was. Having given ample proof to the frontiersmen that he had no
fear, he resolutely kept the peace with them, and they had no
desire to break peace with him. Bluster and swagger were foreign
to his nature, and he loathed a bully as much as a coward. If we
had not already had the record of his. three years in the
Legislature, in which he surprised his friends by his wonderful
talent for mixing with all sorts of persons, we might marvel at
his ability to meet the cowboys and ranchmen, and even the
desperadoes, of the Little Missouri on equal terms, to win the
respect of all of them, and the lifelong devotion of a few. They
knew that the usual tenderfoot, however much he might wish to
fraternize, was fended from them by his past, his traditions, his
civilized life, his instincts; but in Roosevelt's case, there was
no gulf, no barrier.

Even after he became President of the United States, I can no
more imagine that he felt embarrassment in meeting any one, high
or low, than that he scrutinized the coat on a man's back in
order to know how to treat him.

To have gained solid health, to have gained mastery of himself,
and to have put his social nature to the severest test and found
it flawless, were valid results of his life on the Elkhorn Ranch.
It imparted to him also a knowledge which was to prove most
precious to him in the unforeseen future. For it taught him the
immense diversity of the people, and consequently of the
interests, of the United States. It gave him a national point of
view, in which he perceived that the standards and desires of the
Atlantic States were not all-inclusive or final. Yet while it
impressed on him the importance of geographical considerations,