The above description by the pen of my brother is the most vivid that could be given of a certain type of man of the West. The types were many.... The Sylvane Ferrises and the Will Merrifields were as bold and resourceful as these inhabitants of the city of Butte and its vicinity, but for the former, life was an adventure in which the spirit of beauty and kindness had its share in happy contrast to the aims and objects of the men described by my brother in this extraordinary pen-picture. The picture is so forcibly painted that it brings before one’s mind, almost as though it were an actual stage-setting, this type of American, who would appear to be a belated brother of the men of the barbaric period of the Middle Ages in the Old World, in their case, however, rendered even more formidable by a New World enterprise and acumen, strangely unlike what has ever been produced before. It was because of his knowledge of just such men, and of the fact that they knew, although his aims were so different and his ideals so alien to theirs, that the courage of his mental and physical equipment could meet them on their own ground, that Theodore Roosevelt was respected and admired, although sometimes hated, by this type of humanity so opposed to the goals, actual and spiritual, for which he worked so faithfully during his whole valiant existence. They knew him for what he was, and feared him for the qualities which he possessed in common with them, and even more for the traits that they did not understand, and which, to them, made him inevitably and forever “The Mysterious Stranger.” VII TWO RECREANT NEW YORK POLICEMEN Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the state. --Arthur Hugh Clough. There is sprung up a light for the righteous; and joyful gladness for such as are true-hearted.--97th Psalm. The years between 1890 and 1896 were busy years, with devoted service as Civil Service Commissioner, winters at Washington and happy summers at Oyster Bay, when Theodore Roosevelt gave himself up to family joy and the activities of the growing children. In 1893 he writes most lovingly of my children and his--his never-failing sympathy in all the minor illnesses of my little family, expressed in the most affectionate terms, and the common sorrow which we both suffered in the loss of our devoted aunt, Mrs. James Gracie, fills many pages during those years. We met frequently during the summer-time, and when we met he shared with me his many Washington experiences, but the letters are largely to show me his loving interest in the many details of my family life.