Said he, "I don't know how I look, but I feel first-rate!" The next morning he appeared in the justice's court, saw the outlaws indicted, and a little later took the train bound west, for his "cow camp." I had never seen Mr. Roosevelt before, although I had read many articles from his pen; and when I left home I had no idea of meeting a gentleman of his standing on the frontier masquerading in the character of an impromptu sheriff. But, only such men of courage and energy can hope to succeed in this new, beautiful, but undeveloped country. The justice of the peace who indicted the thieves was Western Starr. He turned out to be an old acquaintance of Roosevelt's, a classmate in the Columbia Law School. The coincidence gave an added flavor to the proceeding. In Medora there seemed to be only one opinion concerning Roosevelt's adventure, though it was variously expressed. "Roosevelt," said his friend, John Simpson, a Texan, who was owner of the "Hash-knife" brand and one of the greatest cattlemen in the region, "no one but you would have followed those men with just a couple of cow-hands. You are the only real damn fool in the county." The rest of the population echoed the bewildered query of the teamster from the Killdeers. "Why didn't you _kill_ them?" every one asked. "They would have killed you." "I didn't come out here to kill anybody," Roosevelt answered. "All I wanted to do was to defend myself and my property. There wasn't any one around to defend them for me, so I had to do it myself." And there the matter rested. But the people of Medora began to see a little more clearly than they had ever seen before the meaning of government by law.[21] [Footnote 21: The thieves were tried at Mandan in August, 1886. The German, known as "Dutch Chris," was acquitted, but Finnegan, and Bernstead, known as "the half-breed," were sentenced to twenty-five months in the Bismarck Penitentiary. Finnegan glared at Roosevelt as he passed him in the court room. "If I'd had any show at all," he cried, "you'd have sure had to fight!" That was no doubt true, but his anger evidently wore off in the cool of the prison, for a little later he wrote Roosevelt a long and friendly epistle, which was intended to explain many things: