While Roosevelt was getting acquainted with the new-comers at Yule, Sewall and Dow were also getting acquainted with many people and things that were strange to them. They took two days for the ride from the Maltese Cross to the site of the new ranch, for the river was high and they were forced to take a roundabout trail over the prairie; the cattle, moreover, could be driven only at a slow pace; but even twenty-odd miles a day was more than a Maine backwoodsman enjoyed as initiation in horsemanship. Dow was mounted on an excellent trained horse, and being young and supple was able to do his share in spite of his discomfort. But the mare that had been allotted to Sewall happened also to be a tenderfoot, and they did not play a conspicuous role in the progress of the cattle. Captain Robins was not the sort to make allowances when there was work to be done. He was a small, dark man with a half-inch beard almost completely covering his face, a "seafaring man" who had got his experience with cattle in South America; "a man of many orders" as Sewall curtly described him in a letter home. He rode over to where Sewall was endeavoring in a helpless way to make the mare go in a general northerly direction. Sewall saw him coming, and wondered why he thought it necessary to come at such extraordinary speed. The Captain drew rein sharply at Sewall's side. "Why in hell don't you ride in and do something?" he roared. Sewall knew exactly why he didn't. He had known it for some time, and he was nettled with himself, for he had not been accustomed "to take a back seat for any one" when feats that demanded physical strength and skill were to be done. Robins was very close to him, and Sewall's first impulse was to take him by the hair. But it occurred to him that the seafaring man was smaller than he, and that thought went out of his head. "I know I'm not doing anything," he said at last gruffly. "I don't know anything about what I'm trying to do and I think I've got a horse as green as I am. But don't you ever speak to me in such a manner as that again as long as you live." There was a good deal that was impressive about Sewall, his shoulders, his teeth that were like tombstones, his vigorous, brown beard, his eyes that had a way of blazing. The Captain did not pursue the discussion. "That Sewall is a kind of quick-tempered fellow," he remarked to Dow. "I don't think he is," said the younger man quietly. "He snapped me up." "You must have said something to him, for he ain't in the habit of doing such things." The Captain dropped the subject for the time being. Roosevelt, after two days at Lang's, returned to the Maltese Cross and then rode northward to look after the men from Maine.