Well, I have been having a glorious time here [he writes], and am well hardened now (I have just come in from spending thirteen hours in the saddle). For every day I have been here I have had my hands full. First and foremost, the cattle have done well, and I regard the outlook for making the business a success as being _very_ hopeful. I shall buy a thousand more cattle and shall make it my regular business. In the autumn I shall bring out Sewall and Dow and put them on a ranch with very few cattle to start with, and in the course of a couple of years give them quite a little herd also. I have never been in better health than on this trip. I am in the saddle all day long either taking part in the round-up of the cattle, or else hunting antelope (I got one the other day; another good head for our famous hall). I am really attached to my two "factors," Ferris and Merrifield, they are very fine men. The country is growing on me, more and more; it has a curious, fantastic beauty of its own; and as I own six or eight horses I have a fresh one every day and ride on a lope all day long. How sound I do sleep at night now! There is not much game, however; the cattlemen have crowded it out and only a few antelope and deer remain. I have shot a few jackrabbits and curlews, with the rifle; and I also killed eight rattlesnakes. To-morrow my two men go East for the cattle; and I will start out alone to try my hand at finding my way over the prairie by myself. I intend to take a two months' trip in the fall, for hunting; and may, as politics look now, stay away over Election day; so I shall return now very soon, probably leaving here in a week. On the following day Ferris and Merrifield started for the East, and Roosevelt set out on his solitary hunting trip, half to test out his own qualities as a frontiersman and half to replenish the larder.