In 1884, a Harvard-educated legislator from New York set off for Dakota Territory. Staggered by the deaths of his mother and wife on the same tragic night, Teddy Roosevelt was returning to a place he had visited the year before, a place that had struck him with its fierce beauty and its bounty of big game and big opportunity. By the Little Missouri River, Teddy Roosevelt established a ranching empire, and soon stood at the center of a storm.