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ROOSEVELT'S DVERSARlf

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JAMES FULLERTON

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Purchased from the income
of the bequest of
WILLIAM ROBERTSON COE
Honorary M.A. 1949, for
material in the field
of American Studies.

WE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF EVERY CLEAR STREAM

AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF—
Roosevelt's
Adversary

James Fullerjon

BOSTON
THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY
Incorporated

Copyright, 1912
By
James Fullerton

PREFACE.

When I started at the request of a large
number of friends to write this book I de
termined to tell the truth no matter who
was hit — consequently in order to show the
animus and venom back of the attack on me
and the attempt at my destruction, I have
been compelled to bring in those who I
would much have preferred to have passed
in silence.
THE AUTHOR.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ROOSEVELT'S
ADVERSARY.

I presume that people would say that I
had been born with a silver spoon in my
mouth. This is one of the worst misfor
tunes that can befall any human being, to
have nothing to do, to be brought up prac
tically without any aim in life. My father
was wealthy; we had a comfortable home
and when I came into the world under the
most auspicious circumstances, I had every
thing that could possibly be furnished to
make a human being's life happy. This
condition of affairs lasted until I was about
five years old. It was only necessary for
me to cry for something and insist upon
having it and I got it. At five years old
the decision was made that it was time to
train me, and having brought up a family
of my own, I realize the utter impossibility
of bending a tree that has grown five years
at its own sweet will. As soon as they
commenced this training process they found
that I had an iron will which my parents
had developed. I wanted my own way in
everything and insisted upon having it, and
after fighting for about two years, it was

6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
decided to send me to one of England's most
cruel and hard public schools, a school that
had the reputation of beating all there was
in a fellow out of him. Well do I remember
my first trip to this inferno. I arrived there
with my mother and was taken in to the
head master of the preparatory school. His
appearance at once struck terror into my
soul and when my mother kissed me good
bye, I felt as though there was nothing more
left in life for me. I was immediately taken
in hand by this master who had been
warned by my mother that I was an unruly
and intractable child. From that day the
torture commenced. This man believed in
nothing but the rod. He thought that the
more he thrashed a child the more he would
make out of him, and I firmly believe that
many a boy has been ruined for life by
simply being abused at school in his earlier
days. This can do nothing but make one
rebelious and hard and create in him an
antagonistic spirit against his fellows that
nothing can ever eradicate. From the time
I entered this school until I left it two years
later, my unfortunate little back was hardly
ever healed. Upon the least pretext I was
flogged, often until the blood ran down my
skin. The tortures of the day were only
equaled by the tortures of the night. Such
treatment could make nothing but bullies
of boys. At night the larger boys took de
light in torturing the smaller ones. Our

roosevelt's adversary 7
beds would be upset and sometimes filled
with wet sponges. We were sat upon
under pillows and smothered, and with all
the homesickness that we naturally had in
our tender years, it made our little lives
just a burden. The cruelties that I suffered
there were breaking down my health and
our family physician advised that I be sent
to a private school.
The following term I went to a small
school in one of the midland counties of
England and while conditions there were
considerably better than they were at the
public schoolSj yet the food was of the very
poorest quality, the man's sole ambition
being to see how much money he could
make and how little he could give in return.
At this place I had one of the most unfor
tunate accidents of my life. Playing a
game ofjduck stone, I slipped upon a piece
of ice, fell forward and one of my center in
cisors stuck in a post that I struck in my
fall, causing concussion of the brain. I
remained at this place for the rest of the
term and was gradually getting thinner all
the time, and when I went home for the
Christmas holidays, it dawned upon my
mother that I was a pretty sick child and
upon the advice of a physician I was sent to
the East coast of Yorkshire, where I re
mained for four and one-half years, much
of the time with a dear, devoted old aunt.
I may say in beginning that it is not my

8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
intention to give actual names of all people,
though most of my friends mentioned in
this article are dead.
The orders were that I was to take a daily
bath in the sea. At this little seaside town
they had bathing machines, which were
nothing more than small houses on four,
large wheels. These were drawn into the
sea by a horse and we were left until the
bath was over, when we were hauled out by
the same method. As no bathing is done
in the winter on the beach, we had to have
special arrangements made to have the ma
chine hauled down for me. A dear old
soul who had been in my aunt's service
some thirty years, used to accompany me to
the machine. A small fire was made in a
little stove in the corner and I was stripped
off and told to jump off into the sea water.
Often in those days ice would form on the
wheels of the machine and vessels coming
into the harbor and would present a mag
nificent sight with all their spars and rigging
festoonefl with ice. Some idea may be con
ceived of the dread I entertained for that
plunge. I remember how dear old Ann
used to say, "Now, Master Jimmie, be a
good boy and it will soon be over." I
would jump off the steps into the sea and
as fast as possible climb back again out of
the water, there to be met by the embrace of
the coarsest turkish towel and rubbed until
I thought sometimes the skin would come

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 9
off. Under this treatment I gradually re
covered my health and I look back to those
days spent with that dear old Aunt, as the
happiest days of my life; absolutely care
free, made a pet of by all the old sailors on
the water front who used to ask me con
tinually to come out in their boats and beg
my Aunt to allow me to go trolling with
them at night. I acquired such a love for
the water that it has remained with me to
the present day. It was here I went to a
private school and was prepared for my
college course. They were an uneventful
four years. The monotony of school life
was varied only by excursions to Flambor-
ough Head, where we used to gather sea
gulls' eggs by hundreds. Many a time have
I hung suspended in the air from the end of
a cable with a basket lowered by my side
with a smaller rope and walked along the
ledges gathering gulls and other sea birds'
eggs. These we used to sell at sixpence
per dozen. It was during this time that I
had one experience that showed how easy a
small boy could be fooled. A companion
and myself, while walking on the beach, saw
a large black thing which we supposed was
an upturned boat in the receding tide. We
watched it for a few minutes and suddenly
discovered that there was a tail to it which,
as the tide went out, we found to be the
flukes of an enormous whale. We waited
until the tide had left it, and as I remember

10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
it now, it would have taken at least two
men, one standing on the other's shoulders
to reach to the top of its back. Its jaws
afterwards made a gate where a team could
drive through. We were so excited that we
started back to the nearest fisherman's cot
tage and reported our find. The old man
said, "Aye, but you are fine lads. I will go
with you and see it." Going along he took
out his purse, one of the old netted kind
with two rings on it, and "generously" gave
us sixpence apiece, immediately laying
claim to the whale himself, which I heard
afterwards netted him hundreds of dollars.
On that same beach I have seen the tide
go out fully two miles, and have driven in a
carriage where a few hours later large
vessels were riding at anchor. The cliffs
at that point are some 300 feet high, I
should judge, and I have seen the sea return
in a violent storm and spray from waves
rolling up against the cliff wet the windows
two blocks away. I have seen many a poor
sailor making for that harbor entrance with
every shred of sail carried away, driving
under bare poles and vainly signalling for
the help .that it was impossible to get to
him, miss the harbor entrance and pass
along that north pier, in a few minutes to
be dashed to pieces on the rocks. It is an
awful sight to stand on the shore and see
a fellow being sinking and be utterly help
less and unable to render him any assistance.

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 11
The bravery of those men that manned the
life boats in those days was beyond all
imagination. They should be forever
classed among the heroes of the world.
Many a time have I seen them start out in
that boat to render succor to some disabled
ship and barely would they get outside the
harbor till a wave would up end the boat and
throw every man of them into the water.
The boat would immediately right herself,
and being self bailing, was soon free of
water. Nothing daunted, those men would
reach for the life lines hanging over her
side and climb into her again, take their
seats and resume their oars, and make an
other heroic struggle to reach their perishing
fellows. During the holidays, I was often asked by
the old fishermen to go trolling, and my de
light knew no bounds when I got my Aunt's
permission. Not only would I enjoy seeing
the net pulled up with its multitude and
variety of fishes, but I was like a monkey on
board, up on the cross trees or out on the
gaff, and with every trip gaining health and
vigor. At last this had to come to an end.
The time appointed for me to go to college
had come, and having passed my examin
ation to enter, I found myself one day in a
large train load of boys, all headed for the
one destination, to wit, Marlborough Col
lege. Here was a new experience. After being

12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
at a little school with twenty to thirty boys,
I suddenly found myself among a crowd of
over five hundred. I fortunately knew one
boy in the school and from him I got my
ideas as to how to get along with my com
panions. My inclination was never to
study. I had no earthly use for books and
could not see why any one else should have.
I liked modern languages, French and Ger
man, but the dead languages were something
that I could not fathom the reason for learn
ing. I was not long at Marlborough until
I discovered all the athletic sports that were
carried on at a big college, and my time was
spent far more around the racquet courts,
foot ball and cricket field. The gymnasium
could charm me at any time and at the end
of the term reports invariably carried back
to my father and mother the same account ot
neglected opportunities. It usually read,
"wonderful ability, but no application." I
temained in one form some three terms and
my father thought he would encourage me
to greater effort, so he promised me that if
I would come back promoted to a new form
the following term, he would give me a gun,
the highest ambition of my life being to own
one. In order to get this gun, I had to learn
a holiday task which was always set us.
The holiday task at this time was the whole
of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, and to
show the ease with which I could acquire
knowledge when I desired to, I committed

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 13
that long poem to memory so thoroughly
that when I went to school I could start at
any line the master gave me the first word
of and carry on the poem, and he was so
amazed to see this indifferent pupil having
learned this so thoroughly, that he offered
me another hundred marks if I would recite
it backwards line by line, a feat that I easily
accomplished. After I had recited some half
page, he stopped me and said that was
enough, I could have the hundred marks.
That gave me a good start towards the gun,
and I took precious good care that I did not
fall down. From usually having sat at the
bottom of the form I invariably sat first or
second for the rest of the term, and that
term I was promoted into the next form,
and with it I received my first gun. I hon
estly believe that that gun was the means of
keeping me all my life a poor man.
Whether it was the gun or the innate love of
sport, for my father was a sportsman to the
bone, I am not prepared to say, but from that
day to this my greatest pleasure has been to
get out in the forest, on the stream, the lake,
or the prairie with a gun. So fond was I of
sport and always a dare devil trying to see
how near I could possibly come to getting a
licking and not quite do it, that with two
others of the same ilk, we used to go up to
Savernake Forest and poach the Marquis of
Ailesbury's preserves for hares and other
game. We also kept a white rat, an inno-

14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
cent looking animal, but once it was put into
a rabbit's burrow, it made the most perfect
ferret that a person could possibly wish for.
The rabbits would bolt from their holes as
fast as they could get out. We had the
usual loop net to put over the hole, and had
never been caught but once and that time
we were caught red handed. We had four
dead rabbits and the excitement had been
fast and furious, but in the midst of it all,
the one who had been left to keep guard
got so excited that he forgot to do sentry
duty and a master's head appeared over the
brow of the hill. If you had dropped a
bomb among us it would hardly have caused
more genuine consternation, but this master
happened to be all man, and remembered
that he had been a boy himself and just as
big a devil as any of us. After scaring us
with a threat of taking us to the head mas
ter, which we knew would cause us to be
expelled from the school, because we not
only were breaking the school rules, but also
the laws of the land, he said, "Let's see how
that thing works boys," and stayed and
helped us catch two more rabbits. It is
needless to say that that piece of work was
never given away until this appears in print,
and as he has passed to his "long" home, he
has gone beyond censure. The reader may
wonder how we could dispose of the game
that we killed. That was an easy matter.
We invariably dressed it and cleaned it thor-

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 15
oughly, and as we were all allowed to keep
pet rabbits, we used to go in with baskets of
green feed for our rabbits that we had picked
along the hedge rows. The old gate keeper
at the college also kept rabbits and we have
stood sometimes with a brace of pheasants
plucked and cleaned at the bottom of the
basket and offered him rabbit feed from the
top of it. The nerve of the thing was what
carried us through and saved us. We cer
tainly were an innocent looking trio.
Suspicion fell upon us later and then we
never left the college together. We always
had our trysting place and we always pre
pared ourselves for an alibi.
Every boy in the college wore a little skull
cap made of black cloth trimmed with pink
ribbon. When the cap became faded and
shabby we got an order for a new one and
immediately threw the old one away. As
we were all known by number and not by
name, each boy had his number in his cap
and we always made use of these other caps
that we could pick up as the boys threw
them away. Whenever we went on our
marauding expeditions we wore one of these
caps. It as an easy matter for the owner of
the cap in every case to prove an alibi should
his cap be found by the keeper of the pre
serves. Consequently whenever we were
chased by keepers or saw danger near as
we ran we saw to it that our caps blew off.
The keeper finding the cap, seeing the num-

16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ber in it, knew that he would have no
trouble in calling the boy on the carpet.
The head master, being chief inquisitor,
would call the boy into his office or
possibly before the whole school and im
mediately accuse him of having been caught
poaching. Naturally the boy would deny
it and prove by his companions that he had
been up on the cricket field or in some other
place. The keeper who had accused him
would certainly be nonplused, but would
assert that he could pick out the boy he
had seen there. To pick out one boy or
three boys out of five hundred or over was
a contract that none but a fool would ever
have taken and whenever they did under
take it they made a signal failure of it.
Among the other sports that we used to
have in the shape of poaching was fishing.
There was a very fine trout stream along
the road to Salisbury and we used to go
down in the meadows along this stream,
one on each side of the brook, and basking
in the sun we would see these speckled
beauties. We had three fish hooks tied
back to back fastened on to a willow. The
boy on one side would reach over and slide
his hook underneath the fish, while the boy
on the. other side told him which way to
move it, and when the one on the opposite
side of the creek to the one who was holding
the hook said "now jerk" there was gener
ally a trout hanging at the end of the willow

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 17
when it came up. All this game we used
to cook in our studies and we had many a
good feed, which was often shared by one
of the masters who had caught us ferreting
with a white rat.
The dormitories had iron bars over the
windows and we removed the bars from the
windows, tied sheets together, and making
these fast to our iron bedsteads, had low
ered ourselves from the third story window
to the ground. This let us down outside
the walls of the campus and we would go
up town to get ice cream and other dainties,
not that we wanted the ice cream, but just
to see how near we could come to getting
out of the college grounds without getting
caught. In those days we were classed as
bad boys, whereas as a matter of fact, a boy
who is as mischievous as we three were, to
my knowledge, rarely grows up into a bad
man. We may not make a howling success
m the world, but yet some of the best
generals in the British army, some of the
greatest heroes of the navy and doubtless
of any army or navy, have been boys of just
that character, and if I were placed in the
position of a school master there would be
numbers of just such escapades that I
should never see. In fact, in later years
when I have had men under my charge,
I have constantly seen things that I nevei
thought of reporting to a commanding
officer. We were such an untamable bunch

18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
that while they never could catch us red
handed, yet they knew that we were the evil
genii that were causing most of the disturb
ance with the keepers and the neighborhood
generally, and it was suggested to our
parents that if they wished to keep us out
of trouble they had better put us somewhere
where we could be watched closer. To this
end my father took me back to the place
where, as a nine year old boy, I had had the
accident that caused concussion of my brain.
This time my father went with me, and
while I was but fifteen, I was a pretty good
sized man, husky, strong, athletic and
afraid of nothing, and my father told this
man to be very strict and severe with me,
and on no account to spare the rod. I was
then supposed to be studying preparatory
to taking my course as a mining engineer.
There were four other students, varying in
age from my own up to twenty-two, and
these older men had considerable license,
whereas I was held down with an iron hand,
against which my very soul rebelled. For
a few weeks we got along and at last this
tyrant of a man informed me that if I did
not get a certain lesson within a limited
time, which he told me he knew I was per
fectly capable of doing, that he would come
in with a cane and give me the best licking
I ever had in my life. I was always shut up
in a small room like a cell to study by my
self and in this room was an open fire place

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 19
with the usual fire irons consisting of a
poker, tongs and shovel. I told him that I
could not get the lesson in the time he
specified and he turned upon me like a tiger,
told me not to dare answer him back. I
slammed the book on the table and told him
then and there that I never would learn an
other lesson in his house, and he might as
well commence a fight at once if he wanted
to fight. He immediately rushed off for
his cane and I picked up the poker and stood
like a lion at bay. I told him when he re
turned with his cane that if he struck me
one blow I would kill him on the spot, and
he knew that I would not only do it but
that I was perfectly capable of doing it. He
immediately locked the door and locked me
in, but foolishly failed to lock the window,
which I immediately negotiated, and when
he returned to the room he found his bird
had flown. I had a few shillings in my
pocket and I made for the nearest station
some five miles away. I caught a freight
train and told the conductor my story. He
sympathized with the boy who was fleeing
from a tyrant and just as the train pulled
out we saw the master drive up in a hurry
to the station. He evidently was not able
to stop the train because there was no effort
to stop me anywhere, and as this train went
close to my home, I was able to get off with
in nine miles of it. When I got off the train
I was afraid to go home, but I knew an old

20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
keeper that we had on our preserves, and
I made for his house, where I received a
warm welcome. He made some excuse
and left me in the house with his wife and
went straight to my home and informed my
father where he could find me and the first
thing I knew the latter appeared in our
carriage at the door. This ended my school
career. I positively refused to return to
school under any circumstances whatever,
and my father, being a man of good, sound
judgment and sense, realized that it would
be useless to fight me. The tree they had
never tried to bend till it was five years
old was absolutely impossible to bend at
fifteen. My father made arrangements then with
a mining engineer to take me for a term of
three years and I started out on my life
work, as I supposed. It was intensely in
teresting and I was an apt scholar, so apt
a scholar that after I had been six months
working at it, I was often intrusted with
important work with the instrument down
the mines and sent to make special investi
gations of cavings, etc. Shortly after I
commenced going down the mines, I began
to suffer intensely with headaches, whether
it was the stooping in the mine or the foul
gases, and sometimes the long hours, hav
ing to work all night on surveys in order
not to delay the men, I do not know. I
found that no matter how much knowledge

Roosevelt's adversary 21
I acquired I should forever be somebody
else's servant, and this, coupled with my
constantly recurring headaches, determined
me to throw up the engineering, much as
I liked the work. I left home one morning
to go down the mine, never thinking that
it was the last trip I should make to it.
Some small disagreement with my superior
caused me then and there to declare that I
never would go down a mine again, that I
had suffered long enough. He sent a mes
senger up for my father, as that day we
happened to be working in one of the mines
on our family estate. When my father
drove down to the office, I can well remem
ber the disappointment depicted in his face.
He thought that at last he had found some
thing that his wayward son would stick to.
However, he made no complaint nor yet
one word chiding me in all my drive to my
home. For two days he went around as
one in a daze, and I remember his words
as if it were yesterday. He came to me and
said, "My boy, you have got to decide upon
some course in life for yourself. Your
mother and I have done all we can for you."
I told him that I wanted a week to consider
the matter. At this time my cousin, who
had been out in Canada with Prince Arthur
as his equerry, came to stay at our house
and he told such wonderful tales of the free
life of the forest, of the moose, the deer, the
game in abundance, the fishing, the canoe-

22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ing, and painted in such glowing colors all
the delights of the frontier freedom, that I
decided I would go to Canada, and I firmly
told my father of my decision. He said,
"Now remember, my boy, you have made
your own bed and you must lie in it. I do
not want you to leave England, but if you
insist, you will go on the day appointed."
That day was the 21st day of April, 1870,
my mother's birthday. Two nights before
sailing, he relented and came to me in my
bedroom and offered me one thousand
pounds if I would stay home. I told him
"No" that I could not bear to be governed,
that I had my own way as a baby and had
fought for it up to that time, and I pro
posed to go to Canada to be my own master.
He replied, "My boy, I am afraid you will
never be your own master, and I fear you
will come to some harm." I told him that
I would be my own master before I was
twenty-one, and so it proved. I was
twenty-one in October, 1874, and in August
I owned my own homestead. I had always
hoped that I would go back home and see
my father again, but it was not to be. The
following January, 1875, he went to join the
great majority. On the 21st day of April
my brother came with me to Liverpool and
saw me on board the Moravian. I was
loaded down with letters of introduction
from my friends, one of them being to the
captain of the vessel and others to men of

roosevelt's adversary 23
prominence in Canada. To all young men
starting life, I want to say, throw away
your letters of introduction and don't hang
on to some one else to help you or push you
along — one's relatives and friends can't
make a man. It's himself. I may say that
only one of the whole of those letters ever
did me the slightest good. It was addressed
to the captain of the ship and when I got on
board I discovered that there was only one
first class berth left and there were two of
us had tickets for that berth. It was con
sequently up to the captain to decide who
should have it, and I, having a letter from
the owner of the vessel, naturally was
awarded the berth. I had scarcely entered
the cabin until I heard a man telling what a
bad predicament he had been placed in. He
had lost one arm and while he had bought
a ticket for a first class berth he was com
pelled to go down a second companionway
to a lower deck in order to get one. I im
mediately stepped out and asked him how it
came that he had bought a first class ticket
and had to take a second class berth, and
he explained to me that somebody else had
gotten the berth by having influence with
the captain. I told him that I undoubtedly
had the berth that he expected to get and
as I was on my way to Canada to rough
it, I might just as well begin now, and he
was perfectly welcome to take my place in
the first class berth. I little knew what a

24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
friend I was making by this act. It didn't
make the slightest difference to me whether
I slept above or below, but to him who had
crossed the ocean many times and knew the
rough seas of the Atlantic and the
difficulties of climbing those narrow com-
panionways of that old type of ship, it
meant a great deal, and when I arrived in
Quebec he invited me to his home in
Montreal, and I was treated like a prince as
long as I cared to stay there, which was
but a short time. I wanted to get out into
the back woods, out into the wild, and after
staying a week I pushed on for my desti
nation, a little rocky village which appeared
to be the jumping off place of the earth,
about sixty miles north of Lake Ontario.
On my trip from Quebec to Montreal I had
my first experience in a sleeping car. They
were very primitive affairs compared to the
Pullman of today; you sat in the day coach
until bed time and then gathered up your
belongings to go into another car to sleep,
except when some conductor wanted to see
your ticket, then you were unceremoniously
aroused, wondering where on earth you
were and finally wake up enough to dig up
a ticket. Having arrived at my destination I went
to deliver another of these wonderful letters
of introduction. I may say that it did me
a little good, because the man to whom it
was addressed owned a sawmill. He

roosevelt's adversary 25
asked me if I knew anything about work.
I told him that I had seen men working in
the fields in England but that I had never
done a hard day's work in my life. "Well,"
he says, "how are you going to do it if you
don't know how?" Itold him that I didn't
see where I would learn any younger. He
said, "If you want to learn I will try and
show you a thing or two." I didn't care
much for the old man's demeanor, but in
his gruff way he was very kind. He could
outswear almost anybody I ever saw, and
when he got angry he would throw his hat
on the ground and jump on it. However,
he took me down to the saw mill and showed
me a man running around on logs in the
mill pond with a pike pole in his hand. He
asked me if I could swim and I told him
that I had won the swimming prize at col
lege for the mile race. "Well," he said,
"take hold of that pike pole and let us see
you do what that man is doing. He will
show you how to do it." With that he
turned around and left me to my own de
vices. He did not offer to hire me or set
me any particular work to do, but before
leaving told me that when I got through at
night to come up to the house. This kind
of work just took my fancy exactly. I was
like a young duck in the water. I took to
riding a log with a pike pole in my hand
like an old water man. The second day I
was there the boss came down and watched

26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
me for about half an hour, and he told me
he would give me ten dollars a month to
jack logs up the jack ladder. To say that
I was pleased would not half express it.
Never did a man or a boy start out in the
world to earn his first dollar with a greater
delight. I had no idea of the value of a
dollar. All I had known up to this time
was when my father wanted any money he
sat down and wrote a check and there
seemed to be no end to the supply. At this
time I was living at the house with the boss,
but I soon went out and hunted a boarding
house for myself, and here again that
destiny that shapes our end overtook me.
It just so happened that the husband of the
woman who had kept the boarding house
was an old trapper, and the greatest delight
of my life was to sit and listen to him telling
of his life in the forest and on the lakes
where he had spent it trapping, fishing and
hunting. We became very friendly and as
soon as I could I bought a canoe and a
young lady undertook to teach me to paddle.
This old trapper told me that if I ever got
so that I could paddle a canoe, he probably
would take me out with him trapping and
hunting, but the majority of fellows that
came out took so long learning to paddle
and were so awkward in a canoe, that he
didn't want any of them with him. How
ever, I proved an apt scholar. I made a
few strokes with the paddle and quietly

roosevelt's adversary 27
rolled over into the water. I came up
utterly unconcerned, took hold of the canoe
and swam to shore. I took off my outside
clothing and got into the canoe again in
spite of warnings that if I didn't take care
I would be drowned. I said, "I have either
to learn to paddle or get drowned, that
is a sure thing," and once again I essayed
the paddling. The young lady said there
was one thing I had to watch for; keep my
knees solid on the bottom of the canoe and
never to touch the gunwale. If the reader
has ever been in a canoe learning to paddle,
he will appreciate the difficulty when the
canoe commences to wobble of keeping his
hands from that particular spot. However,
I made up my mind to do exactly as I was
told, and I had a little eddy in the river near
the canal where I used to paddle first on one
side and then on the other but thought I
never would learn to steer that canoe, for
I could not understand how they could do
it from one side of the boat with a single
blade paddle. I was determined I was not
going to be defeated, so I took a row boat
and rowed down to the lake, towing my
canoe where the water was fairly shoal, then
stripped off my clothes and got into that
canoe determined to paddle or drown. I
was but a very short time in it till I got the
nack. A friend in another canoe paddled
around and around me showing me how
to do it. All my spare time from this on

28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
was spent paddling, and finally I became so
expert at it that I decided to try trolling for
Muskalonge. I discovered that paddling a
light canoe was a very different proposition
to steering it just exactly where I wanted
it over the fishing beds, but I bought a
trolling line and started out on my maiden
effort, and great was my pleasure when I
felt the telegraph from the other end of the
line, tug, tug, tug, and realized that I had
hooked one of the gamiest fish in the fresh
waters of Canada. I was a little bit afraid
to pull it up to the canoe, for while it was
comparatively a large one for an expert to
handle, to me it was but a very frail craft
as yet. However, I made up my mind that
I was going to land that fish, so taking the
line in my teeth, I undertook to paddle
ashore, and when I got among the rushes so
that the canoe would steady itself, I started
to haul in my fish, and then the trouble
commenced. The fish also had use for those
same rushes and he darted in and out among
them, tangling up my line in the most irre
trievable mess. I was afraid to lean over
the canoe and yet I wanted that fish, and
how to get it I didn't know. Presently I
heard a voice say, "What in thunder are you
doing in the reeds? Have you got a fish
on?" and I told him I had but that my line
was tangled up. He says, "Make for the
clear water, don't let your fish get into the
reeds." I replied, "My dear fellow, the

roosevelt's adversary 29
blooming thing is all twisted around the
reeds already." "Well," says he, "can't you
reach over and get him out?" I told him
that I couldn't reach over without upset
ting the canoe. However, a happy thought
struck me about this time. The fish was
still fighting the line, so I knew he was
well hooked. I decided to leave him where
he was and I ran my canoe ashore, stripped
off my clothes and waded out to disentangle
my line. I finally got the line free and
waded ashore towing my fish through the
water. It is needless to say that the report
of my fishing exploit reached town ahead of
me and I was unmercifully guyed. How
ever, that did not deter me for a single in
stant. I got my fish and was a mighty
tickled youth. All that summer I spent
every bit of spare time I had trolling, and
by the time the trapping season came I
could paddle a canoe with the best of them.
So proficient had I become that old Jim,
the trapper, told me that he would be de
lighted to have me go with him. That
ended my saw mill experience for that
season. We started out in September with a camp
outfit and some forty or fifty traps apiece,
the intention being to trap muskrats all fall
and as the weather got cooler and the mink
fur became prime, we intended to turn our
attention to the latter, which were then
bringing from four to five dollars a pelt.

30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
This as my first experience under a tent,
and from that day to this the canvas roof
has been the most delightful home that I
could ever live in. I remember well the
day we started, our canoes loaded down
with bedding, tent, traps, guns and ammu
nition, as we paddled side by side down
through the lake to an island near the
mouth of a creek which ran through a large
marsh. Of all the beautiful spots to put
your tent in, that island was the most ideal
that I ever saw, surrounded on all sides by
wild grapes, in the center a small oasis of
thick turf, and enough drift wood on the
shore to furnish fuel for winter. No sooner
had we landed then I was initiated into the
art of pitching a tent, and I certainly felt a
stupid, awkward boy at the job. It is need
less to say that forty years afield have
remedied that defect. As soon as we got
everything ship-shape, we cut some willows
for stakes for the traps. I might describe
these willows so that any person seeing
them sticking up in the marsh will recognize
what they are. We trimmed the willows
so that the ring on the trap would just slip
down over the sharp hook that we left about
half an inch long where we cut off the limbs.
When the animal sprung the trap he would
immediately jump into the water, the ring
slipping down over these hooks would pre
vent its rising to the surface, as the sticks
were driven top downwards. As I remem-

roosevelt's adversary 31
ber it today, I made a very stupid pupil.
It seemed as if I could not catch on to the
way of setting those traps. I had always
been in the habit of putting my foot on the
spring, and to set it on the gunwale of a
canoe, especially when I had not got the art
of holding a canoe very steady, was a diffi
cult proposition. However, I soon managed
to accomplish the feat. We used to set the
traps on a feed bed, pressing them down
till the water covered them. The process
was to sink the bed sufficiently under the
water so that the trap's weight would hold
it down. The rat coming to feed would
climb on the bed, put his foot on the pan of
the trap and immediately spring back into
the deep water, dragging the trap with him
when he sank to the bottom never to rise
again. We caught an average of 40 to 50
rats a night, having out between 90 and 100
traps. We always made the rounds of our
traps the last thing at night before it got
dark, because ducks and mud hens would
occasionally get into them, and the first
thing in the morning we went around to
gather our fur, and a fine musky bunch it
was. The skins of the muskrat at that time
were worth 12^ cents a piece, and after
taking home our fur, the next thing was to
learn to skin it and stretch it. Poor old
Jim would skin about five rats to my one
when we first started, but little by little I
kept gaining on him and by the time we

32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
were at it a month it was hard to tell which
could skin the fastest. Our method of
skinning was different to that which is in
vogue today, which is to split them up be
tween their hind legs and stretch them on a
shingle. In those days we had nothing but
willows to stretch them on and in order to
do so we split them from the mouth along
the breast as far down as the front legs and
skinned the rat out through that hole. We
then doubled the willow and pushed it into
the skin, drawing the skin down tight on
each side. We cut a small notch through
the skin and the willow and this held it in
position until it dried. As soon as the
skinning of the rats was over they were
hung up in the bushes to dry. The car
casses, except those we wished to make
stew of, were thrown back into the lake.
Some people may squirm at the idea of eat
ing a rat, but the hind quarter of a muskrat
or a beaver, when the musk is properly taken
out and when they are properly dressed,
makes as gamey a stew as duck. We were
by no means compelled to eat rat because
ducks abounded and we could kill any quan
tity of them. The way we came to eat the
rats, old Jim thought he would try and find
out what kind of metal I was made of, and
right there he could not suggest a propo
sition that I would not go up against. I
have since tried skunk and as far as I can
learn from Indians and others who have

roosevelt's adversary 33
been driven to eat the different animals that
range the forest, there is nothing but the
crow and the pine squirrel that are unpal
atable. I have known of many men who
considered a rattle snake a relish, though I
have not been in a position where I had
to eat them and I never sampled them from
choice, but if it was a case of starvation, I
think a snake would look pretty good, as
I fail to see where they differ from an eel,
and those who have eaten them assure me
that the flesh has the same flavor. A rat
stewed with plenty of onions and vegetables
with it, beats restaurant fare so far that I
should require no coaxing at any time to
repeat the dish I so often enjoyed.
Not far from our camp there lived a very
crusty old bachelor, a regular old hermit.
He always refused to sell campers
any vegetables and kept a pack of vicious
dogs to protect his melon and corn patch
from marauders. On Saturday nights a
party of my young chums used to come
down from the village and camp on the same
island with us. One night we decided that
we wanted some sweet corn. As we had
been over several times and tried to buy
some from old Sauerkraut, and being re
fused, we decided to take the law into our
own hands and see if we could not get some,
a rather risky proceeding, as he kept a
double barrel shot gun always loaded, be
sides this bunch of vicious dogs. It is a

34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
well known fact that whenever boys cannot
get anything, that certain thing they want
the most, and this trait generally applies to
boys of larger growth during the rest of
their lives. No sooner had we decided that
we wanted corn than we started with our
canoes for the old man's corn patch. The
beach was sandy and shelved at a slight
angle down to the shore. We paddled
along, never allowing a paddle to strike the
gunwale or the slightest splash to drip from
the end of the blade. The bows of our
canoes finally grated on the sand and silently
we slipped up inito the corn patch. To
break off these ears of corn without crack
ing required considerable dexterity, but
not a dog barked and for aught we knew
they might have all been dead. We slipped
quietly back to our canoes when one of the
boys suggested we might as well have a
melon while we were at it. It is a well
known fact that no melon ever tastes as good
as the one that is swiped in the dark of the
moon. By some stroke of good luck the
fellow that went back for the melon got hold
of a good one, large and dead ripe, but in
carrying it to the canoe, the melon slipped
from his grasp and fell with a rattle among
the corn shucks. This alarmed the dogs
instantly and the way we piled into those
canoes and paddled for the island was not
slow. We had not gone more than a hun
dred yards from the shore before the whole

roosevelt's adversary 35
yelping pack and the old man with his shot
gun were after us. He hollered to us to
come back, cursed us roundly, and when we
jeered him, fired two shots at us. The shots
fell harmlessly in the water and splashed
around the canoe. We were too far away
for him to injure us. We got back to the
island and immediately had a fine corn
roasting, and was ever a sweeter morsel
tasted than an ear of corn roasted over a
camp fire. Whether it is that our appetites
were whetted or that corn cooked on a camp
fire is really better than any other, I am not
prepared to say, but to this day I can always
enjoy an ear of corn roasted on the coals.
On one Saturday night I had been up to
town for some provisions, I met a com
mercial traveler with whom I was well
acquainted. He had to remain over Sunday
.in this God forsaken little village and was
lamenting his misfortune, when I suggested
that he come down to our camp with us, as
several boys were coming down to spend
the week end. He immediately acquiesced
when I offered him the loan of my largest
canoe, of course supposing he was a good
paddler, but alas! he had more nerve than
paddling lore. However, he started out
with the rest of us and the canoe he was in
was so steady that it was impossible for him
to upset it. By paddling first on one side,
then on the other, he managed tQ keep
somewhere among the crowd, bumping first

36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
into one canoe then into another. Finally
one of the boys took compassion on him
and made fast to his painter. This at least
enabled him to steer, and between the two
of them they got down pretty near to the
island. On the side of the island where they
landed the water was quite deep. A log
projected from the shore and by the side
of this we would run our canoes, climb out
on the log and drag the canoe ashore. As
they neared the island my friend cast the
commercial traveler loose and told him to
follow him and be careful not to run his
canoe against the log, which was partially
submerged. He had seen the man preced
ing him paddle hard as he came ashore in
order to run his canoe as far as possible up
on the bank, and he, thinking to follow suit,
gave an extra good stroke, ran the bow of
his canoe up on the log and was gracefully
tipped into the water. There was a skirmish
to help him out and he certainly looked a
beauty as he climbed out on the beach.
There were no extra clothes in the crowd,
but we had some blankets, so Mr. Traveler
had to strip off and roll in a blanket. He
seemed to be very much concerned for the
safety of a roll of bills that he had in his
pocket and wondered if the water would ruin
them.. We assured him that they would be
as easily dried as his clothes, and what was
our amazement to see him deliberately
spread out almost a thousand dollars in

roosevelt's adversary 37
greenbacks on the floor of the tent. Prob
ably no tent ever had so rich a carpet. We
made a large fire and dried his clothes, and
the warmth of it dried the bills in the tent.
He facetiously remarked that it had taken
the starch out of his shirt but not out of
him by a long shot. He was as game a
sport as ever went to camp with me, the life
of the whole crowd and a most enjoyable
companion. We had just put out a few mink traps
around the edge of the lake and along the
creek, and I was looking forward to quite a
fall's sport, when word came to me that I
was wanted to take a clerkship in a shanty
for the winter. I did not altogether relish
the idea, because I had made up my mind
to trap and hunt, but one was a certainty
and the other was not, and while I had made
pretty good wages trapping so far I was
now starting out on a line that took more
skill, for while anybody can trap rats it takes
a good trapper to go after otter and mink.
Old Jim was loath to lose my company as
we had gotten to be very close companions
and lived agreeably together, but he advised
me to go into the woods to the shanty be
cause there I would have an opportunity to
kill lots of deer, possibly some moose and
bear. The work would be easy and while
the pay was light, I was assured three
square meals a day. So taking his advice
I gathered up my traps, stored my canoes

38 autobiography of
and climbed aboard a wagon bound for the
other side of nowhere. All I knew was that
I was to go some 250 miles into the forest.
I traveled a short distance on the wagon
sitting on some bedding, but I finally de
cided that I preferred my feet to bumping
over stumps, logs and a corduroy road. We
had not gone far along the road when I spied
some rough grouse, known in that country
as partridge. I immediately commenced
shooting and we had a nice stew that night
out of the birds that we killed, which were
very abundant along the trail. Rough and
rocky as it was the journey at last came to
an end. We reached the shanty, the first
I had ever seen. It was made of logs
notched at the corners and laid one above
the other and the roof was made of split
poles with a groove cut down them. Two
of these grooved poles lay on their backs
with the round side down and the other one
fitted into the grooves of these two with the
round side up, making a fairly water tight
roof. The chinks between the logs were
packed with a moss gathered in the marsh.
In the center of the roof was practically an
other building which narrowed into the top
and formed a chimney. Inside the center of
the chimney and below this was the caboose,
four logs notched at the corners and filled
in with dirt. On the top of this was a log
fire and we never lacked for heat. Around
this the cook did his work and the pork and

roosevelt's adversary 39
beans that were cooked around that fire
furnished a food that has no equal for men
to work on. Many a deer did I kill while
in that shanty and no matter how tastily
the cook might prepare it, those French-
Canadian woodsmen preferred their fat pork.
The bunks were made double and two tiers
of these bunks extended around the shanty.
The foreman and I slept together and I don't
know that I ever rested more comfortably
in the best feather bed that I ever slept in.
The work was all novel to me, and I really
had very little to do. When the logs were
skidded I measured and branded them, then
after that was done I had nothing further
to do until another batch of logs were
skidded for me, except to eat and enjoy my
self. Towards the end of January a serious
accident happened in the camp. A large
tree slipped from a sapling and fell across
a man's thigh, breaking the bone about six
inches above the knee. Such a thing would
be a small matter in a settlement where
there are hospitals and doctors, but we were
250 miles from the nearest human habita
tion, other than shanties, and a doctor would
have charged a dollar a mile both ways. As
the poor axeman was only getting $22.00 a
month he could ill afford to pay a doctor
to come out to him, and to put him in a
sleigh and send him over that rocky road
would have meant certain death. I volun
teered to do the best I could to set his leg

40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY of
and thus save him the expense or the risk
of his life, and he gratefully accepted. I
knew nothing of surgery more than I ac
quired at college from seeing the doctors
set legs that were broken on the foot ball
field, but I felt satisfied that the exercise of
a little common sense would reduce that
fracture and save the man's life. No sur
geon ever had more willing assistance than
I, and we made a box from hewn sticks and
tied the man's leg into it. We improvised
a pulley at the foot of his bunk and piled
weights on to it sufficient to hold the leg
a trifle longer than the other one. This
man was as carefully nursed by those rough
shanty men with all our crude appliances as
any patient in a hospital today, and in
March, when he was about to leave the
shanty on a pair of improvised crutches,
he said that he was going to have just as
good a leg as he ever had. I remained in
the shanty and went down with the logs on
the drive. When I reached the settlement
one of the first men to greet me was Fran
cois with the broken leg. I asked him which
was the broken leg and he said if he didn't
know he could nevier tell the difference.
When the ice broke up in the spring we had
a cabin built on a raft of square timber and
this was towed across the lake into the
river. An exciting trip indeed was that
journey down through those rapids over
rocks that imperiled the safety of our frail

roosevelt's adversary 41
raft. The raft was held together by pegs
driven through poles across the timbers and
if one of those timbers should strike a rock
it was good-bye to our cabin. Our canoes,
outfit and bedding would have gone to the
bottom of the river. As it was it got a
good many bumps but that I never felt be
cause I was as often riding a log with a pike
pole in my hand as I was on the raft. I had
many a ducking on that trip in the cold icy
water, but it never seemed to affect me in
juriously. I had one or two escapes of
being struck by logs when I was in the
water, but having always been something
of a fatalist, I reasoned that if my time had
come to die in the water between logs, it
would save me from being hung later or
coming to some other untimely end. I
used to vary the monotony of the river run
ning, and also our larder, by going ashore
with my gun. There were large numbers
of ruffed grouse, one could hear them
drumming on the logs and occasionally we
would see an old deer roaming around, com
ing down to drink. Of course it was out of
season but in those days we had no seasons
for game. Necessity knows no law and
whenever a man wanted meat he took it in.
We finally reached the mill in July and al
most the first person I met when the raft
arrived at the mill was the man whose leg
I had set, and no surgeon had a more grate
ful patient. I rested up for a week or two

42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
and visited with my friends. During the
winter I had acquired such a habit of speak
ing nothing but French that when I came
out and my friends asked me a question in
English I would answer them in that
language, much to their disgust. It is as
tonishing how easily a man can forget his
mother tongue, or at least the habit of using
it. It took me some weeks before I would
think to reply to a man in English when
asked a question, and even to this day the
French expressions will often come to my
tongue unwittingly.
That summer I joined a young fellow and
we opened a store, an entirely new experi
ence for me. My father furnished me some
money to put into the business, but being
inexperienced and having to depend entirely
upon my partner, who gambled and drank,
the business soon went to the dogs, and I
went out again that fall with my old friend
Jim, the trapper. After trapping as we did
the fall before for rats, in September we
made up our minds that we would travel
about 300 miles north to an uninhabited sec
tion of the country and a lake, where he had
been hunting before. That was a very ex
citing time for me. We took our canoes
wherever we could, sometimes portaging
around rapids and paddling against strong
streams. We rarely pitched a tent on the
entire trip, as we were in a hurry to reach
the trapping grounds. We had no accidents

roosevelt's adversary 43
nor any startling adventures on our trip up.
The place that Jim selected for us to go and
camp was near a beaver dam between two
lakes, an ideal spot for a hunter's cabin.
It sfemed as if all the deer in the country
passed back and forth between those two
lakes, it was so tracked up. Here we
pitched our tent, but as we were to put in
the whole winter there, a tent was out of
the question, so we decided to build a little
cabin. We cut down logs about six inches
through, some of them quite close to the
ground where we intended to build, and it
was no time till we had a little shack 12 by
14 feet. The poles for the door were split
and hewn ; the roof was made as previously
described for the lumber shanty, with the
exception that we had no caboose in the
middle of the cabin. We found some very
fine clay close to one of the lakes which we
kneaded with grass, just as one would knead
dough, and made it in similarly shaped
loaves or bricks, and built a fireplace and
chimney in the corner. It was one of the
cutest little cabins that ever two men en
tered. It was about the 10th of October
when we completed it, then we imme
diately set to work getting out a line of
traps, but as the lakes did not freeze for
two or three weeks later, we were compelled
to use our canoes. We found a great num
ber of beaver on this ground and several
otter slides. We were doing very well

44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
with beaver, rats, mink and otter in spite of
being limited to a small area, until the win
ter set in. Every morning we would start
out on our rounds and gather our furs, when
time permitted; skinning them where we
caught them and taking home just the pelts.
Occasionally we would take home the hind
quarters of a beaver or two for a stew, and
a mighty tasty stew it made, especially when
there was a piece of the tail put in. After
we had supper we spent the evening fleshing
and stretching our skins, which would leave
a strong, musky smell in the cabin. We
had no candles or coal oil. We made a
"spit" out of deer tallow and that furnished
a glimmer of light, but most of our light
we got from fat pine knots which we burned
in the fire. We would take an axe, roll
over some old pine log that was decayed,
split the fat knots out of it and break them
up into small pieces, and while one was
skinning and fleshing, the other would feed
the fuel on the fire, giving a bright light all
over the cabin. Our bunk in the corner was
two logs, piled one on the other at the side,
and the interior filled with beaver meadow
hay. In these days of mattresses and
feather beds, one might think that that was
an uncomfortable bed, but I would give a
great deal to get such good nights' rest as
I had then. I have hunted and trapped with
a good many companions during my 40 years
on the frontier, but never did I meet a more

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 45
congenial companion than old Jim. From
the time we left the settlement until we re
turned to it the following March we never
had a cross word. We had several extra
ordinary incidents during the winter.
One morning we awoke hearing a rat tat
tat just outside, and we could not imagine
what the rattling was. There was a rattle
of bones and then it would stop and once
again the stamping of feet. It was barely
daylight, but we opened the door and peeped
out to see what was going on, and here we
saw two monarchs of the glen, old Virginia
bucks, fighting to the death. One could
imagine one of them coming along the path
and meeting the other, telling him to get
out of the road, the other fellow saying, "I
have just as much right here as you have,"
the first one replying, "Well, I will show
you." Wild animals are very little different
from human beings. They are forever as
serting their rights and trying to make good
by force of arms. These two evidently had
decided to fight it out, and the snow all
around the door was covered with froth and
blood. They took no notice of us when we
looked out upon them, and we watched
them fight as eagerly as any Spaniard ever
watched a bull fight. We stood with rifle
in hand, shivering in the cold, frosty morn
ing, only about half clad, watching those
two deer struggling for their lives. At last
the larger one, for one was considerably

46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
larger than the other, slipped past the
other's guard and drove his brown antler
into the flank of his adversary. The smaller
deer immediately fell, and before he could
rise again, I threw my rifle to my shoulder
and broke the neck of the victor. Jim did
the same for the one that was down, and we
had two fat, fine carcasses without having
to carry them in.
It was our custom to walk out to the lake
and when we reached it to separate, each
taking a different course. We had out a
string of traps covering some twenty miles
and it was quite an undertaking to make the
round trip in a day. We would each go
around about ten miles and meet at a cer
tain point, and if we had a few pelts or large
animals we usually skinned them on the
spot, as the carcasses were too heavy to
carry. Sometimes the sun would be sinking
and we would have to carry our game in
whole and skin it at the camp. One morn
ing, shortly after parting in the early fall,
before the bears had holed up for the winter,
I was walking along the shore of the lake
when, looking through a thicket toward the
end of a log where I had a trap. I saw a
black bear lying down licking his paw. I
immediately turned back and went to Jim.
He laughed at me when I told him I thought
I had a bear in my mink trap. The trap had
been set in a hollow log, and the bear, when
reaching in for the bait, had got the trap

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 47
caught around one of his toes, and when we
returned to the spot he was still licking that
paw. Jim, being the most experienced
woodsman, raised his old muzzle loading
rifle and planted a bullet into the bear's ear.
The first spasmodic jerk of his leg he shook
off the trap, and the only way we could ac
count for his having remained so long with
it on was that he must have been suffering
from the pressure of it, and every step he
took hurt him that much more. The trap
was only fastened to a light clog so that he
had no difficulty in moving it wherever he
wanted to go, but he had not gone more than
twenty feet from where it was set. That
day we didn't get any fur at all. We spent
our time fleshing the bear skin and cutting
up and carrying home our meat. It was a
bad plan to leave our traps over a day, be
cause there were many wolverines in that
country and the rascals had a great fashion
of making the rounds of our traps for us.
It would make no difference whether it was
a $5.00 mink or a $1.50 fox, he would just
as soon tear one as the other. I have known
a wolverine to follow the trail of a trapper
and turn over trap after trap without getting
caught. They seem to know exactly when
there is a bait where the trap should be and
can avoid it without any trouble. They
would follow our snow shoe tracks later on
in the winter, and in that way two of them
met their death. By setting two large No.

48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
4 traps, one on each side of a log, with a
clog attached to them, when Mr. Wolverine
came along in the trail he would climb the
log and drop off on the other side and find
himself fast in a double spring trap. If the
trap had been made fast, he is so power
ful that he undoubtedly would have gotten
away, and I have known one to drag a heavy
clog for many miles.
The only living beings we saw during the
winter were some shanty men that were
taking out logs near the head of the upper
Ottawa River. When we had more deer
than we knew what to do with, we would
put one on to a tobaggan that we had made
and haul it over to this shanty where we
would trade it for $2.00 worth of pork or
beans. The winter wore along, and by
spring we had accumulated nearly a thous
and dollars worth of fur, and when the
break up came the question was how were
we going to get out. We had our canoes
there, but canoes were useless owing to the
ice and we could not leave them because
we might need them before we got back,
so we made two toboggans, pretty rough
affairs made only with an axe, but they
would at least slide over the snow with our
packs until the snow left us. These we
woud haul as far as we could during the
day and then go back and bring up our
canoes. We were obliged to use our tent to
cover up our furs as they must be protected

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 49
from wet no matter how wet we got our
selves. We would turn our canoes over,
cut some boughs and make a bed under
neath the canoe at night. Sometimes we
were wet for days at a time, but we had
no means of drying our clothes or remedy
ing matters, so there was nothing to do but
make the best of it and we were mighty
glad when we got to the river and
found the ice had broken up sufficiently to
get back into a canoe. In this way we
were enabled to get down into a settlement
but we could not cross the lakes, as they
had not yet broken up, so leaving our
canoes at the first settler's house, we en
gaged him with his oxen to take us down to
our destination. Here we once more
reached civilization, if we could call this
little jumping off place by such a name.
During my stay at this little town I had
made friends with some pretty fast com
pany and while I had made some money
myself, yet it was nothing like sufficient
for my extravagant habits. I had learned
to play cards and drink whiskey with the
best of them, and many a night have I sat
far into the night and gone home poorer
in the morning. An incident happened at
this time that made me look myself square
ly in the face. I woke up one morning af
ter one of these nights of debauch and I
said to myself, "Young man, you are hitting
the high road to the devil, cut it out." I

50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
knew it was impossible for me to cut it out
while living in that village and among those
companions and yet to leave there I had to
leave all my most valued treasures, my
canoes, my hounds, my traps, and worse
than all the hunting ground that I had en
joyed so often, but I made up my mind that
something had to be done, so I sold out
everything and got on the boat headed for
Port Hope on Lake Ontario. I made up
my mind here to settle down to business,
and for a few months I stuck steadily to it.
I got employment without any trouble as
bookkeeper in a grocery store and soon be
came proficient in the business, so much
so that the boss intrusted me largely with
the buying for the establishment. I re
mained with him during the summer and
everything ran pretty smoothly, but the
more I saw of the man I was working for the
more I despised him. He made a great pre
tense of being very religious, but would
stoop to small things to cheat his customers.
He would fly into a passion if we failed to
keep water continually around the sugar
barrels, for in those days there were three
grades of sugar kept underneath the
counter, and if they were allowed to dry
out, the barrels seldom held out in their
weights, and it was astonishing the amount
of water that a barrel of sugar would absorb
only sprinkled on the floor underneath it.
One day I saw him giving a short measure to

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 51
a customer, and thinking he had made a mis
take, I mentioned the matter. He flew into
a passion and told me to mind my own busi
ness. One word led to another and I told
him that I certainly would mind my own
business in the future, that I was not going
to be a party to the underhanded tricks that
were going on in that store. I promptly left
him and he spent the entire day following
in going from store to store and blacklisting
me. I had not saved up much money and
had previously written to my father, when
he asked me what I was doing with the
money he sent me and told him that if he
could not send me money without asking
questions about it he could keep it. So that
source of supply was shut off and I have
always looked back on that as being one of
the best things that ever happened to me.
Day by day I tramped the town seeking
work, meeting rebuff after rebuff, until I
got two weeks in arrears of my board. The
lady with whom I was boarding told me that
she couldn't afford to keep me any longer.
I told her that I would get work that day
somewhere and I struck out for the docks.
All the old drunkards and toughs of the
town infested this place and when a vessel
would come in they would load her for so
much an hour and immediately repair to
the barroom and drink up what they had
made. The wages usually ran from 15c.
to 75c. an hour, according to the number

52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
of schooners awaiting to be loaded, as they
all wanted to get away as rapidly as pos
sible. Shoving lumber from a dock all day
is certainly hard work, but I was making
some money and I realized that if I could
take a little money to the boarding house
mistress that night I could get a new lease
on my room. I happened to strike a lucky
day and our wages had been running on an
average of about 40c. an hour and I had
got in some nine hours that day. As I was
only paying $3.00 a week for my board, I
was able to pay up one week's board with
that one day's work and had enough left
to buy a dinner pail, which I had the land
lady fill the next morning and returned to
the dock. Of all the experiences I had
among working people, that was the most
varied. On this dock were all classes and
conditions of men and women. The men
who came down to earn enough to get
liquor were the very lowest possible class,
the scum of humanity, and they simply
worked long enough, some of them, to get
all the whiskey they could get, and men and
women would lie down behind lumber piles
in a drunken debauch, the women hanging
around for the sake of the whiskey they got.
These old duffers called me the tony kid,
because I would not join them in their
sprees. I had other use for my money. I
remained at. this work for several weeks,
my swell friends around town continually

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 53
asking me where I was working, and I as
continually evading the answer. I would tell
them that I was having a good time taking
the world easy, whereas, as a matter of fact,
I was putting in some of the hardest work
I ever did in my life. I could always de
pend upon getting work whenever a vessel
came in because the masters of the vessels
knew that I would not go off and get drunk.
So sometimes when there was only one or
two vessels came into the port during the
day I always got 15, 20 and sometimes 25
cents an hour. Some of the masters, real
izing that I was dependable, would give
me 25 cents and tell me not to say anything
about it. Other days when a fair wind
would come and all the schooners wanted
to take advantage of it with a large number
of vessels in, we have had as high as $1.25
an hour, but when the vessels were paying
those wages the news flew like wild fire up
town and the people who would flock down
to the dock to look for work was astonish
ing. One day while I was at work there,
a friend of mine came down to see about
one of the schooners that was loaded.
Whenever I saw anybody like that coming
down I always dodged and hid behind a
lumber pile until they disappeared, but this
day we were getting such big wages that I
was intent only upon the money I was get
ting and never noticed him until he said,
"Hello, Jim, what are you doing down

54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
here?" The cat was out of the bag. I
knew very well that if he told it up town
where he had seen me working there were
no more invitations for me, but he happened
to be a mighty good fellow, and when I told
him how I had been used by the grocer I
worked for and that I just simply had to do
something, he said, "Well, you come over to
my office and I will find you work that will
keep you going all winter." He had large
grain warehouses and set me to work buy
ing barley for him. As the lake was about
to freeze up this was a perfect godsend to
me, because the "dock walloping" was pretty
nearly at an end. I remained with him for
several weeks in the fall, and in October I
met a colonel who was getting recruits for
the Northwest mounted police, and this, of
course, appealed to my gypsy nature.
Before we leave Port Hope I must tell of
one or two experiences I had while staying
there. Always the same dare devil nature,
I had to see how near I could come to get
ting into the clutches of the police without
quite doing it. One time the chief of police
came into our store where I was working
and a discussion arose regarding a man who
had been masquerading as a woman. This
man was a murderer and had been teaching
school dressed up as a girl for two years.
The old chief of police was particularly
proud of his force and said that he would
like to see a man walk the streets of that

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 55
town dressed as a woman and his policemen
not pick him up within twenty-four hours.
After he had left the store I made the re
mark that the old man made me very tired,
always blowing about his police force, and
immediately an argument arose as to
whether it was possible to traverse the
streets in woman's garb. I offered to bet
a fellow that I could walk from the top of
one hill to the top of another and back again,
a distance of about four or five miles there
and back, and never be detected. He im
mediately covered my bet of $100.00 and
we drew up an agreement as to the way it
was to be carried out. It must be remem
bered that in those days women's clothes
could not be bought ready made, and I had
not counted upon this when I made the bet.
However, I had some girl friends who were
willing to aid me, and they undertook to
make and lend clothes to fit me. I don't
think I shall ever forget the day that I got
into those corsets. It seemed as if I didn't
get one good breath from the time I got into
them to the time I got out of them. On
the day appointed we started out, the two
girls and myself, and it was hard to tell one
from the other, we were dressed so alike.
About every few steps that we took, the
girls, one on each side, would pull at my
sleeve and say, "don't take such long steps,
you will give us away." When we got down
to the bottom of the first hill we stood gaz-

56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ing into the store windows and there met
a policeman to whom I daily gave cigars.
One of the girls knew him and introduced
me as her cousin from another town. I
smiled as sweetly as I knew how, bowed,
but said nothing. The girls did all the talk
ing, and I stood there with beads of
perspiration oozing out of me for fear this
fellow would recognize me. I realized then
how many things a veil hides, for if I had
not worn one I am sure he would have
known me. We soon left and went on our
journey, and it seemed as if everybody I
knew in town was out on the street that day.
We could only take a few steps without
meeting somebody that I knew. However,
they passed me one after another without a
sign of recognition, and there were a few of
them who would have thought it a mighty
good joke to see me run in by the police.
We made the trip in about four hours, and I
never walked four hours again in such tor
ture. All I wanted to do was to get back
to the house as fast as possible and get out
of those clothes. All things come to an end
and so did that journey, and the young man
who had made the bet walked up and told
the stake holder to pass over the money. I
had agreed to divide my share with the girls,
and I certainly think they earned it. As
soon as we got into the house I said, "Oh,
girls, help me to get out of these duds."
"Why, no," they said, "there is no hurry

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 57
about it. We have asked a few friends to
come up tonight and have a little dance and
we expect to be short of girls." And those
miserable girls kept me in those clothes
until three o'clock the next morning. My
ribs were sore for a week afterwards.
On Lake Ontario there was an old man
who used to put out nets for lake trout. He
was considered pretty cranky and the boys
about the town used to tease him and, of
course, we. had to do our share. He had a
marine telescope with which he used to
watch anyone sailing near his nets at a
distance of some two or three miles. Three
of us boys had built a flat bottomed sail boat
which was very speedy and it was our de
light when we went sailing to sail straight
for his buoy and make believe we were over
hauling his nets. We would immediately see
his big white sail go up and see him heading
for us. He naturally thought we were
stealing his fish, for which we hadn't a par
ticle of use. As soon as we saw him
coming we made for the shore and he would
try to overtake us in order to examine our
boat and See that we had not got any of his
fish. We could sail where he would run
aground, and it was our dodge to get in as
near a shoal as possible. The old man, in
the excitement of the chase, would forget
where he was sailing, and the first thing he
knew the bow of his boat would grate on
the mud, much to our delight. We would

58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
turn tail and sail home, leaving him stuck
there. He tried to get the police to arrest
us, but it was perfectly useless because we
never had anything to be arrested for. We
would haul up a fish so that he could see
it with his glass, and he naturally supposed
it was in one of our lockers, but we never
took one.
Orders came for us to be ready to march
to the great Northwest on the 8th of Octo
ber, and my friends came down to the depot
and saw us off. We reached Toronto that
night and on the 10th started on our north
ward march for Fort Garry, now the thriving
city of Winnipeg. I was considerably bet
ter fitted for such a march than some of the
men who had enlisted, as my experience in
the woods trapping had taught me how to
take care of myself in all weathers. The
first part of our journey was easy. We went
by rail to Collingwood and from there we
took a steamer across Lake Superior, and
Oh! such a seasick crowd. Once again my
past experiences came to my rescue and I
was one of the very few who were able to
eat my meals during the trip. I have
crossed the Atlantic and sailed the North
Sea, but I never saw a meaner water than
Lake Superior is when she is stormy. We
reached Prince Arthur's Landing near Silver
Islet, and there we heard of the first use of
nitroglycerine. A large mining company at
that time was working the Silver Islet Mines

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 59
and they had sent their manager, an old
Scotchman, a can of this new explosive and
asked him to give it a careful test. The re
port of the test was related to us. The old
man went away up above the town, had
two men dig a hole ten feet deep, carefully
lowered the can of nitroglycerine into it,
called all hands to safety and touched the
button. An explosion followed that shook
the earth for miles around, and the canny
Scot wrote back to the company saying, "I
think that nitro-glycerine is an excellent
thing to move earth in large quantities but
I don't think it would work in the mine."
From here on our hardships began. By
portage and boat we journeyed through
Lake Shebandowan and over the rest of the
Dawson route covered by General Wolsley,
when he went to the relief of Fort Garry
during the first Riel rebellion. When we
reached Rainy Lake, we found a small
steamer, and my surprise was great when I
discovered in the purser an old chum from
the first tpwn I had visited when I reached
Canada. When we got to Rainy River we
found the Indians engaged in a little dog
feast. We were all cordially invited to
share in this dainty, but as prairie chickens
were exceedingly abundant around there, I
don't think that anybody accepted their
generous offer. Doubtless there are times
when dog meat looks pretty good to a man,
but we had not reached that stage of the

60 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
game. While the pork in our commissary
had become pretty strong and the hard-tack
decidedly moldy, yet we had v/aried the
rations, for the officers had carried along
several boxes of beef for their own table and
by some "strange accident" in unloadingthis
beef the boxes would be dropped and the
odor from the campfire at night certainly did
not smell like pork. In addition to these
boxes of beef they had some large kegs of
whiskey, which they took especial care to
watch over, but ninety men are pretty hard
to watch. On one portage it was raining
very hard and we all crawled down into the
hold of a scow and were towed across the
lake by voyagers, and when we reached the
other side of the lake in the impenetrable
darkness of that scow the whiskey in the
last keg had miraculously turned to water.
Great was the wrath of the officers, and
threats of the court marshal, etc., was made,
but they had little fear for us, for were we
not policemen and not soldiers?
At Fort Francis on Rainy River stood
another steamer for the passage to the north
west angle of the Lake of the Woods.
When one thinks of the wild state of the lake
in those days and that now the islands are
covered with summer homes of the wealthy
people of Winnipeg, one can hardly realize
that more than a generation has passed
away since we crossed it. We reached the
north-west angle, and the hardest work of

roosevelt's adversary 61
the trip began. The ground was frozen just
sufficiently to cut your shoes and legs wher
ever you went through, and between cor
duroy roads and frozen hummocks, we all
began to get lame. The second morning
we were unable to get our boots on. Our
feet were swollen and cut and the boots
were wet, and many of us tore up our clothes
and wrapped our feet in them to protect
them from ice and frozen mud. It was a
painful tramp and a cold one. At last Point
du Chien was reached and the snow was
falling thick enough so that we were able to
take sleighs from there to St. Boniface,
where we arrived about six o'clock in the
evening of November 2d, having been
twenty-three days on the trip from Toronto.
That day at noon the Red River had frozen
over, and as it was freezing at night about
40 below zero, two of the men undertook to
go over to Fort Garry, crossing that quarter
of a mile of water on ice that was barely an
inch thick. They took 16 ft. flooring, and
one in each hand, they crawled across that
ice and returned with eight bottles of rum,
40 above proof, from the Hudson Bay Fort.
We were housed that night in an old barn
belonging to the Roman Catholic bishop,
and a bunch of tired men curled up on
piles of straw on the ground. The rum
was passed around and for a short time
we felt warm after taking a swallow of it,
but as the effect of it wore off later in the

62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
night we realized what it meant when they
afterwards told us that to take liquor in
the winter in that country was almost like
committing suicide. Many a poor fellow
has gone to his death from the mistaken idea
that if he only had some whiskey with him
he would keep warm. The following morn
ing we all arose stiff and cold and wishing
ourselves back on the shores of Lake On
tario or some other warmer place, but after
having breakfast, which tasted pretty good
after the moldy pork and musty hard-tack
that we had been "enjoying" previously,
we all felt in a good humor. The sun
shone brightly and we had our first taste
of 40 below zero weather. One of the larg
est men that Winnipeg has ever known, the
Honorable James McKay, came across that
ice to greet us and we wondered how it was
possible for one night's ice to carry such a
ponderous weight, but we afterwards
learned that an inch and a half of ice in the
fall was tougher and stronger than four feet
in the spring. A number of cow hides were
brought across by half-breeds and our
baggage was loaded on to these hides and
we were told not to gather in too compact
a body but to spread out all over the ice,
and with long ropes attached to these hides
we pulled all our baggage across the river.
It certainly was a novel experience, using
dried cow hides for sleighs, but in after
years I have many times tied a horse to the

roosevelt's adversary 63
neck of a steer hide by his tail and driven
for miles across the prairie in this unique
sled, often taking the whole family out on
it. We reached Fort Garry shore and im
mediately made our way up to the barracks
where several companies of infantry were
quartered. In those days any stranger
coming into the country was like getting
a .budget of news from the outside world,
and we met many people whose friends we
knew in the East. The boys at the Fort
made us right welcome and we sat down to
one good square meal at noon that day. As
soon as the meal was over we were hustled
into sleighs and started on a 22 mile journey
for lower Fort Garry, where the mounted
police were to be quartered that winter.
That was one of the hardest winters that I
ever put in the Northwest. The ther
mometer sometimes registered 55 to 56
degrees below zero. Our winter was put in
with drills, riding bucking bronchos, caring
for our horses and amusing ourselves around
the barracks. There were one or two calls
for our services during the entire winter
and the writer was one of those who volun
teered to go on one of those trips. We were
out after men who were selling whiskey to
Indians and we knew that they were armed
with the latest repeating rifles, which, while
an obsolete weapon now, was vastly su
perior to the single shot carbine that we
were carrying. Our weapon was not only

64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
inaccurate but only fired one shot, while
they could fire sixteen and at a short range
their weapons were very effective. These
men were said to be fortified where we could
only approach them over glare ice, and the
night before we went to take them I don't
think any man of the five that were in the
party slept a wink. As the question was
not how dangerous, but when duty called
there was no question as to whether we
were going to certain death, the simple mat
ter as we had been sent out to take those
men and it was do or die. By some good
luck they had heard of our coming. We
had passed an old fisherman the day before
and he had undoubtedly given them warn
ing. All we had to do was spill their
whiskey on the ground and return as fast
as we could to the Fort. We had been gone
five days and had dug holes in the snow to
sleep in at one camp. When we reached
the Fort with our cheeks frozen and the tips
of our noses and ears, we learned that the
thermometer had not gone above 50 below
during our absence and that old lower Fort
Garry is the coldest spot on the Red River.
We played cards and gambled and took the
world generally pretty easy until spring.
In April the commanding officer came
around with a paper for us to sign chang
ing us from the police force to a military
organization, being under the Queen's regu
lations. I objected strongly to this, and

roosevelt's adversary 65
several others, hearing my objection, fol
lowed suit and refused to continue in the
force, except under the original conditions
which we enlisted. We were told that un
less we signed this paper there was only
one alternative for us, namely, to get out of
the force. A number of us had had about
all we wanted of it and took the opportunity
to leave. I had had some friends come up
that spring from Ontario with the intention
of joining the force, but I advised them to
go out and take up a homestead, and as
soon as I got out of the force I followed
them to where they were. I left the force
in April, 1874, and from that day on I was
practically my own boss. I had saved some
money while I was in the force and I bought
a span of horses, a mower and rake. I went
out on the prairies cutting hay for the set
tlers, and in August of that year I took up
my first homestead, verifying the words that
I had told my father before I left England,
that before I was twenty-one I would be my
own master.
At this time Manitoba was a sportsman's
paradise. The country was alive with
ducks, geese, prairie chickens, deer and
moose, not mentioning innumerable black
bear. My first winter on the place was my
first real experience at keeping bach alone;
though I can hardly say alone, because I
had plenty of company all the time, but it
was always with other bachelors who came

66 autobiography of
and paid me extended visits. I had not been
long in the house before a friend of mine,
who was a clergyman of the Church of Eng
land and lived at St. John's College at Win
nipeg, suggested that if he could get a place
to hold services he would come out every
two weeks. I told him that he needn't lack
for a place for services, that I had one large
room that I thought would accommodate all
the congregation he could muster. So he
drove out early one Saturday and went
around among the people and told them that
he was going to hold a service there, and
from that time on he held services regularly
every two weeks, much to the amusement of
the whole countryside. I rigged up an im
promptu pulpit for him out of boxes and
tables and he would come over every Sat
urday afternoon and stay with me over
Saturday night, hold services the next
morning at eleven o'clock and return to
Winnipeg afterwards. This, of course, en
tailed my getting his Sunday dinner, and
while he was preaching I was basting the
ducks or the roast, whatever I might have
in the oven, boiling the potatoes and pre
paring to satisfy the inner man before he
would start on his journey. On one occa
sion the bishop accompanied him on one of
his journeys and there were two or three
baptisms and some confirmations held in my
house. I didn't object at all to the ser
vices, in fact I rather enjoyed having them

roosevelt's adversary 67
there, but I did object to having to clean
up the house always after the crowd got
away. We used to have from twenty-five
to forty people, and naturally they brought
in more or less dirt with them. I made up
my mind that something had to be done,
that there had to be a change, so I pro
posed that we build a little log church,
seeing that we had such a large congre
gation. In order to do so it was necessary
to raise some money and I volunteered to
go down and see a lady who I knew was in
the habit of getting up concerts and enter
tainments for such purposes. I was most
cordially greeted by the lady when I went
into the house as soon as she learned my
mission. She was quite enthusiastic over
the project and told me that she would ren
der me every assistance in her power.
While I was talking to this lady there was
another, a young lady, sitting in the room
by the fire who was decidedly more attrac
tive to me than the lady I was talking to
at the time, although I had had no intro
duction. When I started from home I
turned to one of my bachelor companions
who had volunteered to look after my cattle
while I should go out on this trip, and I
told him that I was tired of this baching
business and I proposed to get a wife. As
a matter of fact, I had as much thought of
seeing anybody or getting married as the
bachelor friend I was leaving had, but

68 autobiography of
"there is a destiny that shapes our end,
rough hew it as we may," and I little
thought it was to be my destiny to meet the
woman on that trip who was to be my com
panion for nearly forty years. I did not
speak to the young lady, merely bowing to
her as I left the room, but the keen eyed
matron with whom I had been discussing
church matters had suddenly discovered
that Cupid had got in his work, and she told
the young lady after I left, "My dear, that
young man is smitten with you." The
young lady remarked that it was perfectly
absurd, that she hadn't even spoken to me,
which was indeed true, but those dark eyes
had done their deadly work and Cupid's dart
had gone straight home. I was to come
back on the following Saturday and report
progress, and true to my promise I arrived
in time for luncheon. I was cordially in
vited to remain over Sunday. It is
unnecessary to enter into further details, as
I said before, Cupid had done his work and
done it well and before I left there on Tues
day morning I was engaged to be married
to this young lady, who has made me a faith
ful wife and followed my wanderings all
over the frontier. I was too dead in earnest
to fool around long and we decided that
there was no use having a long engagement
and although we had only met on the 10th
of March for the first time, we were married
on the 27th of the following May. Wise

roosevelt's adversary 69
acre friends all said, "Marry in haste and re
pent at your leisure," but to the present time
I have never had leisure to repent, but pos
sibly my better half may have not been so
fortunate so she keeps it a secret. I didn't
tell my bachelor friends anything about it.
when I returned, but by some extraordinary
means the news soon leaked out that there
was something doing, but when I began
having the house refitted there was no longer
any guess about it.
On the 23d of May an old hunting com
panion came to me. He was a half-breed,
one of the noblest specimens of manhood I
ever knew. He said, "Boy Jim, we will
soon have no more hunting together, come
and let's go kill some waivies," as the
arctic or snow goose is known in that coun
try. I thought it would be a pretty nice
thing to take some geese in with me when
I went to get married, so I promptly agreed,
and on the night of the 23d of May, old
Jock and I slept out beside a willow bush
and waited for the dawn to commence one
of the greatest slaughters of geese that I
ever had in all my hunting experience. The
weather was fine and the geese began to fly
at daylight. After the sun rose we could
see one unbroken line of geese as far as the
eye could trace them, all winding their way
to the Arctic Circle for nesting. About
8 o'clock in the morning the wind suddenly
changed to the northeast and a sleet and

70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
snowstorm came up, making, as every
hunter will appreciate, the most ideal
weather for such sport. The geese didn't
like to face the, storm and commenced to
drop into our decoys till the large marsh in
which we were hunting, some 20 miles
square, looked more like a snow bank than
anything else. Wherever these large flocks
of white geese would alight they gave the
ground the appearance of having large snow
drifts on it and the noise they made was
almost deafening. We shot there all day
long and when night came I wanted to go
home, but with old Jock it was a matter of
business, the more geese he got the more
half dollars he got out of it. He knew that
I couldn't use them and that I never sold
any game, consequently he would get all we
killed, except the few I wanted to take to
Winnipeg with me. It was a bright night
with magnificent aurora so we proposed to
curl up in our blinds and sleep there, but
sleep was out of the question. The noise
that those geese made would have aroused
a corpse. Every now and then they would
fly over our decoys looking like black balls
in the dim light. We would shoot at them
and hear them splash in the water as they
fell and in an instant the whole place, at
the discharge of the guns, would be one
screaming mass of geese. We would then
shoot and shoot and shoot until we would
drive them away again when they would

roosevelt's adversary 71
settle at the farthest end of the marsh. This
was repeated at intervals during the night.
We would shoot a little while, talk for a
while and then Jock would say, "Boy, we
had better have a cup of tea." We would
then adjourn to the willow bush, kindle a
fire, make a pot of tea in a little copper ket
tle, smoke for a while, then curl up in our
blankets again and try to sleep. We had
a poor chance to sleep though and it was a
relief when day dawned once more, bright
and clear. We knew that the geese would
very soon start on their northward flight
again. The wind was fair and the sun was
just coming up when it seemed as if by one
consent they all took wing. We killed a
few and in a few minutes the sport was all
ended. We decided that it was time to go
home, and after gathering up our game and
cleaning them we counted 186 geese. We
loaded up our cart with as many as we could
get into it, caching the rest, and started
home. The following day I started in on
the most eventful day of my life, taking with
me a load of geese and other game. Before
I left I had made arrangements with my
neighbor to straighten up the house the best
way possible and prepare something for the
bride on her return, as we were to come right
out to the ranch after the ceremony. Up
to this time I had been using tin ware en
tirely for my meals, tin cups, tin plates, iron
knives, but in preparation for the coming of

72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
the bride I had ordered a stock of china,
which had not yet arrived when I left but
which I expected to be there before I got
back on the evening of the 27th. However,
the fates decreed such was not to be the case.
We were married at noon on the 27th day
of May, 1875, and the girl who had been
one of the belles of all the parties turned
her back on society forever. It took us two
and one-half hours to drive to the log cabin
that was to be our home, a matter of twenty
miles, and when we got in I was dismayed
to find that my freight had not yet arrived.
but spread out on a little green table were
the tin cups, dishes and the steel knives,
some beautiful home-made bread and two
fine, fat, roasted geese. Never shall I for
get the delight with which I sat down to that
meal. I presume a man can only experi
ence once in a life time the joys of such a
possession, and words fail to express it. It
is astonishing after a man gets married how
his bachelor friends will drop off. From
having a constant stream of hangers on at
the house we scarcely saw anybody. Our
neighbors were all busy like ourselves, im
proving their little places and struggling to
make a living, and the struggle in those days
was a hard one. For several years the
grasshoppers took everything, but when the
harvests did begin to come in they were
abundant. Exciting events were few and
far between, but about every year our little

PRAIRIE SCHOONERS

roosevelt's adversary 73
family increased, and when we had three,
two girls and a boy, we sold the home we
had gone into at first and got more land and
a better house, and here the rest of our
family were born, with the exception of one
who came later in life. We had had eleven
years of this cold Manitoba weather, where
winter sets in in October and lasted until
May and we decided that we would like a
warmer climate. It was here we made the
mistake of our lives, for in order to obtain
it we went to Texas, losing what money we
had and our health as well. It was a fatal
mistake and one that no northern man
should ever make. A man who has lived
in those cold climates is ill adapted for the
climates of the south, and it usually ruins
his health. We remained in Texas but six
months and in that time the entire family
was taken down sick, some with pneumonia
and all with malarial fever from which the
writer has never recovered. We were ad
vised to take a wagon and drive across the
Indian Territory to the Ozark Mountains.
So purchasing a pair of mules and a wagon
and procuring a tent I started out for a
summer camping trip, and certainly it is a
most delightful journey to go by wagon
through that paradise of flowers and vege
tation, beautiful rippling streams of clear
water with abundance of fuel and feed for
the stock. One could hardly imagine a
more beautiful country for camping out in.

74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
With our northern ideas of bathing we took
advantage of every clear stream we came
to, little thinking that we were doing the
very worst thing that was possible. Those
poor little children would come out of that
water and shake with the ague until their
hair would stand on end. We caught num
berless fish and lots of quail along the road
and one place we learned a novel way
of fishing. A railroad embankment had
changed the course of a river and as the
streams aie small in that section of the
country, instead of bridging it twice they
would simply cut a new channel for the
stream, thereby leaving an elbow of the old
river. This place was said to be full of
buffalo fish, and in the evening a large herd
of cattle came down to drink and these
cattle were driven up and down in this
elbow, making it so muddy that the fish
were driven to the top of the river and all
we had to do was just rake them in. It
seemed as if the whole countryside was
down there fishing, but it had one objection,
not only would the fish come to the top of
the water, but a large number of moccasin
snakes as well. We were camping on the
bank of this pool and my wife had two of
the babies lying on a blanket with the fever
after the chill had passed off. I heard a
scream and ran back to camp to find that a
large moccasin snake, frightened by the
cattle, had come up out of the water and

roosevelt's adversary 75
glided around our camp fire between the
two little children and the fire. My wife
at all times had a holy horror of snakes, and
seeing the children in peril, naturally made
the mother afraid. That country is full of
reptiles of all kinds. We came upon a man
one day who had killed two large rattle
snakes. They were both over six feet long
and over three inches in diameter, the dia
mond back type of rattler. Wherever we
would camp we would find tarantulas, and
if there were any logs about we would gen
erally find centipedes. I saw there the
largest centipede that I ever saw or heard
of, and it has been one long regret that I
did not preserve it. I held it down under a
stick on a log and the breadth of the scales
of its back were over an inch, and when its
legs were extended its reach must have been
nearly five inches. At the time I was not
aware that that was a large specimen. I
thought that there were lots more like it,
but I have never yet seen or heard of one
of such prodigious size.
We had abundance of quail as we jour
neyed along but the one thing that I longed
most to see were the turkeys that I had
heard so much about. One day when driv
ing along by a corn field, we noticed a flock
of turkeys sitting on a fence and they
allowed us to approach within a few feet of
them. I had just remarked that I wished
those were wild turkeys. What a splendid

76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
shot I could have had as they sat on the top
of the rail fence craning their necks and
looking at the wagon lumbering along.
There was a house at a short distance ahead
and I naturally supposed that the housewife
was the owner of those turkeys, and it was
not until they took wing and flew off into the
timber that I realized we had missed one
of the daintiest tid-bits of our trip. It was
very amusing to see the natives of this part
of the country. Wherever we would camp
they would come down to visit us, and the
men would sit on their heels and talk by
the hour together. They usually had about
two ' garments on them, a pair of ragged
trousers that were hanging in shreds below
the knees, and a shirt with sleeves, in
like condition, but happier people I don't
think I ever saw. They didn't seem to have
a care. If you would ask a person today
how they were, it is ten chances to one they
would tell you that they were either going
to have a chill or just gotten over one, or
else had one due for the next day. They
seemed to have no higher ambition in the
world than to get out into the woods and
kill a razor back hog. We had the pleasure
of seeing one of these animals dressed.
They hunted around till they found one they
thought big enough and then shot it. They
immediately built a fire in the woods just
where the animal fell, and picking it up by
the forelegs and the hindlegs, two men

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 77
would swing it backwards and forwards
over the fire until the coarse bristles that
these hogs had were all singed off. It was
then disemboweled and taken home. The
next proceeding was to start to the mill
with a sack of corn across the front of the
saddle or probably bare back, and return
later with a bag of meal. A few eggs
would be sent to the store and traded for
sugar and tea, for which they received the
enormous price of 4 cents per dozen. The
sum of their happiness was now complete.
Corn pone, bacon and tea is all that a moun
tain Arkansan needs to make him happy.
We reached Fayetteville in August and
here I was taken down with a sickness that
lasted three months and from which I never
expected to recover. The doctor told me
that if ever I got well enough to drive to
the station I should go north as fast as
possible or I would certainly die in that
climate. Finally I was able to get a neigh
bor to drive me down to town, and here I
sold our little bunch of stock, consisting of
two mules, wagon and harness, pony and a
cow. This cow we had picked up along the
road in order that the children might have
milk. As soon as I had sold these things
I went to the station to buy my ticket to
St. Paul, and was dismayed to find that it
took nearly all the money I had left, but it
was a desperate chance and I made up my
mind to get on the train anyway, so I bought

78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
two tickets and a half to carry myself, wife
and six children. I was trembling when the
conductor came around and I handed him
my tickets. He looked at me for a minute
or two and finally said, "You don't think
you can take six children on a half ticket,
do you?" The whole family was pretty
small but it was a hard proposition to make
a man believe that they were all under five
years of age but one, and I decided not to
make the attempt. I told him that I had
spent all the money I had with the excep
tion of about $3.00 and I needed that to buy
food for them on the way up. I explained
to him that I was under the doctor's order
to immediately start back north or die, and
as I weighed only 120 lbs. it didn't require
much to convince him. He passed along
and said he would see me as he came back,
and when he returned I told him that the
only thing that I saw for him to do was to
put off such of the children that he thought
could not ride. He looked at me for a min
ute or two and then remarked that as far
as he went they could all ride and he further
arranged with the conductor that took us
on from St. Louis to see that we should all
ride to St. Paul. One has to go through
such an experience as this to realize what
it means to get back to the north, flat broke,
and only thankful that you are alive. I
wanted to go still farther north but as my
little funds were reduced to less than $3.00

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 79
it was out of the question for me to buy a
ticket, but through the kindness of the
president of the G. N. Railway we were
given a pass and so reached our destination
on the second day of November, 1885, in
a snowstorm and the thermometer that
night at 40 below zero. We were
strangers, knew nobody in the little village,
and all we had in our pocket was some $2.25.
It is such experiences as these that makes
one realize what a good world we are living
in. The first man I met as I stepped off
the train was the Presbyterian minister and
he saw my weakened condition. I was then
only three days off a bed of fever. He
stopped me on the street and asked what
was the matter with me, and when I told
him he suggested that we go back to the
fire in the station, where I had left my wife
and children. He thought that was about
as hard a proposition as he ever ran up
against, to see a man coming into a coun
try weighing 120 lbs., whose normal weight
was nearly 200 lbs., and with six children on
his hands and $2.25 in his pocket. The
marvel of it all was that the mother had
borne up during all this trying ordeal, but
the three days and two nights of a sleep
less journey had brought her to the verge
of a collapse. Something had to be done
and done quickly as the afternoon was wear
ing on, and I learned from this minister
of a house that was vacant belonging to an

80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
old lady who lived out in the country. Her
son-in-law worked in a printing office in
the village and to him this good Samaritan
took me. He made no objection to our
going into the house and gave us the key.
I was told where a new stove was upset out
of a wagon and broken and was lying by this
minister's fence. He told me that it would
make heat at least but it might not bake,
but how was I to get that stove? An
Englishman appeared on the scene who had
a team and he immediately enlisted his ser
vices to help me draw the stove to the house.
On our way for the stove I discovered some
stove pipes underneath some steps and I
tried my best to find out who they belonged
to; I could not, and as we came back with
the stove I threw them into the wagon,
leaving word where they could be found.
By the time I had got back to the house and
had the stove inside I was nearly all in; I
turned to my wife and said, "Girlie, let's
die," the first and only time in my life that
I was willing to give up. The plucky little
woman said, "No, we must fight for our chil
dren." The children at this time were all
curled up in the bed clothes on the feather
bed on the floor, for we had brought our
bedding and baggage with us. As soon as
my wife rose to put up the stove pipes this
roused me too, and I made another effort.
We had just got the stove up and sent over
to the neighbor's to borrow an armful of

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 81
wood when the lady next door, who had
learned of our condition, came to us with a
tray of fried rabbit, tea and toast. I have
always thought that that tray of food saved
our lives, and if all the blessings we have
wished her have been her lot she certainly
had never lacked for anything in this world.
Things at this time looked pretty black but
the blackest cloud has a silver lining and so
we found. At that time it looked very hard,
but taken in their right light such experi
ences do us a great deal of good. We
learned at this time many lessons, principal
ly among them the value of a dollar, and we
also learned that this is a pretty good old
world we live in, full of the milk of human
kindness. It is no trouble for any of us
to have friends in abundance when we have
a pocketful of shining gold but the number
of friends that were raised up to us in our
hour of affliction made us realize how much
such friendship should be prized. My
strength was slowly returning, and after
we had been there about three weeks I made
up my mind that something had to be done.
We had offered some of our trinkets and
jewelry as security for groceries but they
were as promptly refused and we were given
all the credit we needed. I noticed in mov
ing about the town that there were a large
number of Scandinavians there who were
unable to read, write or speak the English
language, except very brokenly, and one

82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
day I suggested to one of them that they
would have a much better chance in Amer
ica if they knew more about the language.
He replied that they would gladly learn
but there was no one to teach them. I
told them that if they would rent a hall or
a room, make some rough tables and benches
and get some lamps, that I would teach
them two hours every evening for five
cents a lesson each, thus placing it within
!the means of the poorest of them. My
school opened most auspiciously. I had
thirty-five pupils on the opening night,
who I taught all winter. Every night
when they came they would drop a nickel
in my hat and I already began to feel as if
I was in the millionaire class. Our wealth
only goes by comparison, and from nothing
to $1.65 a day was certainly a jump to
affluence. As I began to get stronger, I
thought I would reach out a little farther,
and while sitting in one of the stores one
day I noticed a merchant going over his
books and I saw a very pitiful condition of
bookkeeping. As a matter of fact his books
or accounts had not been made up for nine
or ten years, and he had no more idea what
he was worth than the man who was work
ing for him, and not any of them would
have guessed within several thousand dol
lars. His customers were in like condition.
They would come in and make a purchase
of goods, have it charged to their account

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 83
and possibly pay something on that account
every time they came in. As long as they
made some payments their credit was good.
I told this merchant that he ought to have
his books made up. He said he would but
he couldn't afford to send to St. Paul for
a bookkeeper. I asked him what he would
give me to make up his books for him, and
thinking he was making a very mag
nanimous offer, he told me that if it would
not take very long he would give me $2.50
a day. I told him that in my enfeebled
condition I didn't think I could work a day
but I would come to him for 25 cents an
hour and he paid me for just as many half
hours as I worked. I have made up many
a set of books, but such a tangled, con
glomeration of figures it has never been my
misfortune to run across. Between the
merchant, his clerk and his customers I
managed to slowly get the matter straight
ened out, and accounts that were outlawed
for years I got the customers to renew by
giving their "notes." They were all hon
est men and would pay if they had the
money, so it was not a difficult matter to
get them to sign notes for the account. In
this way I collected some $9,000.00 for the
man that he never could have collected
through the courts. When I completed his
balance sheet he was amazed to find that
he was worth something like $20,000, and he
immediately made preparations of disposing

84 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
of his business and leaving for the old
country. His generosity was of a very
peculiar type. I had saved him or made for
him the matter of some $9,000 that he never
could have collected in the world, and he
"generously" gave me 25 cents an hour.
However, I was gaining strength and some
days I made as much as $4.00 together with
my night school, and I thought it was time
we were getting into a more comfortable
house, for the one we had been in since we
came there in November was so full of
holes that the snow drifted in and every
morning we had to thaw out the bread
before we could get breakfast, or cut it with
the axe. When I started out to build this
little house I discovered how many friends
I had in that town. Some of my Masonic
friends, knowing of the struggles, chipped
in together and made up a nice purse, for
me, but the thing that pleased me most and
touched me most deeply during all our ex
periences there was the fact that one night
at my night school I had some extra pupils
come and was surprised to see forty men
instead of thirty-five, and each as he came in
walked to my hat and instead of as usual
throwing down a nickel with a ring into
the hat they laid it carefully in the bottom
so that there was no sound. I thought
from their looks that there was something
strange going on, but I had no idea what it
was. I had one young man, who I was

roosevelt's adversary 85
teaching bookkeeping, who came earlier
than the rest, and I was busily engaged
with him when the rest came in and it was
some time after the school had opened that
I wandered over to where my hat was and
discovered forty silver dollars in it. I
could scarcely find words to express the
pleasure that I felt, not only did I need the
forty dollars badly but it was nice to know
that my efforts in their behalf had been ap
preciated. In addition to the money that
was given to me, several parties turned out
and helped me build my house, and while it
was a little, small, one-roomed affair, it was
snug and warm and we enjoyed a great deal
of comfort in it the rest of the winter. We
all have painful moments come to us in our
lives but I think one of the hardest moments
of my life was when I had to turn around
one day to my family during this trying
period and tell them that I was sorry I had
nothing better for them to eat, and placed a
slice of bread on each plate with a glass of
water. One of them, a little brighter than
the rest, spoke up and said, "It is quite a
change to have bread without butter," and
made a great joke of it. The real fact of
the matter was, we all felt so thankful to
think we had reached the north once again
alive, that we forgot our trials in the matter
of food and such little things as that, and the
one thing of all others that sustains every
where is that "hope that springs eternal in

86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
the human breast." We had every con
fidence in ourselves and the kindness we
received in that trying ordeal taught us that
there was no danger of starvation at least.
I continued keeping books and my night
school until spring, then the boys had to go
to work and the nights were too short to
have any more school. During this period
I had saved up enough money to purchase
a cow, from which we had enough milk and
butter for our family and sold cream and
milk to the neighbors. I got odd jobs to
do around the town, sometimes in the stores,
sometimes cutting wood, and all the time
regaining that most precious of all things,
my health. I had had a lot of experience in
ranching in Manitoba and I decided that
the easiest place to get started again was
out on a ranch, so I advertised in an eastern
paper for a party to put in sheep with me
on shares and was fortunate in getting a
man. We moved out in August, some
twenty miles east of the village, to the
country that was then a frontier with here
and there a scattering settler. We took our
little band of four hundred sheep and
pitched our tent like an Arab on the bank of
a lake. Here we built a small log cabin
about 14 by 20 feet. It had one good qual
ity, it was warm. The roof was covered
with sod, and when it rained the rain would
come seeping through in different places
and after it got through raining outside if

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 87
still remained raining in the house because
all the water that had soaked into the sod
had to drip through. But the rainy season
was almost over and during the winter it
was perfectly dry and warm but pretty
small quarters for eight people, even if six
were small. Our troubles were not over by
a long way. We had barely got settled in
our new home when one of the worst prairie
fires that ever visited Minnesota came down
upon us. The ground was dry and parched
after a very dry season, and not only did
the grass burn on the surface but the roots
remained burning long after the first snow
fell in the winter. Thousands of acres of
sod were turned into a foot deep of ashes
and the foolish sheep would step into these
places and burn their hoofs. We were re
duced to putting our sheep out on a swamp
where the roots had not burned and where
the warm days started the grass again, and
between eating browse and this swamp
grass they managed to exist until winter
came on, but the wet ground caused them
to contract epizotic catarrh and we saw our
little bunch dwindling away under this
dread disease during that long trying winter
until we had but 52 left in the spring. In
the early fall I went out with my rifle and
killed some deer so that we had plenty of
meat. I also caught an otter and some other
fur, which brought us some money, but our
needs were very pressing, and to add to all

88 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
our other troubles on the 26th day of Janu
ary a little stranger arrived in our family.
We were fourteen miles away from the near
est doctor and no one but a bachelor lived
within five miles of us. I sent my little boy,
then seven years old, to get this man to
take the team and go for a doctor, not know
ing whether the little fellow would reach the
cabin or not. It was impossible for me to
leave my wife and I had to take the chance.
However, he returned bringing the man
with him and I immediately hitched up the
team and he started on that fourteen mile
drive across an open prairie where in many
places the drifts were more than belly deep
on the horses. He started on Monday
morning and did not reach my house until
Tuesday afternoon. The doctor told me
that there was very small hope, but on the
following day the little fellow arrived and
for six long weeks, and they were long ones,
I had to nurse my wife back to life with no
more help than my little nine year old girl.
We can look back now and laugh at the
hardships that we have gone through, but
when one thinks of having to feed and care
for a bunch of sick sheep, to milk the cow,
feed the horses, get up the wood to keep the
house warm, to cook and wash and care for
a sick mother and her baby and six little
children and in addition to all this, have to
take my gun and go out in the woods and
hunt for grouse, because it was the only food

OUR SHEEP PROSPERED

roosevelt's adversary 89
that my wife could eat, I often wonder as I
look back on that time where the strength
came from to do it. At the time these
things seem very hard, but looking back on
them at this time of life it was a good school
and taught us lessons that we have never
forgotten, and when we see a fellow being
in like predicament, the only thing that
troubles us is that our pocket book is not
long enough. The next spring we moved
to another place and built another house,
of which the accompanying illustration gives
some idea of the rude log cabin we lived in.
Some people think it a great hardship to
live on the frontier in a log cabin, but hav
ing experienced a fine mansion and the log
cabin, I am prepared to state that the log
cabins of America cover more thorough
happiness than the brown stone fronts on
Fifth Avenue, New York. "There is a tide
in the affairs of man, which, taken at its ebb,
leads on to fortune." It seems sometimes
as though the wheel must go to the bottom
of the hill before it takes a rebound, and
sometimes it takes an awful long time get
ting a start up on the other side of the
valley, but with us, after it did start, it
seemed as if everything came our way. Our
sheep prospered and in the fall of '87 I left
the home to the little ones and my wife and
took my tent and horse and started out on
a hunt. It seemed to me that the country
was swarming with game. All the barren

90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
holes that had been burned out the year
before had grown up spontaneously with
succulent weeds, and elk, deer and moose
were luxuriating in them. Fortune followed
me wherever I went. We had been very
short of food all spring, and although a
good hunter, it seemed as if I could not find
the game when I needed it most. A bear
that I had shot had got away from me and
I needed its skin and the meat worse than
I ever needed anything in my life, I think.
The skin would have bought clothes for the
little family and the meat would have furn
ished our table. However, on the second
day of June I had ridden over to see the
doctor, as I was not feeling well, and com
ing back I ran on to an old bull elk and from
that day to the day we left Minnesota our
larder was always abundantly supplied.
That fall I killed enough elk and fur so that
I sold, besides what we needed for our
family, nearly $400 worth of meat. We not
only had a grubstake and were able to get
clothes and necessaries as well as many
little comforts for the house, but I bought
a bunch of heifers, which were destined to
make us a nice herd of cows. The amount
of hay we could stack was only limited by
our capacity for cutting it. In fact, we felt
like Monte Cristo when he breasted the
waves and said, "The world is mine." That
section of country around there certainly
was ours. We had undisputed sway over

roosevelt's adversary 91
it. The more our sheep ate the grass, the
richer and thicker it grew, and all we had
to do was herd them during the summer
and feed them plenty of good prairie hay in
winter. Our stock did not increase from
the fifty-two head fast enough to pay divi
dends, so the man who had put in the sheep
decided to sell out. I felt certain that if
he stayed with them they would win out
and I wanted very much to keep them but
I did not know how to get them as all I
had were the few heifers and the cow I had
bought in Hallock with her calves. I
thought and planned and finally decided to
go to a man who I had met but a few times.
I stated the case to him and asked him to
endorse a note for me. Nerve! Well, yes,
but desperate conditions require nerve, and
my nerve won out. I offered him every
thing I had and the stock I was buying as
security, but that fine old fellow said, "If
I could not trust you without security, I
would not endorse it for you," but knowing
the great uncertainty of life I had the bill
of sale drawn up so that if I should die he
would be safe. Bless his dear old heart,
when I offered it to him he was quite angry
and I have the mortgage yet as a keepsake.
In two years I sold enough sheep, wool and
cows to take up all my indebtedness and
leave me a balance in the bank. Every year
I took out hunters and so did not have to
sell any stock for home expenses and in ad-

92 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
dition I made some pocket money writing
for magazines and trapping near home dur
ing the winter. People were just beginning
to appreciate the beautiful fur of the Amer
ican sable, alias skunk, and the price like
the odor was steadily rising, so as they were
very plentiful I not only saved my chickens
but reaped a harvest by killing them. My
wife would render out the oil, and that also
brought a good price. By making a little
money in this way at every turn we were
on the road to affluence. My wife was suf
fering from asthma and the doctor said,
"Don't stay another winter, get to the
mountains." This was in the spring of '92.
I had no trouble in finding buyers for my
fine stock of sheep that I had bred up till
they were the finest bunch of Cotswolds in
Northern Minnesota, but I did not like part
ing with them when we were doing so well.
My wife's health came first and it also gave
me an opportunity to get near schools, some
thing I had long been wishing for as the
children only had lessons at home, which
is not satisfactory because we had no time
in the day and at night they were too sleepy.
I had been in correspondence with my old
friend, Bill Root, the founder with Bill Nye
of the Laramie Boomerang, and he boomed
Laramie as the only spot on earth worth
living in, so to Laramie we went in spite of
the strongest protest from our little five
year old American citizen. He declared he

ROOSEVELT S ADVERSARY 93
would stay alone in Minnesota with the cat
and we have often wondered if his vision
was prophetic, as he was taken ill on Sher
man hill, that mountain with its 8,200 feet
that has caused the death of scores who, like
our little chap, succumbed to the altitude.
Just after reaching Laramie I bought some
cattle and was doing a good business trad
ing cattle and horses when the little fellow
finally took to his bed, and the day after
Thanksgiving I was badly kicked by a horse
and went down beside him to have him die
in my arms a few days later. With a
broken leg, I went on crutches to bury him,
and it was late in March, '93, before I was
able to get about again and we were once
more broke, with the exception of a few milk
cows that barely supplied the necessaries
of life. Our children had been going to
school but I could get nothing to do near
town, so in hopes of stopping the wheels
before we completely reached the bottom of
the hill again, rented a ranch some fifty-five
miles in the country. I was busily engaged
on the 18th of May, 1893, planting some
potatoes when one of those wild wind
storms so well known in the mountain
states suddenly burst upon me and sand
was blown into my eyes. I rushed into
the house and used every method to reduce
the pain, but without avail. On the second
day my eyes were streaming with water
and the sight almost gone owing to the in-

94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
flammation. I felt that I was going blind
and would gladly have welcomed death in
preference. I was naturally despondent at
this time, after being laid up for a long win
ter, and my children did everything possible
to cheer me up. My son, running in, told
me there were some antelope just over the
brow of the hill from the house and he urged
me to go out and shoot them. I told him
that it was useless for me to make the
attempt because I could not see the sights
on my rifle, but the pleadings of the whole
family caused me to go along with the boy.
Not only could I not see the sights on the
rifle but barely see the rifle in my hand and
it was pain to me to open my eyes at all,
but just to please them I went along with
him and he led me up over the hill, guiding
my steps carefully. When we reached the
top of the hill, he said, "There, don't you
see the antelope?" I told him that I could
not see anything but some white thing like
a rock from where we were and the sun was
shining brightly on this white rock and
could see it but I could not see the antelope,
though they were less than 200 yards away.
However, I threw the gun to my shoulder
just to please him and pulled the trigger.
The bullet by some chance struck the rock
and the antelope, hearing it, immediately
rushed up the hill towards us. As we were
lying among some rocks on the top of the
hill they passed within about twenty-five

roosevelt's adversary 95
feet of us and I could see the moving bodies
going by. I threw my rifle to my shoulder
without attempting to look at the sights,
fired, and to the delight of my son, brought
down a young buck. I supposed then that
that was the last shot that I would ever fire
and as I write this the head of that buck
looks down on me from the wall. It is need
less to narrate the struggles of that summer.
Absolutely helpless and blind, I went to a
hospital in Denver and was fortunate
enough to have a good doctor, who saved
one eye for me, but when he first saw them
he gave me no hopes of ever seeing again.
He sent me up to St, Luke's Hospital in
Denver, and between the gentle care of the
nurses and his clever treatment, we managed
to save one eye, although I remained blind
so that I could not see the moon until the
21st day of September. On that day I was
sitting out with my family enjoying the
bright sunshine when I suddenly remarked
to my wife, "What pretty little birds those
are." She said, "Can you see those birds?"
and it suddenly dawned on me that my sight
had come back to me. It did not seem at
all strange to me that I could see those
birds. I felt as though a scale had fallen
from my eyes, I was about to see once more.
The first thing I thought of was my gun,
and the following morning I was up bright
and early. I started off up the gulch and
it was not long until I ran across some sage

96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
chickens. I fired six shots and brought
down six birds. I could not wait to go
further. My delight was so great that I
had to go back and tell the rest of them
that they might rejoice with me. On my
way back a rabbit jumped up, and as it ran
away I knocked it over too. I presume that
there was not a happier man in the state of
Wyoming that day. I wanted to go around
the country and tell everybody that I was
able to see again. Only those who have
been blind can appreciate for a single in
stant the true meaning of it. We may
sympathize with a blind man and pity him
that he is not enjoying the beauties of nature
that we have, but to really appreciate his
sufferings one must have gone through it
himself to learn exactly how little life holds
for a pair of sightless eyes. Once more our
wheel that had been going down hill struck
the bottom, and with the exception of hav
ing a few head of cattle and two or three
horses, we were broke again, for I had spent
everything to try and save my eyes.
We passed an uneventful winter on this
ranch, killing an occasional antelope and a
good many ducks, and the following spring
I decided that we had better get a ranch of
our own, so with my youngest boy, I started
out for the Big Horn Basin. It was a long
trip but we found a place that seemed to
fill all our requirements, although I knew
it was going to be a difficult place to irri-

LOG HOUSE, BIG HORN .BASIN RANCH

roosevelt's adversary 97
gate, so the boy and I returned, packed up
the family, and after driving about three
weeks we reached the place we had chosen.
I had bought the logs for a house, as shown
in the accompanying illustration. We were
a weary and tired lot when we reached here,
having driven several days through a desert
where there was nothing but a few alkali
springs. We had to carry water from the
Piatt River, and that had to be used very
sparingly as it was only a small quantity.
When any of the children required a drink
they had to take the alkali water out of a
quassia cup, the bitterness satisfying their
thirst but keeping them from drinking very
much of it. After traveling over eighty
miles of this desert, we came to Bad Water,
so called not because the water is bad, for
it is such a clear mountain stream that it
seemed as if we could wait there all day long
and drink, but because it overflows and has
drowned many. After crossing an alkali
desert, one certainly appreciates good water.
From here on to the ranch we had good feed
for our stock, plenty of good water for our
selves and any quantity of fish, the very
finest mountain trout. I remember one day
my son and myself started out to go and get
some fish for the family. After we had
gone, the girls found some old lines that
were lying around the wagon, and cutting
a willow for themselves, started to fish, and
great was our amazement when we returned

98 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
for lunch to find that these girls had caught
several large trout, much better than any
thing we had caught on our long tramp,
and they had caught their's close to the
wagon. We immediately set to work upon
reaching the ranch and completed our cabin.
Every night the boys and myself would
grub sage brush and the girls would make
bonfires of it. We were there only a few
days when a fine buck deer walked down
close to the house and one of the girls saw
it go into a grove. As we were short of
meat this was quite a godsend, for we didn't
have time to hunt. Stationing my boy at
a small opening near the grove, I went into
the brush to drive it out to him and suc
ceeded so well that in a few minutes I heard
a shot and the boy hollowing, "Dad, I've got
him, I've got him." I never felt more
pleased when I killed my own first deer than
I did to see him get his, and to think that
it was a large buck too pleased him still
more. The accompanying illustration de
picts the delight of the boy better than
words can tell.
We cleared that fall an immense tract of
sage brush, and everything seemed to be
prospering with us. The deer were thick
in the hills and we had an abundance of
meat, and on the rich pastures of that valley
our herd of cows did well. The following
winter all hands started in to make the big
dam, for without irrigation the place was

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 99
worthless. Everybody said that it was im
possible to put a dam in that river, but we
built ours on the principle of the beaver,
using brush and rocks and sod, laying the
brush up stream just as the beaver does.
As soon as we had the dam built and were
sure that it would stick, my son and myself
started in on the ditch. It was a heavy one
to make, but before the garden began to
dry up we had turned the water in, and
there was great rejoicing, for that insured
an abundance of vegetables for the winter.
We had a magnificent soil and everything
we planted seemed to do well. That fall I
decided to take out hunters in the mountains,
as there were lots of elk and deer and al
ways the possibility of a chance shot at a
grizzly bear. There were also a number of
mountain sheep in that section. As I had
been writing for a number of years for the
sporting journals, as soon as I advertised
that I wanted a party to take out, I had no
difficulty in getting them, and the accom
panying illustration shows the outfit that
was required to care for them. By this
means we were enabled to get our winter
supplies and the "grub stake" seemed to be
the grand idea. Some men would go out
on the round up working for the big out
fits, others would go to the cities, but the
one grand idea through everything was the
grub stake for the following winter. Year
after year our cattle increased and fortune

100 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
was once more smiling on us when my dear
old partner's health began to give way and
a doctor who I had taken out hunting told
me that if I wished to save her life I must
take her away from that place, and above
everything to take her where she could not
have the cares and worry of a home. He
said that nothing would do her more good
than to camp out the entire season, so we
sold our ranch and once more started to
travel with a wagon. This time we had a
pretty good outfit, taking along a consider
able bunch of horses. The girls rode most
of the time and the mother and I drove in
the covered wagon. When it would rain
the girls donned a big slicker, and in one of
the boy's hats with their hair tucked away
in the crown, it was impossible to tell the
boys from the girls. We spent the entire
summer hunting, fishing, gathering flowers
and drying meat. We lived entirely on wild
game, which was so abundant that any even
ing upon going into camp, without any
effort at all, I could go out and get one or
two deer and be back to camp in less than
an hour. We never wasted any of the meat,
having lived among the Indians so many
years we thoroughly understood the art of
drying it, and we had meat at all times in all
stages of curing. Sometimes the game
wardens would come to our camp, but there
was never anything in sight by which they
could catch us. On this trip we had a very

« £3SX5i*£iiLj... .flHH
THIS TIME WE HAD A PRETTY GOOD OUTFIT

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 101
serious accident. We had a colt that was
running off into every herd of wild horses
he could find. My son had him in a corral
one time and was roping him when the rope
caught on the rail of a fence and the rail
sprung back, striking my son across the
face, breaking his cheek bones and lacerating
his tongue in the most terrible manner.
Such an accident as that is a bad business
in the city, but when you are one hundred
miles from nowhere and nothing to work
with but warm water and such astringents
as willow or cherry bark, it makes a very
trying condition. The poor boy lay on the
floor of the tent all night with the blood
pouring from his mouth, and he was months
before he was again able to eat a piece of
solid food.
I never saw such a profusion of mag
nificent wild flowers as we found near
Hahns Peak. The wild columbine was in
abundance and such a variety of colors.
One of my daughters, who is a great lover
of flowers, made a collection of nearly one
hundred and fifty specimens. We varied
the monotony of camp life by visits to the
mines as we went by. One place near
Columbine we saw some hydraulic mining
being done and we realized how thoroughly
that mode of mining destroyed the fishing,
as it was almost impossible to catch any
thing from there down. It was, also, a great
annoyance to the farmers, filling up the irri-

102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
gating ditches. At many places we met
other travelers along the road, some out
for the summer, some journeying for new
homes. One old couple traveled all the way
with us to Meeker, where we finally pulled
in for the winter, my wife being fully re
stored to health, as we hoped. Everything
was excitement in this little town when we
reached it. We heard nothing but the talk
of a coming railway, a dream by the way,
that has not yet been fulfilled. In this
place we passed an uneventful winter. I
ran a photograph gallery and learned exactly
what it meant to go up against the public
in business. Many an amusing thing hap
pened in that gallery. Two women would
come into the place, and after studying the
different photographs, decided that they
wanted a photograph made. The remarks
would usually be in this wise, "Now, Mr.
Man, we want something that is a good like
ness. We don't want something that has all
the features touched out of it." I knew per
fectly well when some old woman all
wrinkled made a remark of that kind that
if I were to hand her a photograph just as
the camera had reproduced it, she would
immediately tell me that I didn't know how
to take a picture. I remember one day two
women coming in there and making just
such a statement. I exposed the plate and
told them that the proof would be ready for
their inspection the next day. I purposely

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 103
did not retouch it, and just as I supposed
when I handed them the proof the old lady
who had had her picture taken turned to her
companion and vehemently denounced any
man who would make such a caricature of
her. Of course it would be an easy matter
to tell her that the instruments did not lie
and was just as she appeared before it when
I made the exposure, but I would just as
surely have lost a customer, so- 1 merely told
her to call again in a few days after it was
retouched. When the old girl had gone out
I told my retoucher to take out every line
and wrinkle and turn that old lady of fifty-
five into a girl of twenty as near as possible.
She returned in a few days afterwards and
was so delighted with the beautiful mis
representation that she ordered a dozen. I
doubt if she ever looked as good as that
picture made her when she was a young girl,
but the grand idea was to please, and if
they wanted something that was like some
body else and it pleased them, they were
perfectly welcome to it. This town is
situated on one of the most beautiful moun
tain streams of Colorado, but for some
reason that had not been found out when
we were there, the death rate was
abnormally high and there was a great deal
of sickness. All our children were taken
ill there and my wife was very ill, so much
so that the doctor advised me to repeat the
trip of the year before. Our finances at

104 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
this time had again reached a pretty low
ebb but I had invested the money we sold
our cattle for in land in this village and
when we got ready to leave, I traded the
land for horses and wagons, thinking that
that would be enough when we once again
got on to a ranch. This time we started
out with two four-horse teams and a spring
wagon, carrying all our baggage in one
wagon and our camp outfit and bedding in
the wagon that my wife and I drove. This
was just after the Spanish American War
and we decided to pay our way along the
trip by giving stereopticon shows. We had
a small organ and some banjos and a guitar.
In addition to the above outfit we had eleven
horses, which the riders of the party drove.
We had any amount of fun with our
stereopticon. We would drive into a little
settlement, get the school house and then
someone would tell them there was to be a
show. The cowboys would come in and
the remarks that they would make was as
good as a show itself. All those little set
tlements never saw a show of any kind, and
consequently they were delighted to have
the opportunity to come to us. Between
giving shows and trading horses and hunt
ing we had quite an eventful trip. The first
thing of any interest that happened on our
journey was when we reached Four Mile,
a place four miles below the Wyoming
Boundary in Colorado. Here was a gold

OUR FREIGHT OUTFIT

roosevelt's adversary 105
camp and rich placer diggings. At this
little point we gave a show and were tied
up two days in a snowstorm, and the whole
family was highly entertained examining
the mining plant under the guidance of the
proprietor. We traveled along day by day
giving a show at every little village we came
to, but nothing of any great moment oc
curred to vary the monotony. The roads
were getting dusty and the traveling was
far from pleasant. Rawlins and the Union
Pacific R. R. were passed and that was
really the only glimpse of civilization that
we had on our entire tjrip. These little
frontier towns, only reached by stage, used
to boast of a semi-civilized condition, but
it seems to take the railroad to bring real
civilization into a place. From Rawlins to
Lander on the old freight trail we met one
of the old fashioned freight outfits consist
ing of three immense wagons, as shown by
the photo, and drawn by some twenty horses
or mules, all driven by one man who rode
on the nigh wheel horse and handled the en
tire outfit wfth a jerk line running to the
leaders. These freight outfits have now
become a thing of the past as the railroad
has invaded all that territory. After pass
ing Rawlins, we traveled through quite a
barren country for some distance and were
delighted when we got into the valley of
the Popoaggie, pronounced Popogee. That
day's drive brought us into the pretty little

106 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
town of Lander, at the foot of the Wind
River Mountains. This was the banner
town for our show, as we took in almost
$100.00 in one night. As we got into such
excellent pasture we decided that when we
reached Fort Washakie on the Shoshone
Reservation we would remain here and let
our horses recuperate. One of the wheels
of our wagon required repairing as we had
a tire off, and the accompanying illustration
shows the wagon up on blocks when the
wheel went to the blacksmith's shop.
While here we helped the soldiers celebrate
the Fourth of July and took numberless
photographs as well as giving shows at the
fort. I was. fortunate here in being able
to get from one of the sargeants a photo
graph of the troop when they were on a
march, from which I made a slide, and the
excitement of that troop when they saw
this slide thrown on the screen and were
looking into their own faces is better
imagined than described. They jumped
from their seats like so many school boys
and rushed over to the canvas, pointing out
Jack, Bill, Tom and Dick and wondering
where the old man picked up that picture.
They laughed at the idea of Roosevelt lead
ing up San Juan hill, saying he was not
with them, but in his tent sending dispatches-
We amused ourselves from day to day visit
ing at the Fort, bathing at the wonderful
Hot Springs and attending the Indian sun

roosevelt's adversary 107
dances, to which we had a special invita
tion. It is almost impossible to describe
this dance. There was a large tepee with
a pole in the center and on the top an im
mense bunch of brush tied together, and
these Indians got up and danced toward the
pole, advancing and retreating until they
dropped from exhaustion. They stren
uously, objected to having their photographs
taken, but we have a few that were taken by
a friend. We were loath to leave our
beautiful camp on the bank of the Little
Wind River. In fact, in all our travels
whenever we would strike a mountain
stream rippling over the rocks clear and
cold, we always hated to leave it because
we never knew when we would get another
drink of good water. The ferry on the Big
Wind River as out of commission when
we were ready to start, having just gone out
before we reached the river. We met the
mail man who had been wrecked and his
clothes were conspicuous by their scanti
ness. He had shed most of them to save
his life. We turned back from the ferry and
decided that we would follow up on the
south bank of the river as far as
Thermopolis, where there was another ferry,
and while this took us considerably out of
our way it gave us some more towns in
which to exhibit our pictures and also a
chance to bathe in the world renowned hot
springs of the Big Horn Basin. On our

108 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
journey along we went through the beautiful
Birdseye Canyon of the Owl Creek Moun
tains. On the top of these mountains we
came near having a fatal accident. My son
was driving the heavy freight wagon, my
wife and I were following- in the next four
horse team. On making a turn around a
little place that was washed out, one of the
wheels slipped over the bank. My daughter
was driving with her brother, and almost
before one could speak we saw that heavy
wagon, with its load of packing cases, turn
over, throwing the boy clear of it and pin
ning the girl down to the ground. I was
driving a colt that usually, if you would at
tempt to get out of the wagon, would try
to see how near he could come to kicking
the bows off it. Without thinking for a
single instant about this crazy horse, I
handed the lines to my wife and jumped,
rushing to my daughter's assistance. My
son and I raised the wagon sufficiently to
drag her out from underneath it and were
surprised to find that she was not killed or
had even sustained any serious injuries,
with the exception of a stiff back, from
which she recovered in two or three days,
she was not hurt. This accident compelled
us to camp right on the spot, and fortunately
it happened at a spring. The next day we
started to Thermopolis and had the bad for
tune to get lost on the road. We wound
around through the mountains, several times

roosevelt's adversary 109
having to take the team off one wagon to
double up with the other, and at times it
tried the endurance and strength of the
eight horses. It seemed when we came to
some of the hills it was impossible to sur
mount them and it was altogether the hard
est and most tedious day of the entire trip
and we were indeed a very weary and thank
ful crowd when we pulled into the Hot
Springs that night. We found these hills
like the hills of life that one meets daily,
always look worse before you come to them.
The Thermopolis Hot Springs have be
come celebrated all over the United States.
Their power in restoring people who have
had serious liver trouble seems to have no
equal. I have known a man to be carried on
a litter after coming all the way from Phil
adelphia and placed in that hot spring and
in two days be able to walk and go and take
his own bath after having previously spent a
fortune in trying to find remedies elsewhere.
It is too bad that so many people will spend
large sums of money going to Carlsbad and
other mineral springs in Europe when we
have these magnificent springs right at their
own door, and now that there is a railroad
to them there is no excuse for people who
can be benefited by hot springs not using
their own. In those days it was nearly two
hundred miles' drive over terrible roads
with bad weather. We gave one of our
shows at Thermopolis and had a new fea-

110 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ture, a rather unique experience. A lady,
hearing we were going to give a show, vol
unteered to let her little boy sing for us.
She thought it would be good training for
him, so we tried him out in the afternoon
and were amazed to hear the way this little
seven year old fellow would reach the high
notes and the tremendous compass of his
voice. He sang "The Star Spangled Ban
ner," "Rally Around the Flag" and other
patriotic songs which made the most enter
taining evening we had put on the trip. I
doubt if this young marvel ever reached
greater heights, but he certainly deserved
the training that would have landed him in
the front rank of the singers of the country.
After a day or two of resting and a few
baths in the Hot Springs, we decided to
move on. We met a man a little further on
and asked him where we would get good
feed for our stock. He gave us the en
couraging reply that from Big Horn River
to Cody we wouldn't find enough grass to
feed a jack rabbit, but somehow or other
when the horses were turned out we would
always find them picking a pretty good liv
ing. As we were traveling along towards
Otto, where we proposed to give a show,
we were met by some cowboys who had
heard that there was a show coming that
way, and my son and one of the girls, who
were riding ahead of the caravan, were asked
if this was the show coming along and they

roosevelt's adversary 111
immediately replied that it was, then the
cowboys wanted to know where the animals
were and this mischievous son of mine re
plied that the animals were in the back
wagon. As a matter of fact, the only
animals in that back wagon were his twin
sisters. When the cowboys reached this
wagon they wanted to see the animals and
the girls assured them that there were no
animals there. "But," said they, "the young
man told us that the animals were all in the
back wagon." "Yes," said one of the
twins, "we'll teach him where the animals
are when we get up to him." As a matter
of fact, in that back wagon we kept an organ
and all our musical instruments that helped
to make the show, the only "animals" being
the girls. Nothing remarkable happened
until we reached Burlington, a Mormon
settlement, on the Grey Bull River. Here
we met some Mormon elders from Salt Lake
City and one of the apostles by the name of
Woodruff. They invited us to come to the
services in the Mormon church and as we
had never been to anything of the kind, we
decided to go. We also made arrangements
to give a show in this church, but were
told that the people were too poor to pay
good hard cash for admission. We found
afterwards that this was far from being the
fact, as they were a well to do settlement,
but rather than turn anybody back in an out
of the way place like this and in order that

112 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
they might all bring the children to the
show, we told them that we could use
chickens or eggs or anything of that kind
that they could bring along, and several
brought a dozen eggs for their admission
fee, but they had mistaken our meaning.
We told them that we could use chickens,
and when we cooked the eggs in the morn
ing we found that the chickens were inside
the shells. In order to get to see the show
they had evidently robbed some old setting
hen's nest, but we got enough good eggs to
answer our purpose, and everybody went
away pleased. We camped several days
with these Mormon elders as we traveled
north. They liked to watch our girls pitch
the tents. When we would get into camp at
night we would throw the tent out of the
wagon and my two sons and myself would
commence to unhitch the horses, hobble
them and take them to water, and by the
time that we had the horses attended to the
girls would have the tent pitched and the
stove going, getting supper. These Mor
mons thought that one of those girls would
make a pretty good wife and one of them
did not hesitate to say so, but the girls did
not have any fancy for sharing matrimonial
bliss with a half dozen other women, or at
least taking any chances on doing it. So
expert were the girls at pitching a tent that
they challenged the troopers at Fort
Washaki, but the offer was declined. We

roosevelt's adversary 113
had a 12x20 tent and it just took them four
minutes to pitch that tent and have it ready
to set up the stove. The boys always at
tended to the horses, not only those they
were driving themselves but the ones that
the girls were riding and driving. The next
place of any size that we struck was Cody,
the home of the celebrated Buffalo Bill, but
owing to the bridge being washed away, we
were obliged to take a circuitous route and
did not give a show there. We were pretty
nearly on the last lap of our journey now.
Our destination was Red Lodge, although
we had started originally for Missoula, but
the fall was wearing on and we thought it
inadvisable to continue a trip that would
land us in the winter, so we pulled into Red
Lodge with the intention of giving a show
there but found we were too late, as the only
place where it was possible to give one was
occupied by another company. As we did
not wish to compete we decided to pull on
down the river, where we were told we
would be able to get a homestead. We
camped at a small place called Joliet and
once again that destiny that shapes our end
decided our fate here. We gave a show at
this little school house and while giving the
show my wife stayed back in camp with
some of the younger members who did not
take part. A couple of men came to the
camp and informed her that one of their
number was missing and they would like to

114 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
get a candle from her in order to go and
look for him. She naturally supposed that
they were going to use it in a candle lantern
of some kind, never dreaming of anything
different until the following morning when
the sheriff pulled into our camp and told
us that a safe had been blown up that night
at the principal store of the village. The
accompanying photograph shows the dilapi-
tated condition of the safe after the robbers
had done their work. We were greatly dis
mayed to find that the candle that my wife
had lent had been the one used in the opera
tion of blowing up the safe. It was a candle
we had bought in Colorado when laying in
our supplies and it was branded on the side.
There were no candles of that brand around
Montana and this fact placed us in a very
bad predicament. We were informed that
while we were not suspected of having
blown up the safe, we would be held as wit
nesses. Fortunately among my other ac
complishments I had acquired during the
vissitudes of frontier life I had not yet
learned that art or I might possibly have
tried it to see how near I could do it without
getting caught. However, although they
got the men who borrowed the candle, it
was almost as bad, because we were perfect
strangers in the country and if we were
to be held as witnesses it was a certainty
that we could not give bonds and we had
no desire to be held in the county jail several

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 115
months until the trial would come off. But
by some astuteness of their lawyer or some
miscarriage of justice, the justice of the
peace before whom the preliminary trial
was held turned the prisoners loose, and we
also were allowed to go on our way re
joicing. Our next stop was at a little place called
Gebo, on the Clarks' Fork River. At this
town we showed to the poorest house of
any we had and to a very unappreciative
audience, who thought themselves vastly
too superior to look at anything like a
stereopticon show. We never coukj see or
understand why they came. The next day
we pulled up along the river to a little town
called Bridger, after the famous old scout
and frontiersman, Jim Bridger. We had no
intention of showing at this town, although
there was a little coal mine there, and when
we saw it didn't impress us very favorably,
for all the houses were in one street, com
monly called Stringtown, and there was
barely room for two wagons to pass between
them, but we thought it was a pretty good
place to show so we went on a little way be
yond the town and camped, going back there
at night and having a very good turn out.
The next morning we pulled on up the river
and were asked to give a show at settler's
house that night a few miles beyond Bridger.
We told them if they would guarantee us
a $5.00 house we would do so, and as that

116 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
was forthcoming we remained there that
night. Up to this time we had seen several
places that were offered us for sale or trade
but they all seemed too difficult to irrigate
and we moved on to the mouth of a little
stream called Bear Creek, and here we
camped because the feed was good and had
plenty of water and wood. We also found
some good neighbors, who were willing to
supply our needs with vegetables and but
ter and eggs. The next day my son and I
saddled up our horses and rode up to a
ranch that we heard was for sale. Once
again we were doomed to disappointment,
but on our way we saw some land that was
not taken up and which we heard was short
ly to have a railroad through it. We decided
that if we could take up this land we might
possibly find coal, which seemed to be very
abundant in that section, or else be able to
sell the land to the railroad company, so we
went back down with the news that we had
discovered a place that we thought would
do us for a resting place at last. We could
just about appreciate the feeling that the
dove had when it returned to the ark before
the flood subsided. The idea of getting a
place where we could at last settle down was
certainly refreshing. When we came to
count up our worldly goods we found that
we were once more practically broke. We
had a bunch of horses and three wagons, but
no money, not even enough to pay the $16.00

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 117
filing fee that was required to file a home
stead. However, we soon made friends and
had no difficulty in getting all the money
we needed until such a time as we could get
settled. Having made our filing on the
homestead it was an easy matter to get
credit for anything we needed, because it is
a well known fact that men of experience
taking up a homestead rarely make a failure
of it, and of course in order to get a start
they are willing to pay pretty good interest.
Such credit looks very attractive to business
men on the frontier. We were constantly
laughed at at first for taking up this land,
and the people thought that we had no ex
perience, but the following season we turned
a spring on a place for a garden and began
selling vegetables in the Red Lodge market.
As we came through that town I had tried
to buy vegetables and found that nearly
everybody was using canned goods simply
because they couldn't get the genuine article.
I told them that I hoped to be able to supply
them before very long, and that summer we
sold over $400.00 worth of vegetables from
that patch of ground. There was no ques
tion about the place. The idea of getting
the vegetables fresh seemed to appeal to the
people, who had so long been living out of
cans. We moved on this place the last week
in August and on the 1st day of September
the first logs were hauled down from the
mountain to build us a home. We were still

118 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
living in the tents and wagons that we had
traveled in and it was like a beehive around
the place until the time that the house was
finished. The boys hauled logs from the
mountain, and I, with the help of my girls,
worked from early morning till late at night
building the house, and on the 1st day of
October, after being in a tent from the 21st
of May, we once more sat down to a table
under our own roof. There was great re
joicing over it. That winter, after we had
got a stable up, the boys went off to the rail
road with the teams and left me to look after
the cow that we had traded for and the
chickens that we already bought. When
traveling through the country we usually
carried our chickens with us. A large coop
was fastened at the back of the wagon and
somebody rode behind and every now and
then there would be an exclamation,
"There's an egg in the box, stop the wagon !"
The egg would be gathered and then proceed
on our journey. When we arrived at camp
at night the door of the coop was opened
and all the hens flew out, picking up grass
hoppers, insects and enjoying themselves
thoroughly until the sun went down, then
they would fly up into the box again as
naturally as if they were going to roost on
a regular perch in a henhouse. They
seemed to realize that that was their home.
In this manner we had fresh eggs on the
journey, it being one of the peculiarities of

S'SI?';1*!** :

^.-Jas'.

WE ATE UNDER OUR OWN ROOF

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 119
a hen, that as long as you keep moving it
will keep laying.
Any person starting out on a ranch must
be prepared to face all kinds of hardships
and go without many of the necessities of
life, or what are considered necessities in
more civilized communities. It sounds all
very well to take 160 acres of land from
Uncle Sam and make a home on it. There
are fences to build, sage brush to grub out
if you are in a sage brush country, ditches
to make for irrigation, water rights to ac
quire, and until one has actually gone
through it it is impossible to appreciate the
cost of a homestead. On this place we made
a ditch over eight miles long across gulches
thirty and forty deep and some of the
flumes two hundred feet long. All this
timber had to be hauled from the moun
tains, a distance of nine miles, and it was
slow and tedious work. Yet, the second
year we succeeded in getting our water on
to a garden spot consisting of about four
acres. Up to this time we had practically a
monopoly of supplying the different mining
camps with vegetables, but no sooner had
we demonstrated that it was a money mak
ing proposition than people began hauling
in vegetables from all parts of the country,
some loads of melons coming as much as
sixty miles. However, the second year of
our residence there we made over $1,200
and everybody remarked what a united

120 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
family we were. When we went in there
first it was seriously debated whether we
should go back on a ranch or not, some of
the family wishing to live in a town. As
they were all old enough to care for them
selves, I told them to choose their own life,
that their mother and I were going on a
ranch. As we had lived together, a happy,
united family for twenty-three years, when
it came down to a realization of what it
meant to sever the chords that bound us,
we all decided to pull together, and as long
as we did pull together at one end of the
rope everything seemed to prosper. We
worked together grubbing sage brush, piling
it and burning it. We cleared a large tract
of land, planted it with alfalfa and saw our
large stacks of hay grow year by year, our
stock of cattle increased and our baskets of
butter and eggs all went to swell the bank
account. How long this condition of affairs
would have lasted is hard to say, but one
day a young man who was driving sheep
through the country was lost near our home
and sought shelter under our roof. Cupid's
dart did its work here, and one of our girls
fell a victim. This was the first serious
mistake in the family. About this time a
friend wrote to me from the Jackson Hole
country imploring me to do something to
save the elk from extinction, and this old
pioneer, D. W. Spalding, is the man to whom
the credit for the original crusade against

roosevelt's adversary 121
the use of elk teeth as emblems is due, not
to Roosevelt, who claims it. He wrote me
that not only in Jackson Hole, but also in
the boundaries of the park the elk were being
slaughtered by the hundreds for their teeth,
their carcasses being left untouched, not
even their tongues taken out of them. I
made inquiries from other sources and found
that the authorities in the Yellowstone
National Park were doing nothing to pre
vent the slaughter at the Southern end of it.
In fact, it was hinted that they were bene
fited by this law breaking. Things like that
are hard to prove, but myself and some
friends organized a Sportsmen's Game Pro
tection Association and I received consider
able information and substantial assistance
from sportsmen all over the country. I
heard that the laws were being broken in
other ways in the park and I decided in
September, 1902, to make a trip through the
park and learn all that I could about this
law breaking. I accordingly got some films
and took my camera and started through the
park. Everywhere as we traveled through
the park, on the trees I saw a notice placed,
"No barrooms or saloons shall be allowed
within the limits of this park," and yet, at
every hotel in the park I saw barrooms and
liquor served in unlimited quantities. I
also saw at the Mammoth Hot Springs a
separate bar kept for the teamsters, the men
in whose hands hundreds of precious lives

122 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
were intrusted, driving two, four or six
horses along dangerous precipices in that
park. I also learned that there was gamb
ling allowed at this place and saw some
going on, and that every pay day the soldiers
quartered at the Fort spent most of their
money here. I remained at each hotel long
enough to get photographs of people drink
ing at the bar and to get all the information
I could. I spent money freely at these bars
and found no difficulty in loosening tongues
able to give me all the particulars I needed
and the conclusion I came to was that the
Commandant was hand and glove with the
law breakers, a fact that I afterwards got
affidavits to prove and which I showed
Roosevelt. Two troops of cavalry were
kept there to enforce these rules and yet
these barrooms and this gambling hall were
allowed to run wide open. All kinds of in
sults and indignities were heaped upon
people traveling in the park. Private teams
camping through the park were run off,
either in the hope of getting a reward for
recovering them or in order to keep people
from going through the park with their own
outfit, thus compelling them to use the
hotels or else stay outside. I got several
affidavits from parties sent to me voluntarily
as soon as they found I was investigating
conditions in the park, and these, together
with the photographs of the illegal bars, I
took with me to Washington, as I found it

roosevelt's adversary 123
necessary in order to get any notice taken
of these conditions to go in person and see
the President. I had written several letters
to the President regarding this matter and
in every case the letter was turned over to
the Interior Department. As these bars
could not possibly be run in this park with
out the connivance of the Interior
Department, together with the superintend
ent of the park, there was absolutely no use
turning it over to them to investigate.
When I got to Washington I found the
President suffering from an injured leg, and
on each visit to the White House I was told
it would be impossible to see him yet, as
he was doing as little business as possible.
I waited several weeks and finally induced
Mr. Cortelyou, who was the private secre
tary to the President, to take my card up
to the President, and he immediately
returned, telling me to go upstairs, as the
President was then in the temporary White
House, while the White House was being
repaired. The President met me at the top
of the stairs and gave me a most cordial
handshake, for while he had never previ
ously seen me, he had often read my
articles in the sporting journals and hunted
and camped with men with whom I had
hunted. As soon as we were seated he
asked me my business. I told him that
there had been great slaughter of elk in the
Yellowstone Park and the Jackson Hole

124 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
County, that elk teeth were passing current
for $4.00 a piece in the section, and that the
superintendent of the park was, in my
opinion, a first class grafter. The President
immediately changed, his cordiality had
vanished and he flew into a passion, shout
ing at me, "You dare to call my friend, John
Pitcher, a grafter?" I said I certainly
would, I could not call him anything else,
and "Further," I said, "when you were po
lice commissioner in New York and an Irish
policeman walked before an illegal dive,
allowing it to run, you called him a grafter,
and for my part I fail to see any difference
between Major John Pitcher with an army
at his back to prevent these dives from run
ning, and yet allowing them to run, and your
Irish policeman in New York." The Presi
dent immediately informed me without
hearing any more evidence that because I
had called his friend, John Pitcher, a grafter
I had ruined my cause. He got angry and
walked over to me. I told him to keep cool,
that I had not come two thousand miles to
run any bluff on him, but I had the goods
with me and I showed him the photographs
of the illegal bars that were running and
affidavits. I told him of stages that had
been upset, of passengers who had been
crippled and injured for life owing to the
drunken drivers, one stage with thirteen
people on it that was upset into the Gardner
Canyon, and as soon as he discovered that I

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 125
had the goods and that he was cornered, he
sat down in his chair and told me to take
my affidavits and photographs home and
write him all particulars. I told him that I
would not write again, that I had wasted
enough time writing letters to have his
secretary turn them over to the assistant
secretary of the Interior, who himself had
been seen drinking at the very bars of the
park. I said, "If I knew that you would
get the letter and act upon it, I would take
the trouble to write again." He immed
iately grabbed a piece of paper, tore off a
corner and wrote on it, "Show this letter
to me, T. Roosevelt." He said, "Pin that
to your letter and I will get it." I did so, I
wrote him all the particulars of the different
outrages that had been perpetrated in the
park that I had learned on my trip going
around there, and I never yet have had the
courtesy of a reply. The following spring
in April, the President made a trip to the
park at the expense of the Northern Pacific
Railroad, who were running the hotels at
that time, and sat on the Mammoth Hot
Springs' Hotel piazza while liquor was being
sold over the bar of that hotel, showing how
little they had to fear from the "great"
Executive of this nation. ,He remained in
the park a few days, came out and white
washed the whole bunch. All this time I
was receiving letters from prominent men
all over the country tendering me their sup-

126 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
port, telling of the outrages that had been
perpetrated upon them in the National Park
and urging me to continue the good work.
In spite of the fact that I had taken Spald
ing's letter down to the President and that I
had written a letter myself to Outdoor Life
regarding the slaughter of the elk and the
use of their tusks as emblems, this same
President Roosevelt has lately taken the
trouble to exploit himself as the man who
instituted the crusade to save the elk. The
columns of Outdoor Life have a letter from
me before Roosevejt ever heard of it. I de
termined that the matter was not going to
end there and once again turned my face to
Washington in the hope that I would be
able to influence congressmen. I went to
the New York Sun and urged them to take
the matter up and they came out with double
leaded head lines, "Fullerton is the first man
who has dared openly to call President
Roosevelt a coward." I said that he was
a coward because he did not dare to do his
duty and clean up that park because it
would injure the Northern Pacific Railroad
and so help to imperil his chances of re
election, and had the people of the United
States ever known the real truth and the
contemptible position in which he was plac
ed they never would have re-elected him to
a second term. He never dared then to apply
his pet short and ugly epithet to me and he
does not dare now, for I have yet letters and

roosevelt's adversary 127
affidavits and photos that they failed to
steal among the others that were taken
while I was confined, that will prove my
case in any court in the land, and the public
who now take his calling a man a liar as a
huge joke, when they see the photos and
affidavits he refused to act on will also brand
him a moral coward. I took the affidavits
and photographs and showed them to the
Hon. J. K. Jones, a Senator of Arkansas.
He replied to me after reading them, "Mr.
Fullerton, I never saw such charges made
against a President of the United States
backed by such irrefutable proof." He
asked me to bring all the evidence that I
had in the matter to the Democratic con
vention that was to be held in St. Louis.
He said he was satisfied that a pamphlet
setting forth all these photographs and
affidavits and the few particulars of the con
ditions as it was, after being placed in the
hands of the voters would defeat any man
no matter what office he ran for. I went to
all the papers that I could get in the large
cities of the United States that published
columns denouncing the President's actions
and still this great bluffer hesitated to turn
out the man who had been allowing all these
irregularities. I never rested from the at
tack. I attended conventions in the large
cities and urged the men there to take ac
tion. I went to San Francisco and saw the
old soldiers. Articles were published from

28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
New York to San Francisco, but never an
answer from Teddy Roosevelt. One night
in the fall of 1904, when I was staying at my
ranch in Montana, a rider came to the door
and called me out, saying that he wanted
to speak to me privately. He told me that
a certain Senator had come from Washing
ton and been closeted with one of the
biggest scoundrels in the State of Montana,
and he told me that the orders had gone out
that I must be got rid of and he advised
me strongly to "beat it" out of the country
or I would get a drop of the same medicine
that had been dealt out to the rustlers in
Johnson County, Wyoming, in 1902. As I
was in Wyoming at that time he knew that
I would not mistake his meaning. I told
him to go back and tell the devils that were
after me that I could shoot as quick and
straight as any man in the country and if
they proposed, to kill me to be sure and do
it the first shot or they would never live to
fire a second. From that day on I always
went armed when I had occasion to ride out.
Finding that they could not get me that way,
a man came up from New York. Whether
he was sent directly from that city by Presi
dent Roosevelt, which my friends have
always insisted upon, because they always
believed that the first orders came from the
head office, or not, I am not prepared to
state. I will simply leave the public to draw
their own conclusions. At any rate a pol-

roosevelt's adversary 129
ished, suave scoundrel was introduced by
one of the local politicians into my home. I
little dreamed at this time the depth of
villainy to which men will sink in order to
accomplish the ruin of a man who is in their
way, nor the dastardly outrages that can be
perpetrated in the name of the law in what
we are supposed to consider a civilized
nation. This man ingratiated himself into
our family and finally drew upon my stock
of hospitality and generosity by represent
ing himself to be hard up and out of work.
My two poor boys were doing three men's
work and I was rather glad of the oppor
tunity to get someone to help them, but I
little realized that in warming this viper at
my hearth I was laying the foundation for
the ruin of my home. Scarcely had he got
settled in the house than he began to poison
the minds of my unsophisticated, ignorant,
frontier children, who, although many of
them had attained their majority, knew less
of the ways of the world than ten year old
children in the city. We led an isolated
life on the frontier and while my wife and I
taught them such elementary knowledge as
they had, yet they knew nothing of the
ways of the world. I had no use whatever
for my son-in-law and still less for his
brother, although I had hospitably enter
tained them at my house, and while feeding
them at my table, they, together with this
villian from New York were plotting my

130 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ruin and poisoning the minds of my chil
dren against me. Was there ever a viler
human being than the man who will
plot to ruin another whose hospitality he
enjoys? Yet, such were these Kimballs.
Instead of the harmony that had always
existed for almost thirty years and all of
us pulling together, as soon as they entered
my home everything was changed. The
ranch began to go down, things were
neglected and I had absolutely no more con
trol over them. We began having quarrels
in the family and at last they succeeded in
getting my youngest son hypnotized by
this man from New York to help them
trump up a charge of insanity against his
father. I was unceremoniously arrested,
and that night in' the sheriff's office, the
sheriff, the deputy sheriff and the jailer all
made the statement that if I was insane it
was time to enlarge the jails, because they
would require to take everybody else in the
town. They knew positively that there
was not a saner man in that community and
I have since been told that the doctors who
were on the commission to examine me re
ceived one thousand dollars for their
services. I have endeavored to get posi
tive proof of this, but there are things in
this world that it is impossible to prove,
though I have no doubt that no man would
be guilty of committing a perfectly sane
man to an insane asylum unless he was well

roosevelt's adversary 131
paid for doing it, and what shall we say
of the judge who signed the commitment
papers and afterwards turned around to my
personal friend and said, "This is all wrong,
that man is no more insane than I am."
However, they had accomplished their end.
They could proclaim in double leaded type,
"Roosevelt's traducer is insane." They
had legally destroyed the man that was in
their way and this legal death is permitted
and accomplished time and again in this
land that is proclaimed the land of the free.
I went to the asylum and was thrown into
a den of syphilitic idiots, the object being
to deprive me of my reason, and had it not
been for the noble house doctor, who stood
by me and encouraged me, and my in
domitable will power, I must undoubtedly
have succumbed, either my life or my mind
would have gone out. The guards pro
tested against this awful injustice and they
urged me to leave, offered me all the
assistance that I required to get away. The
doctor urged the warden daily to let me
out but he kept me there fourteen days,
during which time I never slept, except a
few hours under the influence of chloral
that I begged the house doctor to give me.
I entered that hell-hole, that could only
have been equaled in the days of the In
quisition, weighing 186 lbs. ; I left it
fourteen days later weighing 158 lbs., with
my hair whitened, my cheeks hollow, my

132 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
nerves and health irretrievably wrecked.
The tortures of that dastardly outrage can
never be even imagined except by those who
have suffered the like. At this writing, six
years afterwards, I am still a nervous wreck
from the shock, and I never hear the name
of Roosevelt but with abhorrence, for to
him and his vindicative nature I feel satis
fied that I owe it all. When I came out of
there the warden told me that I could go
where I pleased but I was to report three
times a day at meal times, which I was to
eat with the guards. He saw the condition
to which he had reduced me and so thought
he would feed me up, as he told me. I
could go where I pleased and I went out
among the ranchmen and their very blood
boiled at the idea of such an injustice having
been perpetrated. Some of them wrote to
my wife, but she foolishly listened to the
warden, who told her not to come to see
me as he knew "hell would pop" if she did.
As I was walking in one night about nine
o'clock I saw the warden passing up and
down in front of his house. He called to
me and took me by the arm and we walked
up and down before his house for two hours.
He told me that he had never had anything
to happen in his long experience as a war
den that had caused him so much worry as
my case, that he knew that I was as sane
as he was but that I was a political prisoner.
He assured me that he would like to do any-

roosevelt's adversary 133
thing for me that he could, but that if he
discharged me he would immediately forfeit
his position, and he had the nerve to turn
to me and say, "What would you do if you
were in my place?" I hesitated a long
while before making a reply and finally I
said, "Doctor, as a man and a brother
Mason, I want to tell you that I think I
would make a man of myself, I would be
no man's tool. There is not money enough
in this United States to buy me to confine
a fellow man for the sake of a lot of
dastardly politicians." After that I was
feeding with the guards and getting the fat
of the land, and I was gaining strength.
They were all as good to me as they could
possibly be and most of them said that if
they were in my place they would not re
main there another day, they would go
home, take a rifle and kill every one of those
who had had a hand in sending me to the
hiell-hole. I told them no, people would
then certainly have an opportunity to say
that I was insane, and I proposed to prove
to the world that every man that had a
hand in it was a liar of the deepest dye, and
six years later, as I write this, I am able
to stand up before the world and prove that
statement. They were liars and perjurers
without a particle of manhood, seeking only
the gain of gold. Some months afterward
these Kimballs reported that their father
had received some $5,000 for looking at a

134 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
piece of property. It is a great deal more
likely to have been their share of blood
money for helping to ruin me. The Yel
lowstone Park company lost thousands by
my attacking their methods and could easily
afford to pay well for my destruction.
Along towards the end of March after I had
been taking long walks and stiffening my
muscles for the effort, I made up my mind
to leave the place for good and all. I
gathered up my clothes and hid them in a
haystack and some of the guards gave me
money to help me away, and one night I
decided that I would go as soon as it got
dark. I got some provisions and struck
out for the top of the mountains, on my way
to Canada. I had barely reached the top
of the mountain, which was in full view of
the asylum, when a blizzard set in. I had
never been over the trail before and hadn't
the slightest idea, now that the stars and
the moon were obliterated, where I was
going, but I knew which way the wind had
started from and I walked in the teeth of
it. When daylight broke I found myself
near a milk ranch, a few miles out of Butte.
I told this milkman that I was traveling for
my health, which was certainly true,
and he offered to give me a ride. I enjoyed
a thorough good breakfast at his place,
which warmed me up and did me good. If
I had not been a frontiersman of experience
and also very sane I never could have faced

roosevelt's adversary 135
that blizzard and come out alive, and a man
needed all his wits in a storm in the moun
tains. When we approached the city of
Butte, I told him that the hills were steep
and that I would ease his team for him, so
when he disappeared around the bend of
the road I slipped up a draw to the left and
saw him no more. I had no desire to enter
a city with telephones and telegraphs in it.
I intended to make my way down to the
Missouri River and so struck out in a north
ward direction. I followed a woodland
trail and it ran in the direction I wanted to
go. Occasionally I would stop, boil my
tomato can, make tea and get a little re
freshment. In fact I made a first class
tramp. That night at nine o'clock, after
having been twenty-five hours tramping, I
came to a ranch at the head of a little creek,
and from the day I met the kind hearted
ranchman and his wife I have never ceased
to pray for blessings on their heads. They
took me in and cared for me as if I had been
their own brother, and that night I slept
under their roof without telling them
whence I had come, but finding that the man
was a brother Mason, and not only a Mason
but a good Mason, I confided in him the
next morning and he then and there volun
teered to help me in every way in his power
and was furious to think that such a das
tardly outrage had been perpetrated on a
man of my character. I remained with them

136 autobiography of
three days and when my feet, which were
blistered and bleeding when I got to them,
were sufficiently healed for me to proceed on
my journey, I started down to the railroad
track determined to risk a trip on the cars,
as this good Samaritan had handed me a
twenty dollar gold piece on leaving his
house. I had not walked far when a man
with a team came along and I jumped into
his wagon and drove to the station. I had
shaved off all my whiskers, donned an over
all outfit and a miner's cap and should any
of my own children have met me on the
platform they would not have recognized
me. When we got to Helena a man came
into the car that night and looked me over
very carefully and I thought certainly I was
in for being re-arrested, but he evidently
decided that I was not the fellow that he
wanted, and I got to Great Falls without
further mishap. As soon as I reached
Great Falls I hunted up a cheap room
where I decided no one would know me
and had a good rest, only waking in time
to get some breakfast at a counter and to
catch the train for Lethbridge. I barely
seated myself when a man I had met at
Red Lodge came and sat by me without
the slightest recognition. My disguise was
so complete that I now felt quite safe. We
talked all the way and had a good time to
gether till the boundary was reached and
the customs inspection began. Words can

roosevelt's adversary 137
never express my feeling when I saw the
dear old flag once more floating over me
and knew I was on British soil. There is
a feeling comes over one then that none but
those who have experienced it can realize.
Yes, on British soil and a free man. That
flag that ever stands for justice, honor and
integrity of the courts, where judges are
not for sale, was once more waving over
me. As I turned and looked south across
the imaginary line and saw that other flag
that once had stood for freedom, that nearly
one hundred years ago had cast off the
British yoke, that had later freed the slaves,
that had cut the shackles of Spain from the
Cubans and Phillipines and now by the
debauchery of the courts of Montana in
their diabolical attempt to destroy a man
who had dared to tell the truth, had had a
stain put on it that time can never
obliterate. Here I saw the boys of the old
force, the Royal Northwest Mounted Po
lice, and none but those who have actually
undergone such experiences as I had can
ever appreciate what it means to feel that
you have the protection of those red coated
sentinels. That evening we reached Leth
bridge and I just had $1.25 left. I paid one
dollar for my supper, bed and breakfast,
and after disposing of the latter I inquired
for work, only to learn that there were a
number of others in the same predicament
and no work to be had, so they said. I

138 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
went to the Church of England's rector,
and once more fate had directed my steps
to one of those sterling men who are ever
ready to help a fellow who is down and
wants to help himself, and I hope the day
may come when I can be of service to him.
This good Samaritan took me to a boarding
house and guaranteed my board for a week.
The next day he found me work planting
some trees. A few miles west, at Calgary,
lived a man who was a struggling parson
when I first knew him, at the time I married
his sister in Winnipeg. In those days he
was a pretty decent sort of fellow. At that
time, in the early 70's, I was handling a
large number of cattle and making consid
erable money, and was very willing to lend
aid to my struggling brother-in-law.
When his babies needed milk I bought him
a cow to help out and took great pleasure
in taking him lots of game with which the
country abounded, and now when I was
down and out I naturally supposed, as fate
had drawn me in his diocese, for he was
now bishop of Calgary, that he would be
delighted to have the opportunity to repay
some of the kindness I had shown him. I
wrote him of my condition, and to my sur
prise and disgust, I received a letter
enclosing ten dollars and stating: "I
CANNOT AND WILL NOT RECEIVE
YOU INTO MY HOUSE." I had not
asked him to enter his inhospitable home

roosevelt's adversary 139
because I knew from past experiences
that he did not know the first principles
of hospitality, but the mitre on his head
had made it swell till he was like a
puffed toad. This was supposed to be a
follower of the lowly Nazarine, instead he
was an ingrate of the deepest dye. I real
ized why he was never spoken of without
being laughed at, as I heard it done repeat
edly in Lethbridge by those who never
dreamed of connecting our families. It is
such men that make a mockery of religion
and a farce of the church. I didn't need his
money when at last it came, but as he owed
me that and more, I took it. I was already
run over with work planting shade, orna
mental and fruit trees. I met with so much
kindness in this town that I wanted to
settle here and wrote my wife to come.
The poor soul had been suffering all these
weeks, for it was now six weeks since I
left home, torn from her side after living
with her for thirty years, represented to her
as insane and dangerous by my lying son-
in-law and his treacherous brother, who,
vilest of all human vipers, the most despic
able of all humanity had sat at my table
and enjoyed my hospitality while plotting
my ruin because they had been called down
by me for conduct that no man with any
sense of decency would have been guilty of,
and there is no doubt in my mind thev
were offered a price as well as wanting me

140 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
out of the way since I had ordered them off
the ranch. The unprincipled scoundrel at
the asylum that had cast me into a den of
idiots added to her torture, while I was
there, by writing her not to come to see me
"as it would do me harm." I suppose it
would have been necessary to kill me when
she found out what was being done. These
sons-in-law kept asserting to my dear old
companion that it was dangerous for her to
come, so the people of the town of Leth
bridge got up a petition signed in triplicate
by all the prominent people, business men
and doctors, setting forth that I was not
insane, etc., and pointing out the gross in
justice that had been done me, and a copy
was sent to Judge Henry, Joe Toole, Gov
ernor of Montana, and my wife. In
addition, three doctors signed a statement
that I was not only sane but mentally above
my fellows. Still these scheming devils
held her, knowing full well that once she
saw me and realized the extent of the
diabolical injustice that had been done me,
their game would be up. They seemed to
have a hypnotic control over my poor,
worldy ignorant, children, who believed
everything the dastards told them. I at
last, in June, yielded to my wife's im
portunities and pleading and started for
Red Lodge, although I felt I was taking
my life in my hands when I did so, and I
felt sure if I was retaken to the asylum I

roosevelt's adversary 141
would be killed as I knew others had been.
Where there was no danger there was no
fun for me, but this was a danger I did not
relish. The game was too one-sided. On
the road from Billings to Red Lodge I met
a friend who had always stood by me and
denounced my persecutors. He told me
the sheriff was waiting for me, having been
notified by phone, but if I dropped off the
train and went to his house I could get
home before they got me. Here my old
railroad training came into use, and nobody
knew when I quietly dropped from the rear
steps. All I wanted was to see my wife,
for I well knew that if she ever realized
that she had been a tool and made a fool of
by a lot of designing brutes, who, regardless
of her suffering, only wanted my destruc
tion, she would rise to the occasion, and she
surely did. I got a team and soon covered
the intervening miles to the ranch. Here
I found two of the devils who had ruined
my home, the fellow from New York and
my son-in-law's brother, who had made use
of my absence to propose to another daugh
ter, thus showing his chief reason for
wanting me out of the way. This fellow
and the girl and my youngest son, who was
absolutely controlled and is yet controlled
by him, withdrew to the stable and there
hatched out a still more fiendish plot.
Knowing as they did that all Lethbridge
had certified to my sanity and that others

142 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
had done the same, where their ignorance
might have been some excuse previously,
now there was none, yet they worked on
that deluded ignorant boy and got him to
get out of his window at midnight and go
to the sheriff and ask for my re-arrest. But
this time they got left. They could not
fool my wife any longer, and when the
deputy sheriff came at noon, she dropped a
bomb in their camp by saying, "Where my
husband goes, there I go too." We went to
town to the hotel and the sheriff called the
warden on the long distance phone and
asked if he wanted me. He replied, "No,
we don't want him, there's nothing the mat
ter with him." The sheriff turned and
repeated it to my wife and asked her what
she wanted. "I want my husband," she
said, and we went home to part no more
till the Great Reaper gets His work in. As
a perfectly sane man when I was confined
in that asylum, I am capable of giving
testimony that should appeal to those who
have friends confined. I learned many
things from guards who had worked else
where and also what I saw, and I want to
emphasize the fact that our asylums are a
blot on humanity, a stain on the entire
nation. Inhumanity, murder, graft, tor
tures inconceivable that would put to
shame the days of the inquisition are prac
ticed for no other reason than that the
unfortunate have lost their minds and

roosevelt's adversary 143
cannot object, because in the eyes of the law
they are dead.
Conditions were intolerable at the ranch,
and so, after living together, a happy, united
family for thirty years, the heart strings
were rent asunder, the home sacrificed, and
with my dear old companion I set out again
to begin life anew. The future looked dark,
very dark. My nerves were shattered by
confinement, starvation and sleepless nights
in the asylum. The stigma of the asylum
has compelled me to leave the marts of
business and get away from society of my
fellows, for up to the present none of the
cowards has had honor enough to publish
to the world the truth that they lied to get
rid of me, and as a consequence strangers
who saw the glaring head lines at the time
the debauchery was worked naturally be
lieved me really insane. Our ranch that
I had negotiated a sale of for $12,000, as
soon as final proof was made, went for a
few hundreds, and the personal property
the children got.
We decided in the midst of all this tur
moil to take a trip to the Portland Fair, so
my wife and I started out "to do the Fair."
We reached Portland on the 21st of June
and spent a week seeing all the sights, but
there was no rest in such a crowded place,
so we decided to come farther, and went on
to Seattle. We reached this City of Hills
in a rain storm and I had not been there

144 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
more than half an hour when I wished my
self back in Portland. We made inquiries
where we could get rooms and it seemed as
if every room in town was full. The places
we were sent to we would have hated to
have tied our dog up in, and places that
looked pretty decent we could not get into,
they were all full. However, we happened
into a place where we saw rooms for rent
and got one little back room and the use
of a stove if we wanted to cook. Some
times we took our meals out and sometimes
we cooked a dainty little meal and enjoyed
the quiet of our room. We were expecting
some money and while waiting for it we
ran completely out. One night coming out
of church we had just ten cents left and
did not know where the next was coming
from or what we were going to do to pay
for our food the next day. Here we were
absolute strangers in the city. As we were
walking along my wife said she was hun
gry for a piece of cake. She just wanted
cake and wanted it badly, so we decided to
go down and spend our last dime for a cake
and trust to luck for the morrow. That
luck seems never to desert us, for on the
morrow I went out to look for something
to do and was directed to a lady who had a
small ranch that was going to ruin from
the want of attention. Her husband had
been laid up in the hospital and died, and
she jumped at the opportunity of getting

roosevelt's adversary 145
me to go and take care of it for her. There
was really very little to do on the place,
only a small garden to look after, and I had
abundance of time left in which to go fish
ing and otherwise amuse myself. The
climate on the coast seemed the most de
lightful that we had ever seen. There were
no storms or no strong winds. Every
thing seemed peaceful except the everlast
ing bustle on the streets, but as we only
got into this bustle when we came down
town, my wife's nerves were rapidly
recovering from the shock they had received
and both of us were feeling better. We fell
in love with the country and decided that
Seattle was good enough for us to stay
with. That year we started a small
grocery store, but the free life of the range
had got into my blood and I couldn't stand
the confinement, especially with my nerv
ous condition, so the following spring I
hunted up a small ranch on one of the is
lands and there we went into the chicken
business. The following spring, water
front property being at a premium, a rich
Alaskan came down and bought us out.
We made the mistake then of trying to be
come city folks, and it was forcibly brought
home to me that a shoemaker should stick
to his last, and in addition the stigma of
the asylum made it impossible to make a
success in business. A man who has been
inured to a frontier life is totally unfit to

146 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
cope with city men without such a handi
cap. During the time that we lived in the
city, I undertook to try my hand at selling
medicine on the fair grounds at the Alaska
Yukon Exposition. I thought that it was
going to be an easy job, that all I had to do
was to stand up and tell people about it
and they would buy it because it did the
work, and that really was about all there
was to do with it, but telling people is not
as easy as it looks, in fact, it was the hard
est work that I ever undertook in my life
and I realized how badly my nerves had
been shattered by my awful experience.
Today a man could hardly guarantee me a
sum sufficient to get me to undertake it
again. But it is a far cry from the quarter
deck of a broncho to peddling medicine and
speeling at an exposition.
After having put in six years of city life,
I am again preparing to return to the soil
and I never intend to leave it. Would that
I had the pen of a Harriet Beecher Stowe
to be able to depict the tortures of a modern
asylum so that it would rouse this nation
as did Uncle Tom's Cabin. Valentine Vox
awoke England to the horrors of her
asylums and if what I have suffered could
arouse the people of this nation to a
realization of their peril, I would consider
that I had not suffered in vain. You, Mr.
Man, and you, mother, wife or sister,
apathetic in your fancied security, just as

roosevelt's adversary 147
I was. Is it none of your business to look
into these matters? How do you know
your turn may not come next? You could
not love your family any better than I loved
mine. You could not trust your family
more implicitly than I trusted mine, though
I never trust anything but a dog now.
How do you know but the stranger you
have just fed and warmed at your hearth
has not the poison of the deadly asp under
his tongue. There are other reptiles abroad
who, for one reason or another, may want
you out of the way. A few dollars and a
little perjury and you are dead in the eyes
of the law. Penniless and a prisoner, pos
sibly thrown into a dungeon with a lot of
helpless idiots, who could not care for their
own person and were treated like a pen of
hogs, simply living carcasses held down
there awaiting death, and in this dungeon
I saw sane men thrown because they re
fused to scrub floors. I have the names
and dates that this took place. These men
had been drinking, one had cut his throat,
but all were perfectly sane again. We con
stantly read of children trying to get
parents put out of the way to get property,
and there seems to be no redress. A law
should be passed in every state making it
a felony to charge sane people with insan
ity and punish such dastardly crimes with
not less than ten years' solitary confinement
in a penitentiary. Better a thousand times

148 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
murder anyone than send them to the liv
ing hells provided by our states.
Every asylum should be visited at least
once a month by a committee of clergy or
laymen, and every patient (prisoner would
be a better name for "hospital" for the in
sane is a farce) given an opportunity to
make complaints free from the eyes of the
warden or guards. There should be quar
ters for convalescents and those of different
degrees of insanity, and in no case should
anyone ever be taken to an asylum till a
jury had passed on his case. Cheap skates
of doctors, such as pretended to examine
me, can be bought at a few dollars a dozen
to send anyone to these hell holes, and it is
only a matter of money how long they stay
or a question of how long their mind can
stand such an awful strain and not give
way. Every patient should have free ac
cess to the mails. The silly excuse that
patients' letters must be read by the warden
to see that no obscene matter is mailed is
only an excuse to prevent the victims from
exposing the brutality they have suffered.
Of course there are some unfortunates who
are helplessly and hopelessly insane, but
that is no reason they should have brutal
treatment. The asylum in Montana is more like a
hotel, the owners getting so much a head
per day. These men own the buildings
and it does not pay to have empty beds in

roosevelt's adversary 149
an hotel, hence, many who could be out
working are kept long after they are well.
First class mechanics, perfectly sane, are
kept because of their valuable free labor.
It is much cheaper than having to hire men
at $3 and $4 per day, but what about the
poor deyil who is at the mercy of such a
diabolical system? I heard a guard say
one day, "That fellow told me one day he
wouldn't eat, well, I guess I made him, I
took an iron bar and pried his jaws open
and stuffed him." He died. Who killed
him? "Quien Sabe?"
They will tell the people that I was in
sane and did not know. They will lie. I
was called insane in the rotten State of
Montana but I crossed an imaginary line
and could not coax the king's counsel to
have me tried before a court of record,
where I knew there was justice. They said
to bring your asylum up here if all the rest
are like you, we want men of your calibre.
While in the asylum I heard guards dis
cussing cases where men had been knocked
down, kicked and abused "to put terror into
them." I heard of one being drowned in
the tank while bathing and the guard did
nothing. Throw them in a pine box and
haul them out with an ox wagon. Who
cares ?

150 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
APPENDIX.
The following affidavit and letters, also the
photo of illegal bars in Yellowstone Park are the
remnants of my papers that I found in my home
that had been missed by the thief who stole the
rest. These are a sample of the affidavits and
papers that were submitted to President Roose
velt and which he had in his possession, yet he
took a special train from the Northern Pacific
Railroad to go up into the Park to investigate
(?) my charges, knowing that the railroad owned
the hotels where these illegal acts were, and I
am told are still permitted with the full knowl
edge of the President and the interior depart
ment. It is not a question of whether I or any one
else drinks liquor or is a total abstainer. Con
gress made laws to govern that Park and said
"No barroom or saloon shall be allowed within
the limits of this Park" and notices are posted
on trees all around the Park and in the hotels
giving the rules of the Park. There are two
troops of cavalry kept there to enforce these
rules and an officer of the army as Superintend
ent in charge.
I went to Roosevelt with photos of those bars
and affivadits of debauchery, and because of the
power of the railroad to prevent his re-election
he turned coward, sacrificed his manhood, his
oath of office, everything to his ambition and
took a special favor of a train and white
washed the whole outfit. Was he an honest man?

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 151
Nor did he dismiss his personal friend, Major
John Pitcher, from office until I had hounded
him through the papers for two years. W. J.
Burns, one of the greatest detectives of the pres
ent age, says: "If you want a criminal, look for
the man who is most benefitted by the crime."
Why did he not apply this reasoning at the time
McKinley was shot by a poor ignorant fool who
staked his life for a few dollars.
When W. C. Bristol of Portland had fought
Roosevelt for over two years and thugs tried to
kill him, and finally put dynamite under his
house, why did not this great detective find the
man most interested in Bristol's destruction.
When I fought Roosevelt for two years and
Tom Carter came all the way from Washington
to see "that this man Fullerton was got rid of" —
and reader you can judge if my friend had a
pipe dream when he rode to my house to warn
me of impending danger.
Because I could kill an antelope at a quarter
of a mile on the jump and therefore they could
not hire a man who wanted a rifle duel with
that little 30-40 rifle was not their fault.
The man who sent a thug all the way from
New York to enter my home and "get rid of me,"
the thug who hypnotized my devoted son so that
they left me to die, and because I did not die
trumped up a charge of insanity and railroaded
me to hell, who, I ask you American people, was
the man most benefitted by my destruction — I
leave you to name him.

152 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
No. 156 Broadway, New York,
October 15th, 1903.
Hon. A. E. Hitchcock,
Secretary of the Interior,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir:
Supported by the request of a large number of
tourists in the Yellowstone National Park, we
beg to lay before you the following facts:
The subscribers, with their wives, entered the
Yellowstone National Park on Sunday, Septem
ber 6th, for the regular five and half days' tour.
On the following morning, six stage loads of
tourists started out from the Mammoth Hot
Springs Hotel. Our party occupied one of the
stages. The first stage contained a party of
some ten people from Butte, Montana. Well
supplied with alcoholic beverages, with which
they plied their driver from time to time, they
vented their enthusiasm in the singing of songs
of the rag-time variety during the ride to the
Norris Lunch Station. There they entertained
the other guests with singing and shouting in
the dining room, without objection on the part
of the management, and subsequently approached
members of our party and others, two of them
ladies, with free and easy salutations, which,
under the circumstances, were far from pleas
ant, in fact, insulting.
The same boisterous conduct prevailed during
the afternoon. At "Larry's" they found a kin
dred spirit, and being there told "that the house

roosevelt's adversary 153
was their's" proceeded to make the most both
of the house and the encampment adjoining.
On Tuesday, at the Thumb Lunch Station, the
manager put a quietus upon them for the first
time. They went by boat from the Thumb to
the Lake Hotel. When their driver started out
with his empty stage, he was reeling in his seat,
and we subsequently heard that he fell off dur
ing the drive around the lake. At the Lake Ho
tel either exhausted nature, or good manage
ment, kept the party fairly quiet. There was
more singing and more coarse conduct, but it
was comparatively tame. By noon of the next
day, they resumed their objectional conduct and
by the time they reached the Canyon Hotel were
vulgarly hilarious. That evening, before dinner,
a number of their party, including the women,
gathered in the "Wine Room" of the Hotel, and
the sounds issuing therefrom, heard throughout
the Hotel corridors, were such as might be ex
pected from a Bowery dive. After exploiting
themselves in song at the top of their lungs as
"beauts from Butte, Montana," they consigned
to "hell," and also in song, various people whose
names were borne by members of our party, and
having "damned the Filipinos," adjourned to the
dining room, where they again indulged in coarse
wit and dance-hall songs. In this party were
four women. In the room of one of them sev
eral of the party gathered after dinner. This
room was on the floor above the office, and the
noise proceeding therefrom echoed through the
hotel corridor. There was singing, shouting,

154 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
and an entertainment of the dance-hall variety
and of a nature so remarkable that it attracted
a crowd of servitors and soldiers outside the
hotel, who secured an excellent view of the per
formance through the windows of the well light
ed room. About nine p.m. two of our party,
with their wives, went to their rooms, which
were on opposite sides of the corridor on the first
first floor. One room joined that in which the
uproar was taking place. The disturbance was
so great and so disquieting- to people who de
sired to seek rest after a fatiguing journey, that
the occupants of this room asked the hotel clerk
to stop the noise. The clerk went to the room
occupied by the Butte party, for that purpose.
A violent altercation ensued. Several men and
women came from the room; all joined in de
nouncing the clerk in unmeasured terms. The
latter called a sergeant as the military officer
in authority. The sergeant met with a warm
reception — denunciation on the part of the men,
endearing reproaches, from one of the women,
and a slap in the face, we are told, from an
other. The sergeant evidently did not care to
arrest these people, without orders from Major
Pitcher. Resort was had to the telegraph with
a view to communication with Major Pitcher.
One of the Butte party, and apparently the ring
leader, who was also a telegraph operator, took
possession of the instrument to the exclusion
of all others, and after some half hour's work,
apparently found the Major, and reported a mes
sage from him as follows: "Have a good time.

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 155
boys, but don't disturb the other guests." This
repeated to the others of the Butte party, was
the signal for more hilarity of a coarse and vul
gar character, which was kept up until after
eleven o'clock.
Several of the Butte party were, of course,
considerably the worse for liquor, and some of
the women were also. The latter paraded up
and down the hotel halls, and repeatedly de
nounced in loud and coarse language the "women
from Boston and New York," whom they held
responsible for the action of the clerk and ser
geant. One of these women gave utterance to
remarks reflecting on the chastity of the women
in the hotel. One of them tried to force herself
into the room where two of the ladies of our
party were attempting to seek refuge. Subse
quently she pounded upon the door of this room
and so conducted herself that both of the ladies
were soon in a condition bordering on nervous
collapse. During all this time repeated attempts
were made to get the manager of the hotel to
come from his room, to which he had retired
early in the evening, but without avail. One of
the clerks and the housekeeper, when finally
aroused to the occasion, tried unsuccessfully to
put an end to the disturbance. The rest of the
management seemed to be utterly incapable of
handling the situation, or unwilling to incur the
disfavor of the disturbing element.
Suffice it to say, this body of tourists, citizens
from all over the United States, people from
England, Holland, various parts of Europe and

156 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
South Africa, in an isolated locality forty miles
from headquarters, were practically at the mer
cy of this party from Butte. But for the pres
ence of the women, the men among the tourists
would have readily taken up and disposed of the
situation to their complete satisfaction. Under
the trying circumstances, and after the message
reported from Major Pitcher, there was nothing
for them to do but to submit to the indignity
put upon them and their wives.
Several of the tourists who set out from the
Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel on September 6th,
stopped over a day at one of the other hotels,
and thus escaped the attentions of the Butte
party. Unfortunately, most of us were unable to
do this.
The following day, upon their arrival at the
Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, the subscribers
and several other tourists, made a statement of
the facts as herein set forth to Major Pitcher,
in the presence of five or six of the Butte peo
ple. We have no wish to criticise Major Pitch
er. We do not know what message was sent to
him by the Butte telegrapher, nor do we know
whether he had been informed of the previous
notorious proceedings of the Butte party during
their journey through the Park. We do think
however, that performances of this character
should have been brought to his attention by
some of his command, and we ascribe the fault
to the system which will permit such things to
take place without the knowledge of the officer
in eommand.

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 157
Above and beyond all, however, we wish to
arraign the management of the hotels, for it was
they who should have held these disturbances in
check and enforced order, and we think and
recommend that a thorough investigation should
be made, and that those responsible for the fail
ure to suppress the said disturbances should
be held accountable. We further recommend
that some system should be devised by which,
in the future, such disturbances may be made
impossible, to the end that the National Park,
established for "the pleasure of the American
people," may not become a by-word as a place
for the entertainment of disorderly and drunken
tourists, to the annoyance of other visitors and
to the discredit of the American people.
We deem it our duty, as American citizens, to
bring this disgraceful matter to your attention.
Personal affront we might overlook, and, while
we sympathize with one or two of the members
of the Butte party who assured us that they did
not drink and deprecated the proceedings of
their associates, we take this action so that sim
ilar unfortunate occurrences may not take place
in the future.
For confirmation of the above statements, we
are authorized to refer you to Mr. John P. M.
Richards of Spokane & Eastern Trust So., Spo
kane, Washington; Mr. Francis X. Brosnan of
146 West 74th street, New York City; Mr. Hilton
A. Parker, Union League Club, Chicago; Miss
Whipple, Kansas City, Mo.; Mr. G. Percy Mead of
Woodlands, Bicton, Shrewsbury, England; Dr.

158 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
Victor C. Vaughn, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Furth
er, we feel justified in referring you to all those
whose names appear upon the register of the
Canyon Hotel of September 10th, except those
who are registered from Butte, Montana. Their
names also are upon the register.
In concluding we beg to call your attention
to an extract from the regulations issued by
you and dated February 7th, 1902, "9. No drink
ing saloon or barroom will be permitted within
the limits of the Park. 11. Persons who render
themselves obnoxious by disorderly conduct
* * * may be summarily removed from the
Park, etc." Very respectfully,
William H. Sage,
156 Broadway,
New York City.
William A. Jones, Jr.,
141 Broadway,
New York City.

University of Michigan,
Department of Medicine ond Surgery,
Ann Arbor, December 30, 1903.
This is to state that I, Victor C. Vaughn of Ann
Arbor, Michigan, accompanied by two of my
sons, started from Livingston, Montana, Septem
ber 6th, 1903, for the usual trip through Yellow
stone National Park. I had visited the Park in

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 159
1896 and had found it at that time well man
aged, and I was anxious that my sons should
see the many wonderful displays of nature ex
hibited in the Park. At the hotel at the Mam
moth Hot Springs, we found a crowd of ten or
twelve exceedingly noisy people who were evi
dently hand and glove with the military com
mander of the Park and who were making the
hotel corridors ring with songs, some of which
were not objectional, while others were profane
and still others approached the vulgar.
In going over the grounds at the Mammoth
Hot Springs, I was pained and humiliated to
notice that many of the placards posted at dif
ferent places, bearing the rules supposed to gov
ern the Park, were disfigured by the names and
initials of people. At one place, that is Bath
Lake, the placard contained in large letters an
obscene sentence which was plainly noticeable
to every one, and which must have been humil
iating to every decent American citizen.
The next day, September, the 7th, we started
from the Mammoth Hot Springs on the usual
trip. The party which had been so noisy at
the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel filled one stage
at the Norris Basin. This same party indulged
very freely in drink, became exceedingly hilari
ous, and were, to say the least, guilty of ungen-
tlemanly and unwomanly acts.
That night at the Fountain House this party
was held in abeyance by the petty officer who
was at the hotel and who evidently had some
respect for himself and the government whose

160 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
uniform he wore. The next day at the Upper
Geyser Basin, Larry joined with the party al
ready spoken of, frequently led them to the
drinking room and encouraged them in their
questionable songs and deportment. The next
morning between the Upper Geyser and the
Basin, and the Lake, this party made their driv
er drunk so that it was with difficulty he kept
his seat, and on reaching the Lake the party
evidently were afraid to continue with the driv
er and took the boat, while the driver left for
the Lake House so drunk that we thought he
would lose his seat on the way. At the Lake
House that evening the manager succeeded in
quelling the uproariousness of the party. The
next night at the Canyon House, the party al
ready referred to filled themselves with drink,
and at least one man and one woman of the par
ty became highly intoxicated and went through
the halls making obscene remarks and singing
profane songs. Liquor was freely served to peo
ple and about midnight the uproar became so
great that it was impossible for any one to
sleep. I arose, dressed myself, and went from
my room, and found a pitiable state of affairs.
The young clerk at the desk was unable to quiet
the drunken crowd and called in a sergeant who
threatened their arrest. When this was done,
one of the men belonging to the drunken party
took possession of the telegraph and held com
munication with Major Pitcher of the Mammoth
Hot Springs, and reported that the Major had
replied that they could go ahead, have as much

ROOSEVELT'S ADVERSARY 161
fun as they wanted, and that no arrests were to
be made. The next day several of us confronted
Major Pitcher with this statement, and he ac
knowledged that this statement was correct.
The hotel was simply terrorized. Decent wom
en were shocked at the obscene language which
flowed volubly from the lips of both men and
women who were highly intoxicated.
I have traveled through the greater part of
the civilized world, and I have never seen in any
place, either of high or of low degree, the
shocking exhibition that was made at the Can
yon House that night. There were several for
eigners who were insulted to their faces by the
drunken crowds and were plainly told that
drunken people had the protection of the Com
mander of the Park, which, to the best of my
knowledge and belief, after consultation with
Major Pitcher the next day, was true. In other
words, Major Pitcher in communication with the
people, who were threatened with arrest by one
of his under officers sent word that no arrests
were to be made and placed the hotel at the dis
posal of the drunken crowd. Upon reaching the
Mammoth Hot Springs the next afternoon, sev
eral of us went to Major Pitcher and lodged a
complaints, giving the facts as substantially stat
ed above. (Signed) Victor C. Vaughn.
Victor C. Vaughn of Ann Arbor, Michigan, ap
peared before me, Elizer C. Calkins, a duly au
thorized notary public for the county af Wash-

162 roosevelt's adversary
tenaw, State of Michigan, this 30th day of De
cember, 1903, and made affidavit that the state
ments contained in the above are true.
Elizer C. Calkins.
Com. expires Feb. 15, 1905.
Notary Public, Washtenaw County,
State of Michigan.
Note. This affidavit was sent me voluntarily by Dr.
Vaughn. J. F.

3 9002

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