sh
look crept around the enormous and altogether hideous mouth of Bill
Jones. "I don't belong to your outfit, Mr. Roosevelt," he said, "and
I'm not beholden to you for anything. All the same, I don't mind
saying that mebbe I've been a little too free with my mouth."

They became friends from that day.

If Roosevelt had tried to avoid the Marquis de Mores on his trips to
the Marquis's budding metropolis in those June days, he would scarcely
have succeeded. The Marquis was the most vivid feature of the
landscape in and about Medora. His personal appearance would have
attracted attention in any crowd. The black, curly hair, the upturned
moustaches, waxed to needle-points, the heavy eyelids, the cool,
arrogant eyes, made an impression which, against that primitive
background, was not easily forgotten. His costume, moreover, was
extraordinary to the point of the fantastic. It was the Marquis who
always seemed to wear the widest sombrero, the loudest neckerchief. He
went armed like a battleship. A correspondent of the Mandan _Pioneer_
met him one afternoon returning from the pursuit of a band of cattle
which had stampeded. "He was armed to the teeth," ran his report. "A
formidable-looking belt encircled his waist, in which was stuck a
murderous-looking knife, a large navy revolver, and two rows of
cartridges, and in his hand he carried a repeating rifle."

A man who appeared thus dressed and accoutered would either be a
master or a joke in a community like Medora. There were several
reasons why he was never a joke. His money had something to do with
it, but the real reason was, in the words of a contemporary, that
"when it came to a show-down, the Marquis was always there." He
completely dominated the life of Medora. His hand was on everything,
and everything, it seemed, belonged to him. It was quite like "Puss in
Boots." His town was really booming and was crowding its rival on the
west bank completely out of the picture. The clatter of hammers on new
buildings sounded, in the words of the editor of the _Cowboy_, "like a
riveting machine." The slaughter-house had already been expanded. From
Chicago came a score or more of butchers, from the range came herds of
cattle to be slaughtered. The side-track was filled with empty cars of
the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, which, as they were
loaded with dressed beef, were coupled on fast east-bound trains. The
Marquis, talking to newspaper correspondents, was glowing