They reckoned without Roosevelt’s fighting spirit, however. With the aid of two of his cowboys, Sewall and Dow, who, coming from Maine woods, were therefore skilled in woodcraft and in the use of the ax, paddle and rifle, they turned out in two or three days a first-class flat-bottomed scow. This was loaded with supplies, and early one morning Roosevelt, Sewall and Dow started down the river in chase of the thieves. On the third day of their pursuit, as they came around a bend, they saw the lost boat moored against a bank. Some yards from the shore a campfire smoke arose. The pursuers shoved their scow into the bank and approached the camp. They found the German sitting by the campfire with his weapons on the ground. His two companions were off hunting. When the two thieves returned they walked into three cocked rifles. Roosevelt shouted to them to hold up their hands. The half-breed obeyed at once. Finnigan hesitated, but as Roosevelt walked a few paces toward him, covering his chest with his rifle, the man, with an oath, let his own rifle drop and threw his hands high above his head.
Then came the hardest and most irksome part of the task--getting the prisoners safely to jail. After many monotonous days and nights, in which it was necessary to keep a close guard on the prisoners and at the same time navigate the river, they came to a cow camp. There Roosevelt learned that at a ranch fifteen miles off he could hire a large prairie schooner and two tough broncos for the transportation of his prisoners to Dickinson, the nearest town. This was done. Sewall and Dow went back to the boats. Roosevelt put the prisoners in the wagon along with an old settler, who drove the horses while he walked behind, ankle-deep in mud, with his Winchester over his shoulder. After thirty-six hours of sleeplessness the wagon jolted into the main street of Dickinson, where Roosevelt delivered his prisoners into the hands of the sheriff, and received, under the laws of Dakota, his fees as a deputy sheriff, amounting to some fifty dollars.
Hunting lost broncos was one of the commonest and most irksome of Roosevelt’s ranch duties. On one occasion, when three horses under his charge had been running loose for a couple of months and had become as wild as deer through their stolen liberty, he had to follow at full speed for fifteen miles, until by exhausting them, he was able to get them under control and headed toward a corral.