America’s divine predestination is being achieved in Billings County. The Marquis De Morès, that brave soldier in the army of Manifest Destiny, once again emblazons history with his deeds of Vision and Progress.
The Marquis De Morès is already famed for bringing modernity to the beef industry. His score of highly trained butchers dress cattle in a spanking new abattoir on the range beside the railroad, thus eliminating the cost of shipping live animals to the East. One might have thought it should have been obvious to any fool that three fifths of the weight of a live steer is inedible, and therefore the man who ships live cattle pays more than twice as much for transportation as he need do, but evidently this brilliant stroke has never occurred to Mr Armour, Mr Swift or any other of the Eastern packers.
Blocks of ice, chopped and harvested from northern rivers throughout the winter, are stored in insulated relay ice-houses every 200 miles between Medora and New York. M De Morès’s Northern Pacific Refigerator Car Company has built cold-storage facilities in Helena, Billings, Miles City, Medora, Bismarck, Fargo, Brainerd, Duluth, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago.
He has half the transport cost and none of the middleman cost of the meat-packers of the Chicago Trust, and we predict with confidence that this means nothing less than a Revolution in the meat industry.
The NPRCC has recently increased its capital stock from $200,000 to $1 million. When the range is fully stocked and the abattoir operating at full capacity, it is anticipated the Medora industry will provide the fattening, slaughtering and marketing of at least 40,000 beeves yearly, thus dashing the strangle-hold of the Eastern monopolies. We anticipate the De Morès triumph will create a considerable drop in prices for the consumer and, in turn, encourage a sharp increase in the demand for beef.
And now upon this auspicious date the Cow Boy is pleased to report the arrival of the first domestic sheep in Medora town, thanks to the foresight and genius of the community’s leading citizen.
In sum and in short, the Marquis De Morès has become a stirring symbol of the ethos of Prosperity and Progress on the Frontier.
He read it back with satisfaction. That would most certainly take the wind right out of the sails of Finnegan and the ignorant ruffians.
It remained to put The Bad Lands Cowboy to bed. He set his type with the speed of long practice: son and apprentice of a newspaper man. Pack—publisher, reporter, editor, make-up man, press man, printer’s devil—made up the forms and slapped them on the bed of the Washington hand press and jammed the type-bars in place and thrust the first sheet of wet-down paper on the tympan points and unhooked the swinging frisket and brought it down to protect the margins of the paper and distributed ink on the composition roller and slid the bed under the platen and slid it back again, his deadline determined by the schedule of the morning train. Eyes on the clock, oblivious to the familiar rumble of the press, he heaved the lever fore and back, freeing sheets of sticky printpaper, straightening the new stack for back-side printing, needing six arms and possessing but two.
When he looked up he saw Riley Luffsey’s face pressed to the window. Pack reared back in alarm. But the kid only smiled, in an odd shy way. Pack beckoned, inviting him in. Luffsey came hesitantly to the door and nearly stepped inside. But then he looked behind him, saw something that changed his mind, and hurried away with swagger restored.
Pack was returning from the train with empty wheelbarrow and type iron when he saw two horsemen converging toward the abattoir. Recognizing them, Pack dropped the iron into the wheelbarrow, left them at the edge of the street and hurried toward the abattoir. For the two riders were De Morès and Theodore Roosevelt.
The smell grew worse as Pack ran toward the smashing racket of boilers, vats, crashing mechanical pumps.
Amid the metal-roofed factory buildings the two riders approached each other like challengers in a joust. They stopped; neither dismounted; the horses, made uneasy by the noise and stink, pranced around each other in a short-fused minuet. Through it all the Marquis sat his horse like a centaur—a noble figure in sombrero, wild yellow shirt and flaming red neckerchief. His golden skin seemed to glow. When he greeted the diminutive New Yorker, De Morès slapped the heavy lead-filled bamboo stick against the palm of his hand.
Roosevelt wore butternut trousers and a flannel shirt under his brown Eastern-cut jacket. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that didn’t quite seem to fit. Covered from head to foot with the dust of Bad Lands travel, he kept grabbing leather as the horse jumped about. While he fought to control the beast he was speaking swiftly, jaws chopping, head jutting emphatically.
De Morès, easily keeping his seat as the spirited stallion skittered around, replied with equal vigor. Clearly it was a confrontation of some kind. Pack ran full out.
He approached in time to hear the Marquis say, “I’ll have the secretary look into the papers. I don’t foresee any difficulty. As to Paddock, when I came here I understood very quickly that to control the town I must control the worst of its denizens. You will leave him to me—that’s a good chap. Now if you’ll forgive me I must be about my business. We must always keep moving. Otherwise time will cheat us of our good years—you agree?”
De Morès acknowledged Pack’s presence with a casual wave and urged the horse away. The Marquis always wanted to go faster; it was one of his few failings—he had no patience.
Pack looked up at Roosevelt, who was watching the Marquis—watching, perhaps, the quality of De Morès’s horsemanship.
Pack said tentatively, “Mr. Roosevelt?”
“Good day to you, Mr. Packard.”
“Conducting business with the Marquis?”
“I do admire his plumage.”
“Is there anything my readers should benefit from knowing?”
“Thousands of things, I’ve no doubt,” Roosevelt replied. His teeth made a brief but large appearance.
Panting from his run, Pack gathered breath for another try but his attention was drawn by Madame la Marquise. She came up from the ford in a surrey driven by a coachman in livery. Roosevelt rode out from between the factory sheds to meet her. Pack ran along behind him.
As Madame approached, Pack tried not to stare at her large brown eyes and masses of lovely red hair. She was so beautiful she made his eyes ache.
The coachman drew rein and braced his foot against the brake handle. There was a screech of chock against rim. The sudden high noise frightened Roosevelt’s horse; it reared, nearly spilling the rider.
When Roosevelt regained control Madame said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Roosevelt said, “I disapprove of self-reproach. Please don’t apologize.”
She seemed about to speak again but then her glance touched on Pack; she changed her mind. “Hello, Arthur,” she said gaily. “It’s a wonderful column about Antoine. He felt very complimented.”
“Thank you. Merely writing the truth as I see it.”
She said to Roosevelt, “Have you seen the paper?” And suddenly it was in her hand. She held it out of the surrey at arm’s length and Roosevelt awkwardly spurred his horse forward, leaned out of the saddle and nearly toppled as he took a fingertip grip on the newspaper. After all that he dropped it. Pack stepped forward to pick it up and handed it up to him. In that moment, when perhaps they thought he wasn’t looking, Pack thought he saw a spark of something more than ordinary friendliness in the way Medora’s eyes met Roosevelt’s.
“Thank you,” said Roosevelt. “And now if you’ll excuse me I must be on my way.” He touched the folded newspaper to his hatbrim, gave Pack a glance and a nod, and rode off into town. Something about his carriage—something in the posture of his back—conveyed a quiet melancholy.