Deputy Sheriff and helped clear the place of horse-thieves and
"bad men."

In one of his adventures Roosevelt showed that he had taken to
heart the celebrated advice which, in Hamlet, Polonius gives to
his son:

Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.


Mulvaney, in one of Kipling's stories, proved that he knew
something about Shakespeare, for he put this advice into his own
language so as to express the meaning perfectly:

"Don't fight wid ivry scutt for the pure joy av fightin', but if
you do, knock the nose av him first an' frequint."

Roosevelt tried to keep out of the fight,--but this is the way it
happened. He was out after lost horses, and had to put up at a
little hotel where there were no rooms downstairs, but a bar, a
dining-room and a kitchen. It was late at night, and there was
trouble on, for he heard one or two shots in the bar as he came
up. He disliked the idea of going in, but it was cold outside and
there was nowhere else to go. Inside the bar, a cheap "bad man"
was walking up and down with a cocked revolver in each hand. He
had been shooting at the clock, and making every one unhappy and
uncomfortable.