They quickly found, he says, in his "Autobiography", that he was
"a foreordained and predestined victim" for their rough teasing,
and they "industriously proceeded to make life miserable" for
their fellow traveler. At last young Roosevelt could endure their
persecutions no loner, and tried to fight. Great was his
discomfiture when he discovered that either of them alone could
handle him "with easy contempt." They hurt him little, but, what
was doubtless far more humiliating, they prevented him from doing
any damage whatever in return.

The experience taught the boy, better than any good advice could
have done, that he must learn to defend himself. Since he had
little natural prowess, he realized that he must supply its place
by training. He secured his father's approval for a course of
boxing lessons, upon which he entered at once. He has described
himself as a "painfully slow and awkward pupil," who worked for
two or three years before he made any perceptible progress.

In college Roosevelt kept at boxing practice. Even in those days
no antagonist, no matter how much his superior, ever made him
"quit." In his ranching days, that training with his fists stood
him in good stead. Those were still primitive days out in the
Dakotas, though now, as Roosevelt has said, that land of the West
has "'gone, gone with the lost Atlantis,' gone to the isle of
ghosts and of strange dead memories." A man needed to be able to
take care of himself in that Wild West then. Roosevelt had many
stirring experiences but only one that he called "serious
trouble."

He was out after lost horses and came to a primitive little