uld not always help it. Sylvane, who
could ride anything in the Bad Lands, was wedded to the idea that any
animal which by main force had been saddled and ridden was a "broke
horse," and when Roosevelt would protest mildly concerning this or
that particularly vicious animal, Sylvane would look at him in a
grieved and altogether captivating way, saying, "Why, I call that a
plumb gentle horse."

"When Sylvane says that a horse is 'plumb gentle,'" remarked
Roosevelt, on one occasion, "then you want to look out."

Sylvane and Merrifield were to start for the East to purchase the
additional cattle on the 18th of June, and Roosevelt had determined to
set forth on the same day for a solitary camping-trip on the prairie.
Into the three or four intervening days he crowded all the experiences
they would hold.

He managed to persuade Sylvane, somewhat against that individual's
personal judgment (for Sylvane was suspicious of "dudes"), that he
actually intended "to carry his own pack." Sylvane found, to his
surprise, that the "dude" learnt quickly. He showed Roosevelt once how
to saddle his horse, and thereafter Roosevelt saddled his horses
himself. Sylvane was relieved in spirit, and began to look with new
eyes on the "four-eyed tenderfoot" who was entrusting a fortune to his
care.

There was no general round-up in the valley of the Little Missouri
that spring of 1884, for the cattle had not had the opportunity to
wander to any great distance, having been on the range, most of them,
only a few months. The different "outfits," however, held their own
round-ups, at each of which a few hundred cattle might be gathered
from the immediate vicinity, the calves "cut out" and roped and
branded, and turned loose again to wander undisturbed until the "beef
round-up" in the fall.

At each of these round-ups, which might take place on any of a dozen
bottoms up or down the river, the Maltese Cross "outfit" had to be
represented, and Sylvane and Merrifield and George Myers were kept
busy picking up their "strays." Roosevelt rode with them, as "boss"
and at the same time as apprentice. It gave him an opportunity to get
acquainted with his own men and with the cowpunchers of half a dozen
other "outfits." He found the work stirring and the men singularly
human and attractive. They were free and reckless spirits, who did not
much care, it seemed, whether they lived or died; profane youngsters,
who treated him with respect in spite of his app