The meeting of the stockmen was held in Medora on the day appointed,
and it is notable that it was Roosevelt who called it to order and who
directed its deliberations. He was one of the youngest of the dozen
stockmen present, and in the ways of cattle no doubt one of the least
experienced. Most of the men he greeted that day had probably been
discussing the problems he was undertaking to solve long before he
himself had ever heard of the Bad Lands. It was Roosevelt's
distinction that having observed the problems he determined to solve
them, and having made this determination he sought a solution in the
principles and methods of democratic government. The stockmen had
confidence in him. He was direct, he was fearless; he was a good
talker, sure of his ground, and, in the language of the Bad Lands, "he
didn't take backwater from any one." He was self-reliant and he minded
his own business; he was honest and he had no axe to grind. The
ranchmen no doubt felt that in view of these qualities you might
forget a man's youth and forgive his spectacles. They evidently did
both, for, after adopting a resolution that it was the sense of the
meeting "that an Association of the Stockmen along the Little Missouri
and its tributaries be forthwith formed," they promptly elected
Theodore Roosevelt chairman of it.

Lurid tales have been told of what went on at that meeting. There is a
dramatic story of Joe Morrill's sudden appearance, backed by a score
of ruffians; of defiance and counter-defiance; of revolvers and "blood
on the moonlight"; and of a corrupt deputy marshal cowering with ashen
face before the awful denunciations of a bespectacled "tenderfoot";
but unhappily, the authenticity of the story is dubious. The meeting,
so far as the cold eye of the historian can discern, was dramatic only
in its implications and no more exciting than a sewing-circle. The
Marquis de Mores was present; so also was Gregor Lang, his most
merciless critic; but whatever drama was inherent in that situation
remained beneath the surface. By-laws were adopted, the Marquis was
appointed "as a Committee of One to work with the committee appointed
by the Eastern Montana Live Stock Association in the endeavor to
procure legislation from the Territorial Legislature of Dakota
favorable to the interests of the cattlemen"; and the meeting was
over. It was all most amiable and commonplace. There was no oratory
and no defiance of anybody. What had been accomplished