Wil Dow ran along the rim of the escarpment with Pierce Bolan. A mile south of their starting place they dropped down into the notch of a coulee where there were cow pies that appeared to be reasonably fresh.

Over the western horizon appeared the slanted grey shadow-streaks of falling rain: an isolated squall moving away north. Otherwise the sky was bright and deep. The glare of sun on the malpais beat against Wil’s eyes. Red clay caps on the occasional formation were evidence of lignite fires that had fused the clay.

They worked their way down, switchbacking when the pitch turned steep; they skirted sharp cuts and gullies, picked up a few scattered cattle and made their way into the treacherous windings of the eroded bottoms.

The earth was dense with heat down here. They picked up another dozen head in a black tangled mass of trees, waved their hats and whooped and drove the little herd on.

Pierce Bolan said, “Been west before?”

“No. My first summer,” Wil said. “You been here long?”

“Few years. Came north to build the railroad. Ten spikes the rail, four hundred rails the mile—thirsty work. Built up a stake, bought a little seed herd, got myself a cabin on Wannigan Creek. It’ll work out now. I had hard luck in Texas the last two times I tried. Lost one herd to Comanches and the other outfit to drought. But I can feel it’s going to be different here. Thinking about sending east for a mail-order bride next year. You got a girl?”

“I have.”

“Now you’re a lucky man. Fixin’ to bring her out here?”

“Expect I will marry her and bring her out here if this turns out to be permanent.”

“Why shouldn’t it?”

“My uncle thinks the cattle business will go bust soon as there’s a hard winter or a drought.”

“Your uncle don’t know much, then. The Little Missouri ain’t never dried up, and there’s plenty shelter in the Bad Lands no matter how hard the winter. Finest place on earth to be in the cattle business.” Pierce Bolan was young and heavy-chested. He had freckles and yellow hair that hung long enough to be bleached lighter at the tips where the sun had reached it, and wrinkles of easy laughter around his eyes. A likeable man.

Bolan said, “Tell me about little Four Eyes, then. What’s he think he’s doin’ out here?”

“Why, same as you, Pierce. Running a cattle outfit.”

“I seen him coughing and throwing up half the night. I hear he’s rich. If he’s so sick why ain’t he back East in some big mansion lying on a davenport and being waited on by sixteen nurses?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

Wil took dinner off the chuck wagon at ten in the morning and was back on his horse by ten-fifteen. Drovers kept coming in for the next two hours with cattle.

The second half of the day consisted of identifying and sorting cattle—separating them by age, gender and ownership—and of wrestling and marking and castrating the unbranded calves and yearlings. Cutting such beasts out of the herd was no easy task. “Tell you something about these critters of the bovine species,” said Pierce Bolan. “Cattle are like buffalo. Gregarious. Hard to separate them, for branding or anything else.”

Round-up to Wil Dow was a wondrous kaleidoscope of impressions. First it was a matter of prodding each animal out to the rim of the herd and then chasing it away. The calves had an especial talent for veering back into the herd; it wasn’t unusual for three or four horsemen to be thundering about with a great deal of commotion and sinuous galloping convolutions—all in pursuit of one hapless half-grown calf that wanted nothing more than to rejoin its bawling mother.

“Look at old Four Eyes go!”

It was Pierce Bolan’s shout; it snapped Wil Dow’s head around. He saw Mr. Roosevelt dashing across the edge of the herd at a dead run in pursuit of a comically recalcitrant calf. A cowboy—one of Huidekoper’s men—loped toward them to intercept the calf; Roosevelt skidded his horse to one side, the calf bolted past the Huidekoper hand, and Roosevelt shouted at the man:

“Hasten forward quickly there!”

There was a sudden silence, as if pails of cold water had been thrown over every man in earshot.

The cow hand spun his lass rope expertly, dropped its billowing noose over the calf’s neck and pulled it tight.

Someone giggled.

The calf ran out to the limit of the riata, came up against taut rope and flipped over on its back.

The giggle provoked someone else’s bark of laughter.

Chastised, the calf lurched to its feet and came obediently along on its rope-leash behind the cow hand, who rode away with his head slowly turning while he kept his dumfounded stare on Roosevelt.

Half a dozen men were laughing now—at Mr. Roosevelt.

Pierce Bolan came riding past Wil Dow. He said, “Hasten forward quickly there,” and erupted in an outburst of laughter so ferocious it nearly unhorsed him.

There was a standing-wave pattern of chaos as cowboys ran from one bunch to the next, passing the word. A half hour later, far away at the most distant edge of the herd Wil Dow saw a tiny horseman throw his arms in the air; he could nearly hear the man’s explosion of laughter.

Roosevelt took it all in good spirit, smiling a bit sheepishly, joining halfheartedly in the laughter until one cow puncher came out of the herd prodding a maverick heifer. “This one’s up for grabs.” He spied Roosevelt riding by. “Hey Teddy. Hasten forward quickly there!”

Roosevelt wheeled his horse. There was no smile. “I expect to be called Mr. Roosevelt.”

The cow puncher was ready to retort but something—perhaps the set of Roosevelt’s shoulders or the glint behind the glasses—changed his mind. Wil saw him swallow. “Yes sir.”

With relentless inevitability the truant calves were driven to join the rest of the cut, and once the cut had itself become a herd the job was easier, for the animals quit trying to escape.

Wil Dow heard Uncle Bill Sewall say to Pierce Bolan, “When he was little they called him ‘Teedy’ and his late wife took to calling him that. She called him ‘Teedy’ until she died. Since then he hasn’t allowed it. Doesn’t want anybody calling him that name—reminds him of Alice Lee, I expect. He hates the nickname now. You want to start a fight with him, just call him ‘Teddy.’”

“Hell, why would I want to start a fight with a sick little dude like that?”

Fires were kindled and irons brought out, unbranded beasts of all ages were lassoed with leather riatas and dragged forward one at a time, and from the branded and cauterized calves came a pitiful blatting.

Toward evening came the tallying and gathering. Yet another new herd was formed: these were the cattle destined for market—each beef identified by brand and written down as a slash-mark on its owner’s page in the wagon-boss’s tally book. This herd, Pierce Bolan told him, would grow daily and would need constant fresh graze.

The rest of the cattle were turned loose and chased back into the country that had already been swept, so that they wouldn’t be rounded up a second time.

It was near dark when the riders found their way to the Huidekoper wagon. They exercised their teeth on stringy freshkilled beef.

Bill Sewall said, “I’m awful tired.”

“Don’t be peevish, Uncle Bill.”

Johnny Goodall came by, making his rounds. He was riding a buckskin mare with three white stockings. He observed the determination with which Roosevelt’s jaws worked on a mouthful. “Afraid this isn’t exactly your Delmonico restaurant.”

“It tastes jolly good to me.”

“I swear I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

“Looking after my interests, old fellow.”

“Go on home, Mr. Roosevelt. There’s men here who can do that a lot better than you can.”

“I shan’t know that until I’ve tried. And I shan’t learn much if I don’t try.”

“You’re too rich for round-up camp, Mr. Roosevelt. Don’t you see that?”