It was the cold early spring of 1886 in the Dakota Badlands, and Theodore Roosevelt was angry. A man called Redhead Finnegan and a couple of other drifters had stolen his rowboat and taken off down the Little Missouri River. With two friends, Roosevelt went after the thieves.
Roosevelt and his men rode a scow downriver for three days, pushing through the ice jams. They came upon the thieves' camp and captured them without a fight. A practical man would have obeyed the custom of the territory and hanged the three right there. Some Dakotans were mystified by the course Roosevelt...