a man he had wanted--a horse thief--I finally got, I being at the time
deputy sheriff two or three hundred miles to the north. The man went by
a nickname which I will call "Crazy Steve"; a year or two afterwards
I received a letter asking about him from his uncle, a thoroughly
respectable man in a Western State; and later this uncle and I met at
Washington when I was President and he a United States Senator. It
was some time after "Steve's" capture that I went down to Deadwood on
business, Sylvane Ferris and I on horseback, while Bill Jones drove the
wagon. At a little town, Spearfish, I think, after crossing the last
eighty or ninety miles of gumbo prairies, we met Seth Bullock. We had
had rather a rough trip, and had lain out for a fortnight, so I suppose
we looked somewhat unkempt. Seth received us with rather distant
courtesy at first, but unbent when he found out who we were, remarking,
"You see, by your looks I thought you were some kind of a tin-horn
gambling outfit, and that I might have to keep an eye on you!" He then
inquired after the capture of "Steve"--with a little of the air of
one sportsman when another has shot a quail that either might have
claimed--"My bird, I believe?" Later Seth Bullock became, and has ever
since remained, one of my stanchest and most valued friends. He served
as Marshal for South Dakota under me as President. When, after the close
of my term, I went to Africa, on getting back to Europe I cabled Seth
Bullock to bring over Mrs. Bullock and meet me in London, which he did;
by that time I felt that I just had to meet my own people, who spoke my
neighborhood dialect.

When serving as deputy sheriff I was impressed with the advantage the
officer of the law has over ordinary wrong-doers, provided he thoroughly
knows his own mind. There are exceptional outlaws, men with a price on
their heads and of remarkable prowess, who are utterly indifferent to
taking life, and whose warfare against society is as open as that of a