State; and later this uncle and I met at Washington when I was President and he a United States Senator.  It was some time after “Steve’s” capture that I went down to Deadwood on business, Sylvane Ferris and I on horseback, while Bill Jones drove the wagon.  At a little town, Spearfish, I think, after crossing the last eighty or ninety miles of gumbo prairies, we met Seth Bullock.  We had had rather a rough trip, and had lain out for a fortnight, so I suppose we looked somewhat unkempt.  Seth received us with rather distant courtesy at first, but unbent when he found out who we were, remarking, “You see, by your looks I thought you were some kind of a tin-horn gambling outfit, and that I might have to keep an eye on you!” He then inquired after the capture of “Steve”—­with a little of the air of one sportsman when another has shot a quail that either might have claimed—­“My bird, I believe?” Later Seth Bullock became, and has ever since remained, one of my stanchest and most valued friends.  He served as Marshal for South Dakota under me as President.  When, after the close of my term, I went to Africa, on getting back to Europe I cabled Seth Bullock to bring over Mrs. Bullock and meet me in London, which he did; by that time I felt that I just had to meet my own people, who spoke my neighborhood dialect.

When serving as deputy sheriff I was impressed with the advantage the officer of the law has over ordinary wrong-doers, provided he thoroughly knows his own mind.  There are exceptional outlaws, men with a price on their heads and of remarkable prowess, who are utterly indifferent to taking life, and whose warfare against society is as open as that of a savage on the war-path.  The law officer has no advantage whatever over these men save what his own prowess may—­or may not—­give him.  Such a man was Billy the Kid, the notorious man-killer and desperado of New Mexico, who was himself finally slain by a friend of mine, Pat Garrett, whom, when I was President, I made collector of customs at El Paso.  But the ordinary criminal, even when murderously inclined, feels just a moment’s hesitation as to whether he cares to kill an officer of the law engaged in his duty.  I took in more than one man who was probably a better man than I was with both rifle and revolver; but in each case I knew just what I wanted to do, and, like David Harum, I “did it first,” whereas the fraction of a second that the other man hesitated put him in a position where it was useless for him to resist.

I owe more than I can ever express to the West, which of course means to the men and women I met in the West.  There were a few people of bad type in my neighborhood—­that would be true of every group of men, even in a theological seminary—­but I could not speak with too great affection and respect of the great majority of my friends, the hard-working men and women who dwelt for a space of perhaps a hundred and fifty miles along the Little Missouri.  I was always as welcome at their houses as they were