Even more dangerous than pursuing a stampeding herd
at night over the plains, and plunging into the Little Missouri
after it, was intercourse with some of the lawless nomads of that
pioneer region. Nomads they were, though they might settle down
to work for a while on one ranch, and then pass on to another;
the sort of creatures who loafed in the saloons of the little
villages and amused them selves by running amuck and shooting up
the town. These men, and indeed nearly all of the pioneers, held
the man from the civilized East, the "tenderfoot," in scorn. They
took it for granted that he was a weakling, that he had soft
ideas of life and was stuck-up or affected. Now Roosevelt saw
that in order to win their trust and respect, he must show
himself equal to their tasks, a true comrade, who accepted their
code of courage and honor. The fact that he wore spectacles was
against him at the outset, because they associated spectacles
with Eastern schoolmasters and incompetence. They called him
"Four Eyes," at first with derision, but they soon discovered
that in him they had no "tenderfoot" to deal with.
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