THE COWBOY PRESIDENT

by Michael F. Blake

  Theodore offered a letter of introduction from Gorringe, but Lincoln said no letter was needed, as his father was a good judge of men and took an immediate liking to the dude from the East. The four men sat down to dinner, and both Gregor and Theodore commenced to talk about a vast array of subjects. The fact that Gregor had named his son after his—and Theodore’s—favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, was just the starting point. Despite the long train ride and equally long trek to the Lang ranch, Theodore and Gregor Lang talked into the early morning hours, each sharing their interests and opinions. Joe Ferris, oblivious to the never-ending conversation, rolled up in his blankets on the dirt floor and promptly fell asleep. Lincoln was sent to bed, but tried his best to stay up and listen to the conversation between his father and this unique guest. Close to two in the morning, Gregor and Theodore went to sleep. Once again, Theodore refused to take Gregor’s bunk, sleeping on the floor in his blankets.

  Come dawn, his great adventure to hunt one of the remaining buffalo on the Northern Plains would begin.

  Hunting the Shaggy Beast

  By Godfrey, but this is fun!

  THEODORE AWOKE TO RAIN ON SEPTEMBER 10. WHILE SOME HUNTERS wouldn’t pay much mind to rain, in the Badlands it was messy and downright dangerous. The bentonite clay, when dry, is hard packed and leaves a dust trail by any animal or man crossing it. When it rains, the clay takes on a whole different texture, making any attempt to navigate over it chancy at best, lethal at worse. As the clay absorbs water in a storm, it swells up and becomes a gelatin-like mud that is very slippery and can easily cause a man or horse to fall and possibly break a leg. Attempting to walk through this wet clay requires a tremendous amount of extra exertion, which can lead to numerous problems, especially in cold weather.

  Joe Ferris urged Theodore to put off the hunting trip for a day until the rain had cleared up, explaining the potential danger. Gregor Lang echoed Ferris’s sentiments, but when Theodore made a decision, there was no changing it. He wanted to start the hunt for a buffalo that morning.

  Saddling up their horses and riding east from the Lang ranch, Theodore and Ferris set out in a downpour, and the rain never let up that day. As they rode on, both rider and mount acquired layers of the wet clay. Theodore never complained about the weather, although the same probably couldn’t be said of Joe, who no doubt wondered what he had gotten himself into, guiding this dude.

  There was no sign of buffalo that day, not even on a faraway bluff or valley. The only animals they came across, at too far a distance to make a credible shot, were some mule deer. Later in the day, they came upon a single buck, getting within two hundred feet of it when Theodore fired. He missed the target. Joe swung up his rifle, bringing the buck down.

  “By Godfrey!” Theodore exclaimed in disgust, slamming his rifle to the ground. “I’d give anything in the world if I could shoot like that!”1 Theodore was never a great shot, mainly because of his poor eyesight. He was once asked if he was a good shot. “No,” he said, “but I shoot often.” Nor did he ever use foul language when angry or frustrated. “By Godfrey!” was about as profane as it got with him.

  As evening approached, the two men, covered in mud, returned to Lang’s ranch. After eating dinner, Joe wrapped himself in his blankets and quickly fell asleep on the floor. Theodore, on the other hand, was wide awake and bright, and welcomed another long conversation with Gregor, while Lincoln did his best to stay awake and listen. One of the subjects the two men discussed that evening was cattle.

  The following morning the rain, showing no sympathy for the two men, continued. Again they rode, despite Ferris’s pleas to rest a day, in search of a buffalo. Lincoln Lang noted that as the two men left his father’s ranch every morning, Theodore’s hope of finding his buffalo that day was reflected in his parting grin. At night, when he returned empty-handed, “the grin was still there, being apparently built in and ineradicable.”2

  Every night after the meal, it was the exhausted Joe Ferris who rolled into his blankets and slept, while Theodore and Gregor Lang talked for hours. The subject of raising cattle came to dominate much of their conversation.

  Like clockwork, the rain, Joe’s feeble protests to lay up, and returning with nothing at night continued for nearly a week. As Joe would later recall, “Bad luck followed us like a yellow dog follows a drunkard.”3 The nightly conversations between Theodore and Gregor, while the exhausted Joe fell asleep after the evening meal, continued, as well. Lincoln noticed on more than one evening that Joe was on the brink of caving in, but he could not fall down on a tenderfoot dude from New York. “So he was obliged,” Lincoln noted, “to keep going while trying to look as if he enjoyed it.”4 Certainly, Joe began to rethink his assessment of his client. He hardly had to serve as a nursemaid.

  In a letter to Alice, dated September 14, 1883, Theodore related some of his adventures, including a close encounter with a buffalo.

  I have been out a week now, nearly, and though it is a good game country, yet, by Jove, my usual bad luck in hunting has followed. I have had adventures enough at any rate . . . We left the river and after scrambling for some fifteen miles through very broken country, among canyons, washouts and gullies, we at last got out onto the great rolling, grass covered plains where we hoped to find the buffalo. Over these we journeyed nearly all day without seeing a thing till at about four we made out four great buffaloes feeding out in the open.

  We brought the ponies up to about half a mile from them, when we left them and began the stalk. The ground was [so] flat that, after going on our hands and knees for some time, we had to crawl for nearly a quarter of a mile on our stomachs like snakes. Finally we got within about a hundred yards of the great beasts, and I took aim for the shoulder of the target. As the rifle cracked the old bull plunged forward on his knees, and I heard the “pack” of the bullet and saw the dust fly from his hide as the ounce ball crashed through his ribs; too far back, unluckily, for the wound did not disable him, and recovering himself he went off after the others, who were covering the ground pretty fast, with their lumbering gallop. We ran back for the ponies and loped along for some seven miles on the trail, and the sun was just setting when we came on them, where they had halted at last.

  They were so far from cover, and it was getting so dark, that we did not have time to make a stalk, and made up our minds to run them. As we dashed down the hill they again broke into a run; and the next hour was as exciting as any I ever had spent. The ground was pretty hard, but I went straight as an arrow over the most break neck places, digging the spurs into the pony and gradually closing in on the wounded buffalo, while the others nearly held their own with us. Ferris, better mounted than I was, finally headed the wounded bull; then I ran in, driving my spurs into the flanks of my jaded horse. I fired once but the motion made me miss; and as I urged the horse still closer—for it was very dark—the bull turned to bay and charged me; the lunge of the formidable looking brute frightened my pony, and as he went off he threw up his head and knocked the heavy rifle I was carrying against my head in such force that it gave me a pretty severe cut on the crown, from which the blood flowed over my face and into my eyes so that it blinded me for the moment. The bull charged Ferris and drove him off . . . following him closer than was pleasant for a hundred yards, while it was so dark that he missed his aim. I put one more bullet in him; but my jaded horse played out, being run to a regular standstill; it had become so dark that, after a trial, we found we could not follow on foot; and the infernal beast escaped after all!5

  One thing Theodore omitted in his letter was blundering “into a bed of cactus, and fill[ing] my hands with the spines” while he and Joe were crawling on their stomachs.6 The two men continued their quixotic adventure.

  They eventually came across a small pool of water. (“Such a pool! The water was mere green scum; but it was liquid, and so we had to make it do.”7) Dinner in their camp consisted of a biscuit, with not even a dried-out twig to make a fire. With no tree or brush to tie their ho
rses, they unsaddled them and picketed the reins to their saddle horns. Exhausted, Theodore and Joe used the saddles as pillows, and rolled up in their blankets.

  Shortly before midnight, they were roughly awakened when the saddles were violently yanked out from under them. Jumping to their feet, Theodore and Joe saw the horses “snorting wildly” as they disappeared into the darkness, dragging the saddles behind them. (They later surmised a wolf had spooked their mounts.) Fortunately, the horses were too tired to run far, and the two men caught up to their mounts a half-mile away. Returning to camp, they hobbled the horses and crawled back into their blankets. Around three in the morning, a light rain began to fall, which quickly grew heavier. Within a few minutes they found themselves lying in nearly four inches of water.

  “By Godfrey, but this is fun!” Theodore exclaimed.8

  Joe’s comments have been lost to history.

  As the dark sky began to grow gray, the rain continued. Theodore and Joe did the best they could to maintain any warmth, a difficult task when one’s blankets and clothing were completely soaked. Breakfast consisted of some hard biscuits before saddling up. “We were off, glad to bid goodbye to the inhospitable pool, in whose neighborhood we had spent such a comfortless night,” Theodore stated.9 The search for buffalo continued, and after several miserable, cold hours in the saddle, they spotted something in the distance. “As we rose over a low divide the fog lifted for a few minutes, and we saw several black objects slowly crossing some rolling country ahead of us, and a glance satisfied us they were buffalo,” he later wrote.10

  Quickly tying their horses to some sagebrush, they proceeded to move up on the buffalo, creeping through the wet grass and mud. Despite the rain blowing into their faces, both Theodore and Joe managed to come within a hundred yards of a large cow. Chilled to the bone, clenching his teeth so they wouldn’t chatter, Theodore took aim at his long-awaited target and fired.

  “To crown my misfortunes, I now made one of those misses which a man to his dying day always looks back upon with wonder and regret,” he commented.11 Theodore estimated that he either overshot his target or, just as he fired, gave a nervous jerk, which pulled his rifle completely off its mark. The gunshot spooked the band of buffalo, which made a hasty departure before he could attempt to reload his weapon with stiff and numb fingers. Theodore and Joe, “in wet, sullen misery,” went back for their horses and trudged on. That night the two men camped, without a fire, “in shivering misery.”

  The following morning the sky was clear of rain and dark clouds. However, the change in the weather did nothing to alter their misfortunes. Joe’s horse very nearly had a fateful encounter with a rattlesnake. While riding along a steep bluff, the soil broke free, sending riders and mounts sliding and rolling to the bottom in a tangled heap. Later, Theodore and his horse Nell were galloping through some brush-covered land when his mount stepped into a badger hole, and “turned a regular somersault, sending myself and rifle about twenty feet; but we were not hurt at all.”12 As if these episodes weren’t sufficient indication of how bad things were going, later in the day, Theodore and Nell were riding across what appeared to be a hard bed of a creek. The ground gave way under Nell (“like a trap door”); the animal quickly found itself down to its withers in sticky mud. Theodore managed to get off and struggled to the bank, with lasso in hand. Between the two men and with Joe’s horse, they pulled Nell free from the mud pit.

  “So far the trip had certainly not been a success, although sufficiently varied as regards its incidents,” Theodore wryly commented.13

  Despite the setbacks, Theodore was enjoying himself, and the Western life, immensely. “I am every day and all day long on horseback, scrambling over the almost inconceivably rocky and difficult hills of the ‘bad lands,’ or galloping at full speed over the rolling prairie or level bottom,” he gleefully wrote his wife.14

  Returning to the Lang ranch, plastered head to toe in mud, chilled to the bone, and hungry, Theodore was quite willing to have his usual evening talk with Gregor Lang. This time he had a definite subject to cover: He wanted to become a cattle rancher.

  He asked Gregor to become his partner and manager. Lang regretfully turned him down, citing that he couldn’t back out of his contract with Pender. While disappointed with the reply, Theodore not only understood but respected Lang even more. Gregor strongly suggested his new friend talk to Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield.

  The next morning, Lincoln was in the saddle on the way to Maltese Cross Ranch with a message for Sylvane and Bill to come to the Lang cabin. During the two days necessary to complete the round-trip, because of rain and a high river, Theodore and Joe were back in the saddle in hopes of finding a buffalo. The evening of the second day they returned to Lang’s cabin, empty-handed as usual, but found Sylvane and Bill waiting. After dinner, Theodore and his two potential partners sat on a log outside Gregor’s cabin to discuss the proposal. Although both men were very willing to handle cattle for Theodore, they told him it would depend on getting out of their agreement with Wadsworth and Halley. Theodore understood and, to sweeten the deal, said that he would purchase the 150 cattle the two Minnesota men had stocked on the ranch, provided Sylvane and Bill would be released from their duties. Then the conversation turned to the financial logistics required to adequately stock a ranch. Sylvane felt that to do it properly, it would “spoil the looks of forty thousand dollars,” but a third of that amount would be enough to start off.15

  Theodore handed the two men a check for fourteen thousand dollars.

  Merrifield asked Theodore if he wanted a receipt. “Oh, that’s all right,” he replied. “If I didn’t trust you men, I wouldn’t go into business with you.” Instead, they shook hands. Both men were amazed. Sylvane later stated that the only security Theodore had for his money “was our honesty.”16

  Fourteen thousand dollars was a significant amount back then. Theodore’s state assemblyman salary garnered him only $1,200 a year, and he was just beginning to receive modest royalties from The Naval War of 1812 book.17 His expenses were certainly not minor, what with his building a huge home in Oyster Bay, a baby on the way, investing $20,000 as a partner in G. P. Putnam’s Sons (which had published his book), and $5,000 in a Wyoming cattle company. (The latter proved to be a failure.) Before his trip to the Badlands, he was seriously considering investing $5,000 in Gorringe’s project, until James Roosevelt—his uncle, and head of the Roosevelt and Sons bank—vetoed the idea. James, who oversaw Theodore’s finances, was of the opinion that the cattle industry was as risky an investment as a gold mine.18

  The following morning, September 19, Theodore put off his hunt, much to the relief of Joe Ferris, and spent the day drafting a contract with his new partners. It was decided that Sylvane and Bill would take the next train for Minnesota to see if they could be released from their contract. If they were freed, Theodore instructed them to purchase a few hundred additional head of cattle for the ranch.

  On September 20, as Sylvane and Bill left for the Little Missouri train station, Theodore and Joe resumed their hunt for the elusive shaggy beast. The weather was kind to them as they headed west of the Lang ranch, near the upper reaches of the Little Cannonball Creek, just over the Montana Territory line. Suddenly, their horses threw up their heads, sniffing the air with their muzzles pointing toward the head of a gully. Immediately the two men believed their mounts sensed buffalo nearby. (Horses and buffalo share a precarious relationship, at best.) Slipping quietly off their horses, Theodore and Joe snaked their way up the coulee for one hundred yards, where they found fresh tracks. Moments later, peering over a hillock, they found their prey. It was a male bull, no more than fifty yards away, feeding on the grass.

  “His glossy fall coat was in fine trim, and shone in the rays of the sun; while his pride of bearing showed him to be in the lusty vigor of his prime . . . he held up his head and cocked his tail in the air,” Theodore wrote of the moment in Hunting Trips of a Ranchman.19

  Ferris pointed out
a spot on the buffalo, just back of the animal’s shoulder, to focus on. If Theodore hit the animal there, Ferris noted, the young man would have his buffalo. The bullet hit the animal at the precise spot, yet the great bull bounded up the ridge and down the other side. Knowing that the shot was fatal, the two men trotted their horses over the ridge, where they found the elusive beast lying dead in a gully. Theodore jumped off his horse and, like a child opening his favorite gift on Christmas morning, did his version of an Indian dance around the fallen prize. He whooped, hollered, and yelled.

  Needless to say, this demonstration of joy left Joe a bit perplexed. “I never saw anyone so enthused in my life, and, by golly, I was enthused myself for more reason than one. I was plumb tired out, and, besides he was so eager to shoot his first buffalo that it got into my blood,” he later commented.20

  Ecstatic with his success, Theodore handed Joe a hundred-dollar bill as a way of expressing his thanks. Then the men settled down to the business of skinning the buffalo, removing its head, and taking some of the choice meat cuts. The following day, they returned with the wagon to take the head and skin back to Little Missouri to be mounted and sent home.

  “Hurrah!” Theodore boasted in a letter to Alice. “The luck has turned at last. I will bring you home the head of a great buffalo bull.” Interestingly, in this letter, he does not mention to Alice the potential deal to own a cattle ranch.21 Certainly Alice’s feelings during this time were mixed, to say the least; pregnant with their first child, her husband had left her with her parents to go on a hunting trip. Theodore realized that if he did not make his hunting trip in early September, it would have to be put off until well after the birth of his child. Going ahead with something his heart desired, despite other obligations, was an indicative trait Theodore displayed at other times. He sincerely loved and missed Alice, as his letters display, but the chance to live out a fantasy was too tempting for him to ignore. Could this trait be labeled childish? Of course—but then, people who knew the man well said he was the biggest child they ever knew. Theodore never lost the wonderment a child has for life and the various things that crossed his path. It was a trait that endeared him to many—and alienated others.