I once witnessed a meeting between the Cow-premier and Roosevelt. Paxton was timid, and appeared ill at ease in the presence of Theodore, evidently looking up at the position of President, and had a consciousness of his own inferior position. Yet, I am sure there are others who join with me in the thought that in many ways Paxton was the greater of the two. And that takes nothing from the glory of Teddy Roosevelt.

Among Paxton's "pets" was John Stringfellow, who went to work for him on the Keystone ranch in 1873. He had met him the year before, but went back to Texas, only to return the following year, to hunt up and seek employment of "the man with the big black whiskers."

Stringfellow drank furiously on occasion, and played Monte whenever he could find a game. This kept him indebted to Paxton, who several times wiped out a score of fifteen hundred dollars debt, just because John was a good cowman, and sometimes went to pieces when he contemplated the amount that he owed. Old cowmen and associates said that he was "a whirlwind of hell, when drunk," whatever that may mean.

Paxton once promised him a hundred steers

if he would remain sober for one year. He held out from September until the following July, when a visit to Ogallala, and the meeting of some old friends, ended in a spree of unusual dimension'.

John was a brother of Al Stringfellow, who was with the late Bay State round-ups in western Nebraska. Al was the fellow who, with Bill Kelly, at the wedding of Ed. A. Boots and "Dude" Wright on Pumkin creek, were found in the grey dawn playing "andy over" the hay stack with their six-shooters.