The psychology of the Indians was curious, and it took time occasionally for their better qualities to reveal themselves. As chairman of the Little Missouri Stock Association, Roosevelt on one occasion recovered two horses which had been stolen from an old Indian. The Indian took them, muttering something that sounded like "Um, um," and without a word or a gesture of gratitude rode away with his property. Roosevelt felt cheap, as though he had done a service which had not been appreciated; but a few days later the old Indian came to him and silently laid in his arms a hide bearing an elaborate painting of the battle of the Little Big Horn. The depredations of the Indians in the autumn of 1885 made concerted action on the part of the cattlemen inevitable. The damage which the fires did to the cattle ranges themselves was not extensive, for the devastation was confined in the main to a strip of country about eighteen miles on either side of the railroad's right of way, and the ranches were situated from twenty-five to eighty miles from the track. The real harm which the fires did was in the destruction of the "drives" to the railroad. Driving cattle tended, under the best conditions of water and pasture, to cause loss of weight; when the "drive" lay through a burnt district for twenty or twenty-five miles the deterioration of the cattle became a serious matter. Day after day the cowboys fought the fires. It was peculiarly harassing work. The process we usually followed [Roosevelt wrote in his Autobiography] was to kill a steer, split it in two lengthwise, and then have two riders drag each half-steer, the rope of one running from his saddle-horn to the front leg, and that of the other to the hind leg. One of the men would spur his horse over or through the line of fire, and the two would then ride forward, dragging the steer, bloody side downward, along the line of flame, men following on foot with slickers or wet horse-blankets to beat out any flickering blaze that was still left. It was exciting work, for the fire and the twitching and plucking of the ox carcass over the uneven ground maddened the fierce little horses so that it was necessary to do some riding in order to keep them to their work. After a while it also became very exhausting, the thirst and fatigue being great, as, with parched lips and blackened from head to foot, we toiled at our task. Work of this sort, day in, day out, did not make for magnanimity on the part of the cowboys. It was found that seventy-five Indians, who had received hunting permits from the agent at Berthold, were responsible for the devastation, and even the Eastern newspapers began to carry reports about a "serious conflict" which was likely to break out any minute "between cattlemen and Indian hunters in the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri."