Here there were feasts of song and story And words of love and dreams of glory! Here there were friends! Ah, night will fall And clouds or the stars will cover all, But I, when I go as a ghost again To the gaunt, grim buttes, to the friendly plain I know that for all that time can do To scatter the faithful, estrange the true-- Quietly, in the lavender sage, Will be waiting the friends of my golden age. From _Medora Nights_ The wild riding, the mishaps, the feverish activity, the smell of the cattle, the dust, the tumult, the physical weariness, the comradeship, the closeness to life and death--to Roosevelt it was all magical and enticing. He loved the crisp morning air, the fantastic landscape, the limitless spaces, half blue and half gold. His spirit was sensitive to beauty, especially the beauty that lay open for all in the warm light of dawn and dusk under the wide vault of heaven; and the experiences that were merely the day's work to his companions to him were edged with the shimmer of spiritual adventure. "We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst," Roosevelt wrote thirty years later, "and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living." "It was a wonderful thing for Roosevelt," said Dr. Stickney. "He himself realized what a splendid thing it was for him to have been here at that time and to have had sufficient strength in his character to absorb it. He started out to get the fundamental truths as they were in this country and he never lost sight of that purpose all the time he was here." To the joy of strenuous living was added, for Roosevelt, the satisfaction of knowing that the speculation in which he had risked so large a part of his fortune was apparently prospering. The cattle were looking well. Even pessimistic Bill Sewall admitted that, though he would not admit that he had changed his opinion of the region as a place for raising cattle. I don't think we shall lose many of our cattle this winter [he wrote his brother]. I think they have got past the worst now. Next year is the one that will try them. It is the cows that perish mostly and we had but few that had calves last spring, but this spring thare will be quite a lot of them. The calves suck them down and they don't get any chance to gain up before they have another calf and then if the weather is very cold they are pretty sure to die. It is too cold here to raise cattle that way. Don't believe there is any money in she cattle here and am afraid thare is not much in any, unless it is the largest heards, and they are crowding in cattle all the time and I think they will eat us out in a few years.