Pack said in a low voice, “He has never broken his word to me.”

“May be the occasion didn’t come up. Good Jesus, the Stranglers have killed more than sixty men. Sixty men, Pack.”

“No one’s laid that at the Marquis’s doorstep. God knows you’ve tried, but there’s no shred of evidence. He has told me, confidentially, that he doesn’t know any of the Stranglers by name or by sight.”

“He doesn’t need to know their names to be their paymaster. He’s the boss, Pack. Without him there’d be no Stranglers.”

Pack walked back and forth with his hands rammed deep in his pockets. Head down, not looking at his friend, he said, “Huidekoper and the others saw what a man of imagination and vision could do in this wilderness, and they hate him for having shown them up. They try to blame him for everything that happens. Sour grapes.”

“He’s a foul-tempered childish fool. He killed Luffsey—I don’t care what the trial says—and he’ll murder Theodore Roosevelt however he can. If this duel takes place it’ll mean Roosevelt’s life. He’s toughened up and he’s got grit enough for ten, I guess, but be that as it may, I’ve spent plenty days hunting with the man and I can testify, you put a rifle in Roosevelt’s hands and two times out of three he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from inside the barn.”

An enormous weariness dragged Pack down into the chair. His eyelids drooped. “The death of Theodore Roosevelt might not be a significant loss to the world, Joe. The death of the Marquis De Morès, on the other hand—”

“That’s an unforgivable thing to say. God help you.”

Pack blinked. He felt listless.

Joe said, “He won’t ever be king of France, I agree. But he’s a better man by a country mile than the Markee. Remember how he handled the Lunatic? He cared, even about that poor useless creature. He has got no vindictiveness. None.”

When Pack made no reply, Joe murmured, “What’s eating at you?”

“Now, I am a newspaperman. My duty is to be objective—to see the truth as it is, and not as you would have it be.”

Joe went to the door. “Hell, Pack, you wouldn’t know the truth if it shot you between the eyes.” He went out. The door closed not with an angry slam but with a quiet reproachful click.

Twenty-one

Wil Dow was happy Mr. Roosevelt and Uncle Bill had come home safely; at last he could dismiss the useless hired man and get some sleep instead of leaping awake at odd intervals to keen the night for creeping Stranglers.

So he welcomed them home with unfeigned enthusiasm. But coming home did not brighten Uncle Bill Sewall’s outlook. He put a bleak half-lidded stare upon the tortured waste of ice-rimmed thorns and vulture-picked bones and pronounced it harrowing and merciless.

“Uncle, doesn’t it give you a lift to come home?”

“Home? This ain’t my home. Anyhow we have got bigger things to worry on. They turned the Marquis loose—and now he aims to kill the boss.”

Then Sewall told Wil of the impending duel between Mr. Roosevelt and the Marquis De Morès. The Marquis was in the East attending to urgent business matters that were overdue but he would be back in Medora by the arrival of the new year and would place himself at Mr. Roosevelt’s disposal upon the road below the railroad bridge on the fifteenth of January at 3 P.M.

“He chose that hour for a reason. You watch,” said Uncle Bill to Roosevelt. “He’ll be west of you, facing east, and you’ll have the sun in your eyes.”

“Perhaps it will be a cloudy day,” said Mr. Roosevelt without heat.

Wil said, “I’d be proud to go in your place, sir.”

“Thank you, Wil. It won’t be necessary. Now please tell me—are the Stranglers still about?”

“I’m not pleased to report it but they are.” Four days ago, Wil told them, four travelers had found a lifeless body swinging from the limb of a cottonwood not six miles from the Elkhorn house, and nearby—probably not dropped accidentally—they had found a torn scrap of paper bearing the names of eighteen or twenty men. They had come by: strangers who claimed they were not Stranglers, and while Wil held his cocked three-barrel gun ready they had shown him the list and he had found fifteen of the names legible. In the past several days since word got out that the list had been found, at least a dozen men seemed to have scattered and disappeared in a great hurry.

Mr. Roosevelt inquired, “Was any of our names on the list?”

“No sir. I believe I would have mentioned that.”

“That’s the first good news I have heard in a month,” growled Uncle Bill.

“Dutch Reuter’s name was on the list. So were Finnegan and O’Donnell.”

Uncle Bill said, “Then the Stranglers are out to avenge the honor of De Morès. Any idea where Dutch went?”

“Haven’t see him,” Wil said. “Haven’t heard a thing.”

“God help him. It was a brave thing he did, testifying in court.”

Mr. Roosevelt said, “It was his duty.”

Wil coaxed higher flames from the fireplace logs and went to peer through the frost-grimed windowpane. A dozen scrawny cattle stood huddled against the windbreak of the cotton woods, pawing and gnawing at the earth. A steer lurched into the yard, lame on swollen frozen feet. Several bulls had lain down to die. There was nothing to be done about it.

They hadn’t been to town for mail or supplies in more than two weeks. One morning the thermometer showed 25 degrees below zero. It was the coldest winter Wil Dow had experienced. After tossing feed to the stock in the barns he hurried inside, beating his gloved numbed hands together, in time to hear Sewall say, “Not likely any of us be suffering from the heat for a while.”

There were two deer hanging from the piazza roof. It was Uncle Bill’s idea to keep two or three carcasses ahead, so as to be provisioned for blizzards. As it turned out, not much hunting was required, as the deer had come down off the slopes into the shelter of the bottomland trees—it was a simple matter for two men to beat the bushes while the third waited for the animals to come out.

In the evening a current of frigid air rolled down the coulees. Treetops were tossing in the wind. Sewall said, “A real snorter tonight.” Breath steamed from his mouth. He hung his saddle on its rail in the barn and batted his gloved hands together and glared at Wil Dow. “Look at me—a cow puncher! What’s dignified in that? I am about ready to go home. I always said I should never live here longer than I was obliged. Right from the start I saw a good many drawbacks to this country. Just as soon as I get enough money you will see me go back to Island Falls, the quicker the better.”

“Well, Uncle Bill, it costs like fury to get a train ticket.”

They walked up to the house. Wil bent to peer at the Fahrenheit thermometer on the piazza. It was 32 degrees below zero.

Mr. Roosevelt came up from the stable. He tore the gold-rimmed spectacles from his face. They brought bits of skin with them. Bundled in skins you could get along all right with your back to the wind but there was no comfort if you had to face it. Still, the boss seemed to delight in the hardships and dangers and even the pain of it.

The water bucket was frozen solid, top to bottom. A hard wind shook the house and howled through the bare trees. Roosevelt was suffering from asthma and cholera morbus, and writing in his biography of Thomas Hart Benton.

Wil said, “At least it can’t get any worse. It can only get easier after this.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” said Uncle Bill.

He was right. It became the most ferocious winter in Dakota history. In the snow-clad iron desolation the white river stood solid and motionless as granite. A rubble of shattered icebergs heaped itself nearly to the piazza of the house. They endured blizzard upon blizzard. Footing became ever more treacherous. The coulees filled almost level. The snow melted, froze, melted and froze again, higher and higher until the slick hard drifts were impassable.