from it the larger cow-corral for the
branding of the cattle. Between them stood the cowsheds and the
hayricks.

The ranch-buildings belonged to Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield. In
buying out the Maltese Cross, Roosevelt had bought only cattle and
horses; not buildings or land. The ranges on which his cattle grazed
were owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and by the Government. It
was the custom for ranchmen to claim for grazing purposes a certain
str