“Ten years ago,” Huidekoper commenced, with a familiar sense of enjoyment in exposition, “the Supreme Court upheld a Spanish land grant claim by one Thomas Valentine, who said he was the rightful owner of a good part of the state of California under the terms of an old grant that survived the changes from Spanish to Mexican to American government.”

“I don’t recall the case.”

“You’d have been thirteen or fourteen. In any event—hundreds of people were settled on the lands that Thomas Valentine claimed, and rather than displace them the Supreme Court ordered the general land office to compensate Valentine by giving him an equivalent number of acres of unappropriated public lands.”

“A fair settlement, if his claims were valid.”

“Quite. But he wasn’t given title to any specific ground. The land office issued scrip to Valentine, rather like blank deeds to unspecified sections of land, and he promptly turned around and sold it in dozens of transactions. He made a huge profit.”

“Enterprising fellow.”

“I dare say.” Huidekoper couldn’t help smiling a bit, anticipating his companion’s reaction; he had prepared the ground thoroughly, he thought, and now was the time to sink the spade:

“Five of the allotments of Valentine Scrip were bought by Baron Nicholas Von Hoffman of New York City, whom you know. His son-in-law is the Marquis de Morès.”

“Yes …”

“De Morès had already bought fourteen sections along the right-of-way from the Northern Pacific Railroad—for his cattle pens and feeding lots and the plat where he built the town of Medora. That’s fair enough. But then he acquired the Valentine Scrip from his father-in-law. And here is the curious fact. The Valentine Scrip in De Morès’s possession entitles him to file claim to just two hundred and twenty acres—but he’s been stringing fences for miles up and down the river.”

“I saw one of them today,” Roosevelt said, with what appeared to be a spark of regard.

Huidekoper said, “He’s claiming thousands of acres of bottom land as his private range—and waving pieces of scrip in the faces of any men who object.”

Roosevelt scowled. “Is he claiming the land where my Maltese Cross stock are grazed?”

“At Chimney Butte? No.” Huidekoper let the silence hang long enough for maximum effectiveness: “Not yet.”

He watched Roosevelt react to that; then he said, “He’s been limiting his eviction attempts to the little hardscrabble fellows. For the moment. But he’ll swallow every inch of ground in these Bad Lands if he’s not stopped. I’m convinced of it.”

“Do the other ranchmen agree with you?”

“Not many. They don’t see what I see. They believe De Morès is a gentleman, and they believe gentlemen don’t steal from other gentlemen. They’re flattered to be invited to dine with him. They push one another aside to gain favor with him. Half the grown-up men in the county would give a month’s income for the privilege of an invitation to join the Marquis on one of his luxurious hunting expeditions. Some of the best men in the district—men I’d have thought wiser—have been investing hard cash in his pipedream schemes.” Huidekoper allowed a quick small smile to break across his face. “One is encouraged to recall George Washington’s dictum—‘Beware of foreign entanglements.’”

“De Morès’s operations are prosperous, from what I’ve read.”

“He’s got the ear of the press,” Huidekoper said dryly. “Some of us don’t believe everything we read. The newspaper publisher here, Arthur Packard, very pleasant young man but I’m afraid the Marquis seems to have thrown something of a spell over him.”

Roosevelt folded his arms, unfolded them and shifted his stance; Huidkoper observed with alarm that clearly, after all, he’d prefer to be somewhere else. “Look here. If the man is claiming land falsely, as you say he is, then surely you should take up the matter with the government authorities.”

“We’d like to do just that, you see, but there’s a difficulty.”

“Why?”

“When you leave the United States and come out into the wilderness you soon come to an understanding that there may be changes in the rules. Take for example Billings County. It’s a fiction—it exists solely on paper. There are no commissioners. No county government. For administrative purposes we’re attached to Stark County and there’s a Justice of the Peace at Dickinson—forty miles east; you came through it on the train—but the nearest sheriff is at Mandan, one hundred and fifty miles away. We’re on our own out here.”

“Then why not organize Billings County with your own government and sheriff?”

“And call it what? De Morès County? That’s how it would resolve. De Morès employs—I don’t know, perhaps two-thirds of the men in the county who are of voting age and might be inclined to come out of their hiding holes long enough to cast a ballot. And anyway—” Huidekoper endeavored not to appear too sly “—the stock-growers have expressed a certain resistance to the notion. If the county were organized they might have to pay taxes.”

“By federal law they have to pay taxes anyway, to the nearest county seat.”

Huidekoper said, “Yes, that’s the law. But consider, if you will, the picture of a tax collector based right here in Medora as opposed to one based one hundred and fifty miles away in Mandan, who hasn’t a hope in Hades of keeping track of the movements of cattle out here on the Little Missouri. If I may be boldly candid, the last time the assessor appeared—last fall—word preceded his arrival by several weeks, and at the time of the assessments most of the herds somehow managed to have wandered over into Montana until the assessor’s departure….”

They had achieved the rump of the low hill behind Eaton’s ranch house; they strolled in the lee of a looming face of rock. The sky was fading through pinks and lavenders. Roosevelt stopped, turned a slow circle on his heels and faced Huidekoper. The force of Roosevelt’s eyes, magnified by the dusty glass of his spectacles, was enough to discomfit Huidekoper.

Roosevelt said, “You can’t have your cake and eat it. You must either accept the rule of law or choose to get along without it and suffer the consequences.”

“Perhaps. A few of us feel there may be a third alternative. There’s been some talk of forming—within the proposed Stockmen’s Association—a committee of safety.”

Roosevelt blinked rapidly. “Vigilantes? To what purpose? The lynching of the Marquis De Morès?”

“Hardly that.” Feeling the rise of Roosevelt’s anger, Huidekoper sought to deflect it. He thrust a finger toward an inscription scratched in the rock above them. “Hard to read in the twilight, but they carved their names just eight years ago. W.C. Williams, Company H … F. Healy, Company M. Two soldiers in Custer’s command.”

Roosevelt peered up at the carvings. “In actual fact Williams and Healy were not with Custer’s column at the Little Big Horn. They’re still alive.”

“Where on earth did you learn that?”

“Eaton showed me this rock last year. It made me curious, and I sent a letter of inquiry to Washington.”

“That’s precisely the sort of initiative we need here, to get us organized. No one listens to me—I’m just the windbag from Pennsylvania. You’ve earned fame and respect. They’ll listen to you.”

“I didn’t come out here for politics,” Roosevelt said; he flung his anguished face toward the sky and confided, “I’ve reached the ebb of my life, old fellow.”

“Perhaps you need a challenge then.”

A faint wind ran in from the direction of the gentle deepening twilight. The swift darkness dropped sharply, like the deliberate extinction of a lamp. The moon was up, just barely; its light laid a pewter band along the crest.

Roosevelt said: “A challenge? No. I need solitude. Privacy. I’ll make a life somewhere in these hills—on my own, by myself. I’m sorry, Huidekoper, but I want no part of your damned vigilantes.”