There was much horse-stealing and cattle-killing in this part of the country while Roosevelt was a resident of it. Under the direction of the big cattle-owners, vigilantes were organized to rid the territory of the “rustlers”--the cowboys’ name for horse and cattle-thieves.
Roosevelt admitted the need of these stringent methods, but his own way of fighting lawlessness was to accept the office of deputy sheriff for his locality.
It was while filling this office that Roosevelt first made the acquaintance of Seth Bullock, who later became one of his warmest friends and greatest admirers, and who served as marshal of South Dakota under Roosevelt when the latter became President.
Roosevelt first met Seth when the latter was sheriff in the Black Hills district. A horse-thief Seth wanted escaped into Roosevelt’s territory and was captured by him, a matter that led Seth to give some attention to the young cub of a deputy two or three hundred miles north of him.
Later, Bill Jones, Ferris and Roosevelt went down to Deadwood on business. At the little town of Spearfish they met Seth. The trip had been a hard one, and the three travelers were dusty and unkempt. Seth’s reception of them at first was decidedly stand-offish, but when their identity became known he unbent. “You see,” he explained to the future President, “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!”
Roosevelt’s reputation as an upholder of the law was further enhanced by his arrest of the three desperadoes from whom his neighborhood had suffered. The vigilantes had almost cleared the country of scoundrels, but there remained three men who had long been suspected of cattle-killing and horse-stealing. One was a half-breed, another was an old German of the shiftless type, while the leader was a strapping fellow named Finnigan, with a crop of red hair reaching to his shoulders. These men, finding the neighborhood becoming too hot for them, were anxious to quit that section of the country. Roosevelt possessed a clinker-built boat that had been used to ferry his men across the river.
One day one of the men brought back to the house news that the boat had been stolen. The end of the rope had been cut off with a sharp knife. Near the stream lay a red woolen mitten with a leather palm. These three desperadoes were at once suspected. Undoubtedly they knew that to travel on horseback in the direction they wanted to go was almost impossible and that the river offered them the best avenue of escape. They must also have reasoned that by taking Roosevelt’s boat they would possess the only one on the river and that, therefore, they could not be pursued.