At the close of the 1884 Republican national convention in Chicago, Roosevelt once again set his sites on the West and his cattle ranch. This was the first time that Roosevelt had been alone for any extended period since the loss of his wife and mother. The time in the Bad Lands would give him a chance to sort out his emotions. Roosevelt also intended to use the serenity of his surroundings to begin work on a new book.

On June 22, 1884 Roosevelt was again on the Chimney Butte ranch where he had only the prior September written a check for $14,000 dollars to Bill Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris to start his cattle ranching endeavor. Now back in the Dakota Territory, Roosevelt intended to expand his operation. He had sent Merrifield and Ferris to St. Paul with $26,000 to purchase an additional thousand head of cattle. He would purchase an additional ranch to handle his expanding enterprise, this one being down river on the Little Missouri from Chimney Butte and named the Elkhorn. To manage this second ranch Roosevelt would turn to his two friends and backwoodsmen from Maine, Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow. Although neither of the men from Maine were experts with cattle, Roosevelt would challenge Sewall with these words written to him in a letter.

If you are afraid of hard work and privation do not come west. If you expect to make a fortune in a year or two, do not come west. If you will give up under temporary discouragements, do not come west. If on the other hand you are willing to work hard, especially the first year; if you realize that for a couple of years you can not expect to make much more than you are now making; and if you also know that at the end of that time you will be in the receipt of about a thousand dollars for the third year, with an unlimited rise ahead of you and a future as bright as you yourself choose to make it; them come.

As an incentive Roosevelt sent Sewall $3,000 dollars to pay off his mortgage in Maine so that he could come west. Roosevelt also took all of the risk upon himself should the venture fail. When Sewall and Dow arrived at the Elkhorn they began to build a new ranch house while living in the little shack that was previously on the land. Ferris and Merrifield owned the cabin on the Chimney Butte ranch, so Roosevelt decided to set up headquarters on the Elkhorn. He would need a place big enough to hold the three men, and shortly the wives of Sewall and Dow who would be joining them from Maine. Although Sewall and Dow may not have been experts on horseback, they certainly knew how to use an ax and set out at once to build the new house from the nearby cottonwoods. In his autobiography Roosevelt tells a story of when he went to help the two men from Maine with the construction of the cabin. Roosevelt considered himself fairly decent with an ax, for an amateur, but couldn't do one third the work of the other two. The story went as follows:

One day when we were cutting down the cottonwood trees, to begin our building operations, I heard some one ask Dow what the total cut had been, and Dow not realizing that I was within hearing, answered: "Well, Bill cut down fifty-three, I cut forty-nine, and the boss he beavered down seventeen." Those who have seen the stump of a tree which has been gnawed down by a beaver will understand the exact force of the comparison.

The completed structure would contain a bedroom for both the Sewalls and the Dows, a dining area, kitchen and both a bedroom and a study for Roosevelt. Roosevelt, fond of rocking chairs, also had a veranda built on the house to rock away slow afternoons with a good book. He also had a rubber bathtub brought in so that he could take a bath.

Cattle ranching at that time was all done on the open range. There were no fences and all of the cattle roamed free. The spring and the fall were times of big roundups when all of the men of the neighboring ranches would get together and brand the calves with the brand of its mother. Roosevelt carried his own weight on these roundups and won the respect of the real cowboys. At roundup time each man would bring nine ponies and meet at the pre-arranged place. The men would get up around three o'clock in the morning and eat and roll up their bedroll. The group then road out in a large circle to bring in the roaming cattle for branding. By noon the first session of the day was complete and the men would grab some food and a fresh horse and begin again. Each man would use two horses a day and then not use the same horse again for two days. Each man was required to keep a two-hour watch each night over the cattle, which had been rounded up during the day. Roosevelt thrived on this work, and gave an account of one such roundup where a severe storm struck and all of the men were forced up in the night to help the night herders. The cattle bolted and each man had to do his best to stop them and bring them back in. During this occasion Roosevelt spent nearly 40 straight hours in the saddle and went through five horses. On another occasion he spent 24 straight hours on horseback. It seemed the tougher the going, the more Teddy enjoyed it.

On these roundups among strangers, Roosevelt said that he would nearly always have to endure comments of the other men for a short period of time. In his autobiography he said, "When I went among strangers I always had to spend twenty-four hours in living down the fact that I wore spectacles, remaining as long as I could judiciously deaf to any side remarks about "four eyes," unless it became evident that my being quiet was misconstrued and that it was better to bring matters to a head at once." It wouldn't take him long to prove himself however and he commented, "By this time I would have been accepted as one of the rest of the outfit, and all strangeness would have passed off, the attitude of my fellow cow-punchers being one of friendly forgiveness even toward my spectacles." This respect gained from these cowboys would be crucial to his later national political endeavors as well as to the raising of the volunteers for the Rough Riders who fought so valiantly in the Spanish American War.

Although he tried to write while in the West, he became restless and quite possibly missed his daughter, Baby Alice. Thus, just before Christmas of 1884, Roosevelt headed East again to spend time writing at his sister Bamie's house. In nine weeks he had managed to write a hundred thousand words and completed Hunting Trips of a Ranchman by March 8, 1885. Once again the book was well received on both sides of the Ocean and, like his Naval War of 1812, this book also went through several editions. During his years in the west Roosevelt would generally continue the pattern of coming east during the long winter, only to head west again in time for the spring roundup.

By April 14, 1885, Roosevelt was again heading west. When he arrived the Little Missouri was swollen from the spring thaw and the only way across was to ride between the tracks of the railroad trestles. That is of course unless you are Theodore Roosevelt. He instead chose to take his horse, Manitou, across a submerged dam. Unfortunately halfway across the horse stumbled and both rider and horse disappeared into the freezing rushing water. When Roosevelt and the horse popped up, observers said that Roosevelt was seen swimming along in front of the horse pushing ice chunks out of the animal's way and splashing water in its face to guide it along. They reached shore just in time to keep from being washed a mile down stream. Roosevelt enjoyed the brutal experience so much that a few days later he again swam the river with his horse.

Roosevelt understood that the nature of the open range grazing of cattle in the west required that each rancher limit the number of cattle which he would attempt to raise based on what the land could support. For if the cattle became too numerous for the sparse grazing land to support them, it would mean certain disaster for all of the ranchers and not just for the one who had overstocked. With this understanding in mind and ever the politician, Roosevelt worked hard to organize a Little Missouri Stockman's Association.

Roosevelt became a man of the west, and as such also took on some of the ideas of the men of the west. In his book, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Roosevelt would make the following statements about the Indians and their rights to the western lands.

During the past century a good deal of sentimental nonsense has been talked about our taking the Indians' land. Now, I do not mean to say for a moment that gross wrong has not been done the Indians, both by government and individuals, again and again. The government makes promises impossible to perform, and then fails to do even what it might toward their fulfilment; and where brutal and reckless frontiersmen are brought into contact with a set of treacherous, revengeful, and fiendishly cruel savages a long series of outrages by both sides is sure to follow. But as regards taking the land, at least from the western Indians, the simple truth is that the latter never had any real ownership in it at all. Where the game was plenty, there they hunted; they followed it when it moved away to new hunting-grounds, unless they were prevented by stronger rivals; and to most of the land on which we found them they had no stronger claim than that of having a few years previously butchered the original occupants. When my cattle came to the Little Missouri the region was only inhabited by a score or so of white hunters; their title to it was quite as good as that of most Indian tribes to the lands they claim; yet nobody dreamed of saying that these hunters owned the country. Each could eventually have kept his own claim of 160 acres, and no more. The Indians should be treated in just the same way that we treat the white settlers. Give each his little claim; if, as would generally happen, he declined this, why then let him share the fate of the thousands of white hunters and trappers who have lived on the game that the settlement of the country has exterminated, and let him, like these whites, who will not work, perish from the face of the earth which he cumbers.

The doctrine seems merciless, and so it is; but it is just and rational for all that. It does not do to be merciful to a few, at the cost of justice to the many. The cattle-men at least keep herds and build houses on the land; yet I would not for a moment debar settlers from the right of entry to the cattle country, though their coming in means in the end the destruction of us and our industry.

Roosevelt would have his own run in with the Indians during an outing on which he was riding alone. As he was riding he noticed five Indians at a distance and when the saw him they whipped out their guns and began riding hard toward him. Roosevelt remained calm and dismounted his horse. As the Indians drew within 100 yards he raised his gun and drew a bead on the first Indian. The Indians immediately laid over the sides of their horses and changed directions heading away from him. One of the Indians then made a peace sign with his fist and again began to approach Roosevelt. Teddy halted him at some distance and asked him what he wanted. The Indian replied, "How! Me good Injun, me good Injun," and attempted to come closer. Roosevelt told him that he was glad that he was a good Indian but that he should come no closer. Then the Indian asked for sugar and tobacco and was told by Roosevelt that he had none. When another of the Indians began to approach Roosevelt demanded that he stop. When the Indian kept coming Roosevelt again raised his rifle and took aim. At that point the two once again laid low on their horses and headed the other way as Roosevelt said, "with oaths that did credit to at least one side of their acquaintance with English."

On another journey in the west Roosevelt would seek shelter at a small town. The only place, which afforded shelter, was a saloon. As Roosevelt approached the establishment he could hear shots being fired inside and a man cursing all sorts of oaths. He did not want to enter, but it was a cold evening and there was no place else to obtain shelter. When he entered the saloon the belligerent man was waving his pistols in the air, and there were already two holes in the face of the clock on the wall. The man saw Roosevelt and shouted that, "Four eyes is going to treat." Roosevelt tried to laugh it off and took a seat behind the stove. The man followed Roosevelt and became even more belligerent insisting that Roosevelt must set up the drinks. He stood over Roosevelt waving both pistols. Teddy then said, "Well, if I've got to, I've got to," and rose from his chair looking past the man. As Roosevelt recounted in his autobiography,

"As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head. It was not a case in which one could afford to take chances, and if he had moved I was about to drop on his ribs with my knees; but he was senseless. I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled him out and put him in a shed. I got dinner as soon as possible, sitting in a corner of the dining-room away from the windows, and then went upstairs to bed where it was dark so that there would be no chance of any one shooting at me from the outside. However, nothing happened. When my assailant came to, he went down to the station and left on a freight."

In Paul Boller's book Presidential Anecdotes he tells the following story which demonstrates Roosevelt's character. "One day, while TR was riding over the range with one of his ablest cowpunchers, they came upon a "maverick," a two-year-old steer which had never been branded. They lassoed him at once and built a fire to heat the branding-irons. It was the rule among cattlemen that a "maverick" belonged to the ranchman on whose range it was found. This particular steer therefore belonged to Gregor Lang, not to TR, for Lang claimed the land on which TR and his cowboy were riding. When the cowboy began to apply the red-hot iron, TR said, "It's Lang's brand - a thistle." "That's all right, boss," said the cowboy, "I know my business." "Hold on!" cried TR, "you're putting on my brand." "That's all right," said the cowboy. "I always put on the boss's brand." "Drop that iron," said TR quietly, "and go to the ranch and get your time. I don't need you any longer." The cowpuncher was amazed. "Say," he cried, "what have I done? Didn't I put on your brand?" "A man who will steal for me will steal from me," said TR; "you're fired." The man rode away. A day or so later the story was all over the Badlands." ¹

On the morning of March 24, 1886 Roosevelt rose to notice that his boat was missing. Up river not that far away were three renowned horse thieves who Roosevelt instantly suspected of taking the boat. The Little Missouri was so walled off by ice at that time that it would have been futile to pursue the thieves on horseback. Dow and Sewall set off at once to construct a new boat in which to pursue the thieves. It wasn't that the value of the boat was all that high, but there was that matter of principal and the code that you had to look out for yourself in the west. Not only that, but by virtue of the fact that Roosevelt was chairman of the Stockman's Association, he was a deputy sheriff of Billings County. On March 30 the three men were aboard the newly constructed boat and in chase of the thieves. Roosevelt took a camera to record the capture should they overtake the other men. The temperature quickly began to drop and by the second night had plummeted to zero. On April 1, they rounded a bend to see the other boat. When they landed their boat they could see a campfire in the distance and they at once crept up to it to find only one of the men in camp, his weapons being on the ground. They completely surprised him and he gave up at once, informing them that the other two were out hunting for food. When the other two returned, they were surprised as well. The half-breed named Burnsted gave up at once, but the more dangerous Finnegan hesitated. Roosevelt immediately approached him with cocked rifle aimed right at the center of his chest. Realizing he had no chance he also gave up. The problem now existed as to what to do with the three men. Most men of the west would have hanged them on the spot, but Roosevelt wanted to take them in. The problem was that in the extreme cold he could not tie their hands because they would freeze. It was decided that they would continue down river, fighting through the ice jams. On April 7, Roosevelt came to a cow camp in which he got some food, and borrowed a horse which he rode fifteen miles to hire a prairer schooner and two horses. The rancher agreed to drive the two men to Dickenson, some forty-five miles south. Roosevelt, not trusting the rancher, elected to walk behind the wagon so as to keep an eye on them with his Winchester. Up to that point in the trip he was able to spend only a half a night every other night on watch of the prisoners. But at this point, Sewall and Dow headed back, while Roosevelt would continue on the trip and he would thus have to maintain the watch by himself. He walked the distance through ankle deep mud. When they stopped for some sleep at a cabin along the way Roosevelt was forced to remain awake to keep guard. When they finally reached Dickenson, Roosevelt had been awake for 36 hours. As deputy sheriff he received fifty dollars for making the arrest and for traveling expenses over the three hundred miles.

By the last weeks of September 1886, Sewall and Dow had decided they were going to get out of the contract with Roosevelt. When they had tried to deliver the beef to slaughter the best price they could get was still ten dollars less than what it cost to raise it. The two men could not throw away Roosevelt's money and suggested that he get out of the business before he lost any more. Roosevelt had come to the same conclusion, and would get as much as possible back from his $85,000 dollar investment. By October of that year, he was back east, but in his autobiography he would later comment, "I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days. It was a fine, healthy life, too; it taught a man self-reliance, hardihood, and the value of instant decision-in short, the virtues that ought to come from life in the open country. I enjoyed the life to the full."