At last they worked back to a ranch, borrowed a pony, on which Roosevelt rode up into the mountains to a place where there was a wagon.  He hired this, with two broncos and a driver.  Sewall and Dow took the boats down the river, while Roosevelt set out on a journey which took two days and a night, walking behind the wagon, and guarding the three men.  The driver of the wagon was a stranger.

At night they put up at a frontier hut, and the Deputy Sheriff had to sit up all night to be sure the three prisoners did not escape.  When he reached the little town of Dickinson, and handed the men over to the Sheriff, he had traveled over three hundred miles.  He had brought three outlaws to justice, and done something for the cause of better government in the country where he lived.

CHAPTER V

TWO DEFEATS

Although he was still under twenty-five when he left the New York Assembly, Roosevelt was favorably known throughout the State.  He had been heard of, by those who keep up with politics, all over the country.  In 1884, the year of a Presidential election, he was one of the four delegates-at-large from New York to the Republican convention at Chicago.  The leader for the Presidential nomination was James G. Blaine, a brilliant man who had many warm admirers.  Also, there were many in his own party, who distrusted him, who thought that in the past he had not been strictly honest.  Good men differed on this question and differ still.

Roosevelt favored Senator Edmunds of Vermont, but he had agreed beforehand, with other young Republican delegates, that they would support for the election the man named by the convention.  Since, in later years, Roosevelt refused to abide by the decision of a party convention, and led one of the most extraordinary “bolts” in the history of American politics, it is important to consider for a moment the question of political parties and the attitude a man may take toward them.

Because parties are responsible for a good many small, mean, and sometimes dishonorable acts, we often hear parties and partisanship denounced.  People express the wish that there might be an end to “party politics” and to “partisanship,” and that “all good men might get together” for the good of the whole country.  This may happen when there is Heaven on earth, but not before.  Even the good and honest men continue to differ about which is the wisest way to do things, and so the people who think the same way about most matters get together in a party.  The suggestion, by the way, that people should give up “partisanship” often comes from people who do not by any means intend to give up their own partisanship,—­they wish other folk to come over to their own way of thinking.  We are all apt to wish that others would only be reasonable enough to agree with us.

Nor is it at all sure that everything would be fine if there were no parties.  Countries which have tried to do without parties, have not made a great success of it.  There must be some organized group to hold responsible if men in office do badly; some people to warn that the things they are doing are not approved by the majority of the people.