[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate thistext as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variantspellings and other inconsistencies. ] [Illustration: ARRIVAL AT GARDINER, MONT. (ENTRANCE TO YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. )] CAMPING WITH PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT By JOHN BURROUGHS HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1906 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. _Reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly May, 1906_ CAMPING WITH PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT BY JOHN BURROUGHS At the time I made the trip to Yellowstone Park with PresidentRoosevelt in the spring of 1903, I promised some friends to write upmy impressions of the President and of the Park, but I have been slowin getting around to it. The President himself, having the absoluteleisure and peace of the White House, wrote his account of the tripnearly two years ago! But with the stress and strain of my life at"Slabsides, "--administering the affairs of so many of the wildcreatures of the woods about me, --I have not till this blessed seasonfound the time to put on record an account of the most interestingthing I saw in that wonderful land, which, of course, was thePresident himself. A STORM CENTRE When I accepted his invitation I was well aware that during thejourney I should be in a storm centre most of the time, which is notalways a pleasant prospect to a man of my habits and disposition. ThePresident himself is a good deal of a storm, --a man of such aboundingenergy and ceaseless activity that he sets everything in motion aroundhim wherever he goes. But I knew he would be pretty well occupied onhis way to the Park in speaking to eager throngs and in receivingpersonal and political homage in the towns and cities we were to passthrough. But when all this was over, and I found myself with him inthe wilderness of the Park, with only the superintendent and a fewattendants to help take up his tremendous personal impact, how was itlikely to fare with a non-strenuous person like myself, I asked? I hadvisions of snow six and seven feet deep where traveling could be doneonly upon snowshoes, and I had never had the things on my feet in mylife. If the infernal fires beneath, that keep the pot boiling so outthere, should melt the snows, I could see the party tearing along onhorseback at a wolf-hunt pace over a rough country; and as I had notbeen on a horse's back since the President was born, how would it belikely to fare with me there? THE PRESIDENT'S INTEREST IN NATURAL HISTORY I had known the President several years before he became famous, andwe had had some correspondence on subjects of natural history. Hisinterest in such themes is always very fresh and keen, and the mainmotive of his visit to the Park at this time was to see and study inits semi-domesticated condition the great game which he had so oftenhunted during his ranch days; and he was kind enough to think it wouldbe an additional pleasure to see it with a nature-lover like myself. For my own part, I knew nothing about big game, but I knew there wasno man in the country with whom I should so like to see it asRoosevelt. HIS LOVE OF ANIMALS Some of our newspapers reported that the President intended to hunt inthe Park. A woman in Vermont wrote me, to protest against the hunting, and hoped I would teach the President to love the animals as much as Idid, --as if he did not love them much more, because his love isfounded upon knowledge, and because they had been a part of his life. She did not know that I was then cherishing the secret hope that Imight be allowed to shoot a cougar or bobcat; but this fun did notcome to me. The President said, "I will not fire a gun in the Park;then I shall have no explanations to make. " Yet once I did hear himsay in the wilderness, "I feel as if I ought to keep the camp in meat. I always have. " I regretted that he could not do so on this occasion. I have never been disturbed by the President's hunting trips. It is tosuch men as he that the big game legitimately belongs, --men whoregard it from the point of view of the naturalist as well as fromthat of the sportsman, who are interested in its preservation, and whoshare with the world the delight they experience in the chase. Such ahunter as Roosevelt is as far removed from the game-butcher as day isfrom night; and as for his killing of the "varmints, "--bears, cougars, and bobcats, --the fewer of these there are, the better for the usefuland beautiful game. The cougars, or mountain lions, in the Park certainly needed killing. The superintendent reported that he had seen where they had slainnineteen elk, and we saw where they had killed a deer, and dragged itsbody across the trail. Of course, the President would not now on hishunting trips shoot an elk or a deer except to "keep the camp inmeat, " and for this purpose it is as legitimate as to slay a sheep ora steer for the table at home. We left Washington on April 1, and strung several of the largerWestern cities on our thread of travel, --Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, St. Paul, Minneapolis, --as well as many lesser towns, in each of whichthe President made an address, sometimes brief, on a few occasions ofan hour or more. MEETING THE PEOPLE He gave himself very freely and heartily to the people wherever hewent. He could easily match their Western cordiality andgood-fellowship. Wherever his train stopped, crowds soon gathered, orhad already gathered, to welcome him. His advent made a holiday ineach town he visited. At all the principal stops the usual programmewas: first, his reception by the committee of citizens appointed toreceive him, --they usually boarded his private car, and were one byone introduced to him; then a drive through the town with a concourseof carriages; then to the hall or open air platform, where he spoke tothe assembled throng; then to lunch or dinner; and then back to thetrain, and off for the next stop--a round of hand-shaking, carriage-driving, speech-making each day. He usually spoke from eightto ten times every twenty-four hours, sometimes for only a few minutesfrom the rear platform of his private car, at others for an hour ormore in some large hall. In Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, elaborate banquets were given him and his party, and on each occasionhe delivered a carefully prepared speech upon questions that involvedthe policy of his administration. The throng that greeted him in thevast Auditorium in Chicago--that rose and waved and waved again--wasone of the grandest human spectacles I ever witnessed. In Milwaukee the dense cloud of tobacco smoke that presently filledthe large hall after the feasting was over was enough to choke anyspeaker, but it did not seem to choke the President, though he doesnot use tobacco in any form himself; nor was there anything foggyabout his utterances on that occasion upon legislative control of thetrusts. A PRETTY INCIDENT In St. Paul the city was inundated with humanity, --a vast human tidethat left the middle of the streets bare as our line of carriagesmoved slowly along, but that rose up in solid walls of town andprairie humanity on the sidewalks and city dooryards. How hearty andhappy the myriad faces looked! At one point I spied in the throng onthe curbstone a large silk banner that bore my own name as the titleof some society. I presently saw that it was borne by half a dozenanxious and expectant-looking schoolgirls with braids down theirbacks. As my carriage drew near them, they pressed their way throughthe throng, and threw a large bouquet of flowers into my lap. I thinkit would be hard to say who blushed the deeper, the girls or myself. It was the first time I had ever had flowers showered upon me inpublic; and then, maybe, I felt that on such an occasion I was only aminor side issue, and public recognition was not called for. But theincident pleased the President. "I saw that banner and those flowers, "he said afterwards; "and I was delighted to see you honored that way. "But I fear I have not to this day thanked the Monroe School of St. Paul for that pretty attention. [Illustration: THE PRESIDENT WITH MR. BURROUGHS AND SECRETARY LOEBJUST BEFORE ENTERING THE PARK. From stereograph, copyright 1906, by Underwood & Underwood, New York. ] GRATIFYING THE CHILDREN The time of the passing of the presidential train seemed well known, even on the Dakota prairies. At one point I remember a little brownschoolhouse stood not far off, and near the track the school-ma'am, with her flock, drawn up in line. We were at luncheon, but thePresident caught a glimpse ahead through the window, and quickly tookin the situation. With napkin in hand, he rushed out on the platformand waved to them. "Those children, " he said, as he came back, "wantedto see the President of the United States, and I could not disappointthem. They may never have another chance. What a deep impression suchthings make when we are young!" COWBOY FRIENDS At some point in the Dakotas we picked up the former foreman of hisranch, and another cowboy friend of the old days, and they rode withthe President in his private car for several hours. He was as happywith them as a schoolboy ever was in meeting old chums. He beamed withdelight all over. The life which those men represented, and of whichhe had himself once formed a part, meant so much to him; it hadentered into the very marrow of his being, and I could see the joy ofit all shining in his face as he sat and lived parts of it over againwith those men that day. He bubbled with laughter continually. Themen, I thought, seemed a little embarrassed by his open-handedcordiality and good-fellowship. He himself evidently wanted to forgetthe present, and to live only in the memory of those wonderful ranchdays, --that free, hardy, adventurous life upon the plains. It all cameback to him with a rush when he found himself alone with these heroesof the rope and the stirrup. How much more keen his appreciation was, and how much quicker his memory, than theirs! He was constantlyrecalling to their minds incidents which they had forgotten, and thenames of horses and dogs which had escaped them. His subsequent life, instead of making dim the memory of his ranch days, seemed to havemade it more vivid by contrast. When they had gone, I said to him, "I think your affection for thosemen very beautiful. " "How could I help it?" he said. "Still, few men in your station could or would go back and renew suchfriendships. " "Then I pity them, " he replied. RANCH LIFE THE MAKING OF HIM He said afterwards that his ranch life had been the making of him. Ithad built him up and hardened him physically, and it had opened hiseyes to the wealth of manly character among the plainsmen andcattlemen. Had he not gone West, he said, he never would have raised the RoughRiders Regiment; and had he not raised that regiment and gone to theCuban War, he would not have been made governor of New York; and hadnot this happened, the politicians would not unwittingly have made hisrise to the Presidency so inevitable. There is no doubt, I think, thathe would have got there some day; but without the chain of eventsabove outlined, his rise could not have been so rapid. Our train entered the Bad Lands of North Dakota in the early eveningtwilight, and the President stood on the rear platform of his car, gazing wistfully upon the scene. "I know all this country like abook, " he said. "I have ridden over it, and hunted over it, andtramped over it, in all seasons and weather, and it looks like home tome. My old ranch is not far off. We shall soon reach Medora, which wasmy station. " It was plain to see that that strange, forbidding-lookinglandscape, hills and valleys to Eastern eyes utterly demoralized andgone to the bad, --flayed, fantastic, treeless, a riot of naked clayslopes, chimney-like buttes, and dry coulees, --was in his eyes a landof almost pathetic interest. There were streaks of good pasturage hereand there where his cattle used to graze, and where the deer and thepronghorn used to linger. OLD NEIGHBORS When we reached Medora, where the train was scheduled to stop an hour, it was nearly dark, but the whole town and country round had turnedout to welcome their old townsman. After much hand-shaking, thecommittee conducted us down to a little hall, where the Presidentstood on a low platform, and made a short address to the standingcrowd that filled the place. Then some flashlight pictures were takenby the local photographer, after which the President stepped down, and, while the people filed past him, shook hands with every man, woman, and child of them, calling many of them by name, and greetingthem all most cordially. I recall one grizzled old frontiersman whosehand he grasped, calling him by name, and saying, "How well I rememberyou! You once mended my gunlock for me, --put on a new hammer. " "Yes, "said the delighted old fellow; "I'm the man, Mr. President. " He wasamong his old neighbors once more, and the pleasure of the meeting wasvery obvious on both sides. I heard one of the women tell him theywere going to have a dance presently, and ask him if he would not stayand open it! The President laughingly excused himself, and said histrain had to leave on schedule time, and his time was nearly up. Ithought of the incident in his "Ranch Life, " in which he says he onceopened a cowboy ball with the wife of a Minnesota man, who hadrecently shot a bullying Scotchman who danced opposite. He says thescene reminded him of the ball where Bret Harte's heroine "went downthe middle with the man that shot Sandy Magee. " Before reaching Medora he had told me many anecdotes of "Hell RoaringBill Jones, " and had said I should see him. But it turned out thatHell Roaring Bill had begun to celebrate the coming of the Presidenttoo early in the day, and when we reached Medora he was not in apresentable condition. I forget now how he had earned his name, but nodoubt he had come honestly by it; it was a part of his history, as wasthat of "The Pike, " "Cold Turkey Bill, " "Hash Knife Joe, " and otherclassic heroes of the frontier. BAD LANDS AND BAD MEN It is curious how certain things go to the bad in the Far West, or acertain proportion of them, --bad lands, bad horses, and bad men. Andit is a degree of badness that the East has no conception of, --landthat looks as raw and unnatural as if time had never laid its shapingand softening hand upon it; horses that, when mounted, put their headsto the ground and their heels in the air, and, squealing defiantly, resort to the most diabolically ingenious tricks to shake off or tokill their riders; and men who amuse themselves in bar-rooms byshooting about the feet of a "tenderfoot" to make him dance, or whoride along the street and shoot at every one in sight. Just as the oldplutonic fires come to the surface out there in the Rockies, and hintvery strongly of the infernal regions, so a kind of satanic element inmen and animals--an underlying devilishness--crops out, and we havethe border ruffian and the bucking broncho. The President told of an Englishman on a hunting trip in the West, who, being an expert horseman at home, scorned the idea that he couldnot ride any of their "grass-fed ponies. " So they gave him a buckingbroncho. He was soon lying on the ground, much stunned. When he couldspeak, he said, "I should not have minded him, you know, _but 'e 'ides'is 'ead_. " THE PRESIDENT'S CORDIALITY At one place in Dakota the train stopped to take water while we wereat lunch. A crowd soon gathered, and the President went out to greetthem. We could hear his voice, and the cheers and laughter of thecrowd. And then we heard him say, "Well, good-by, I must go now. "Still he did not come. Then we heard more talking and laughing, andanother "good-by, " and yet he did not come. Then I went out to seewhat had happened. I found the President down on the ground shakinghands with the whole lot of them. Some one had reached up to shakehis hand as he was about withdrawing, and this had been followed bysuch eagerness on the part of the rest of the people to do likewise, that the President had instantly got down to gratify them. Had thesecret service men known it, they would have been in a pickle. Weprobably have never had a President who responded more freely andheartily to the popular liking for him than Roosevelt. The crowdalways seem to be in love with him the moment they see him and hearhis voice. And it is not by reason of any arts of eloquence, or charmof address, but by reason of his inborn heartiness and sincerity, andhis genuine manliness. The people feel his quality at once. In Bermudalast winter I met a Catholic priest who had sat on the platform atsome place in New England very near the President while he wasspeaking, and who said, "The man had not spoken three minutes before Iloved him, and had any one tried to molest him, I could have torn himto pieces. " It is the quality in the man that instantly inspires sucha liking as this in strangers that will, I am sure, safeguard him inall public places. I once heard him say that he did not like to be addressed as "HisExcellency;" he added laughingly, "They might just as well call me HisTransparency, for all I care. " It is this transparency, this direct, out-and-out, unequivocal character of him that is one source of hispopularity. The people do love transparency, --all of them but thepoliticians. A friend of his one day took him to task for some mistake he had madein one of his appointments. "My dear sir, " replied the President, "where you know of one mistake I have made, I know of ten. " How suchcandor must make the politicians shiver! THE MULE-TEAM I have said that I stood in dread of the necessity of snowshoeing inthe Park, and, in lieu of that, of horseback riding. Yet when wereached Gardiner, the entrance to the Park, on that bright, crispApril morning, with no snow in sight save that on the mountain-tops, and found Major Pitcher and Captain Chittenden at the head of a squadof soldiers, with a fine saddle-horse for the President, and anambulance drawn by two span of mules for me, I confess that Iexperienced just a slight shade of mortification. I thought they mighthave given me the option of the saddle or the ambulance. Yet I enteredthe vehicle as if it was just what I had been expecting. The President and his escort, with a cloud of cowboys hovering in therear, were soon off at a lively pace, and my ambulance followed close, and at a lively pace, too; so lively that I soon found myself grippingthe seat with my hands. "Well, " I said to myself, "they are giving mea regular Western send-off;" and I thought, as the ambulance swayedfrom side to side, that it would suit me just as well if my driverdid not try to keep up with the presidential procession. The driverand his mules were shut off from me by a curtain, but, looking aheadout of the sides of the vehicle, I saw two good-sized logs lyingacross our course. Surely, I thought (and barely had time to think), he will avoid these. But he did not, and as we passed over them I wasnearly thrown through the top of the ambulance. "This _is_ a livelysend-off, " I said, rubbing my bruises with one hand, while I clung tothe seat with the other. Presently I saw the cowboys scrambling up thebank as if to get out of our way; then the President on his fine graystallion scrambling up the bank with his escort, and looking ominouslyin my direction, as we thundered by. SIDETRACKING THE PRESIDENT "Well, " I said, "this is indeed a novel ride; for once in my life Ihave sidetracked the President of the United States! I am given theright of way over all. " On we tore, along the smooth, hard road, anddid not slacken our pace till, at the end of a mile or two, we beganto mount the hill toward Fort Yellowstone. And not till we reached thefort did I learn that our mules had run away. They had been excitedbeyond control by the presidential cavalcade, and the driver, findinghe could not hold them, had aimed only to keep them in the road, andwe very soon had the road all to ourselves. HUGE BOILING SPRINGS Fort Yellowstone is at Mammoth Hot Springs, where one gets his firstview of the characteristic scenery of the Park, --huge, boiling springswith their columns of vapor, and the first characteristic odors whichsuggest the traditional infernal regions quite as much as the boilingand steaming water does. One also gets a taste of a much more rarefiedair than he has been used to, and finds himself panting for breath ona very slight exertion. The Mammoth Hot Springs have built themselvesup an enormous mound that stands there above the village on the sideof the mountain, terraced and scalloped and fluted, and suggestingsome vitreous formation, or rare carving of enormous, many-coloredprecious stones. It looks quite unearthly, and, though the devil'sfrying pan, and ink pot, and the Stygian caves are not far off, thesuggestion is of something celestial rather than of the netherregions, --a vision of jasper walls, and of amethyst battlements. With Captain Chittenden I climbed to the top, stepping over the rillsand creeks of steaming hot water, and looked at the marvelously clear, cerulean, but boiling, pools on the summit. The water seemed asunearthly in its beauty and purity as the gigantic sculpturing thatheld it. [Illustration: FORT YELLOWSTONE. From stereograph, copyright 1904, by Underwood & Underwood, NewYork. ] THE STYGIAN CAVES The Stygian caves are still farther up the mountain, --little pocketsin the rocks, or well-holes in the ground at your feet, filled withdeadly carbon dioxide. We saw birds' feathers and quills in all ofthem. The birds hop into them, probably in quest of food or seekingshelter, and they never come out. We saw the body of a martin on thebank of one hole. Into one we sank a lighted torch, and it wasextinguished as quickly as if we had dropped it into water. Each caveor niche is a death valley on a small scale. Near by we came upon asteaming pool, or lakelet, of an acre or more in extent. A pair ofmallard ducks were swimming about in one end of it, --the cool end. When we approached, they swam slowly over into the warmer water. Asthey progressed, the water got hotter and hotter, and the ducks'discomfort was evident. Presently they stopped, and turned toward us, half appealingly, as I thought. They could go no farther; would weplease come no nearer? As I took another step or two, up they rose anddisappeared over the hill. Had they gone to the extreme end of thepool, we could have had boiled mallard for dinner. DEER FEEDING IN THE STREETS Another novel spectacle was at night, or near sundown, when the deercame down from the hills into the streets, and ate hay a few yardsfrom the officers' quarters, as unconcernedly as so many domesticsheep. This they had been doing all winter, and they kept it up tillMay, at times a score or more of them profiting thus on thegovernment's bounty. When the sundown gun was fired a couple ofhundred yards away, they gave a nervous start, but kept on with theirfeeding. The antelope and elk and mountain sheep had not yet grownbold enough to accept Uncle Sam's charity in that way. The President wanted all the freedom and solitude possible while inthe Park, so all newspaper men and other strangers were excluded. Eventhe secret service men and his physician and private secretaries wereleft at Gardiner. He craved once more to be alone with nature; he wasevidently hungry for the wild and the aboriginal, --a hunger that seemsto come upon him regularly at least once a year, and drives him forthon his hunting trips for big game in the West. We spent two weeks in the Park, and had fair weather, bright, crispdays, and clear, freezing nights. The first week we occupied threecamps that had been prepared, or partly prepared, for us in thenortheast corner of the Park, in the region drained by the GardinerRiver, where there was but little snow, and which we reached onhorseback. VISIT TO THE GEYSER REGION The second week we visited the geyser region, which lies a thousandfeet or more higher, and where the snow was still five or six feetdeep. This part of the journey was made in big sleighs, each drawn bytwo span of horses. On the horseback excursion, which involved only about fifty miles ofriding, we had a mule pack train, and Sibley tents and stoves, withquite a retinue of camp laborers, a lieutenant and an orderly or two, and a guide, Billy Hofer. THE FIRST CAMP The first camp was in a wild, rocky, and picturesque gorge on theYellowstone, about ten miles from the fort. A slight indisposition, the result of luxurious living, with no wood to chop or to saw, and nohills to climb, as at home, prevented me from joining the party tillthe third day. Then Captain Chittenden drove me eight miles in abuggy. About two miles from camp we came to a picket of two or threesoldiers, where my big bay was in waiting for me. I mounted himconfidently, and, guided by an orderly, took the narrow, winding trailtoward camp. Except for an hour's riding the day before with CaptainChittenden, I had not been on a horse's back for nearly fifty years, and I had not spent as much as a day in the saddle during my youth. That first sense of a live, spirited, powerful animal beneath you, atwhose mercy you are, --you, a pedestrian all your days, --with gulliesand rocks and logs to cross, and deep chasms opening close beside you, is not a little disturbing. But my big bay did his part well, and Idid not lose my head or my nerve, as we cautiously made our way alongthe narrow path on the side of the steep gorge, with a foaming torrentrushing along at its foot, nor yet when we forded the rocky and rapidYellowstone. A misstep or a stumble on the part of my steed, andprobably the first bubble of my confidence would have been shivered atonce; but this did not happen, and in due time we reached the group oftents that formed the President's camp. THE PRESIDENT ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS The situation was delightful, --no snow, scattered pine trees, asecluded valley, rocky heights, and the clear, ample, trouty waters ofthe Yellowstone. The President was not in camp. In the morning he hadstated his wish to go alone into the wilderness. Major Pitcher verynaturally did not quite like the idea, and wished to send an orderlywith him. "No, " said the President. "Put me up a lunch, and let me go alone. Iwill surely come back. " And back he surely came. It was about five o'clock when he camebriskly down the path from the east to the camp. It came out that hehad tramped about eighteen miles through a very rough country. Theday before, he and the major had located a band of several hundred elkon a broad, treeless hillside, and his purpose was to find those elk, and creep up on them, and eat his lunch under their very noses. Andthis he did, spending an hour or more within fifty yards of them. Hecame back looking as fresh as when he started, and at night, sittingbefore the big camp fire, related his adventure, and talked with hisusual emphasis and copiousness of many things. He told me of the birdshe had seen or heard; among them he had heard one that was new to him. From his description I told him I thought it was Townsend's solitaire, a bird I much wanted to see and hear. I had heard the West Indiasolitaire, --one of the most impressive songsters I ever heard, --and Iwished to compare our Western form with it. A STRANGE BIRD SONG The next morning we set out for our second camp, ten or a dozen milesaway, and in reaching it passed over much of the ground the Presidenthad traversed the day before. As we came to a wild, rocky place abovea deep chasm of the river, with a few scattered pine trees, thePresident said, "It was right here that I heard that strange birdsong. " We paused a moment. "And there it is now, " he exclaimed. THE SOLITAIRE Sure enough, there was the solitaire singing from the top of a smallcedar, --a bright, animated, eloquent song, but without the richnessand magic of the song of the tropical species. We hitched our horses, and followed the bird up as it flew from tree to tree. The Presidentwas as eager to see and hear it as I was. It seemed very shy, and weonly caught glimpses of it. In form and color it much resembles itsWest India cousin, and suggests our catbird. It ceased to sing when wepursued it. It is a bird found only in the wilder and higher parts ofthe Rockies. My impression was that its song did not quite merit theencomiums that have been pronounced upon it. At this point, I saw amid the rocks my first and only Rocky Mountainwoodchucks, and, soon after we had resumed our journey, our first bluegrouse, --a number of them like larger partridges. Occasionally wewould come upon black-tailed deer, standing or lying down in thebushes, their large ears at attention being the first thing to catchthe eye. They would often allow us to pass within a few rods of themwithout showing alarm. Elk horns were scattered all over this part ofthe Park, and we passed several old carcasses of dead elk that hadprobably died a natural death. [Illustration: THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER AND CANYON. From stereograph, copyright 1904, by Underwood & Underwood, NewYork. ] THE "SINGING GOPHER" In a grassy bottom at the foot of a steep hill, while the Presidentand I were dismounted, and noting the pleasing picture which our packtrain of fifteen or twenty mules made filing along the side of a steepgrassy slope, --a picture which he has preserved in his late volume, "Out-Door Pastimes of an American Hunter, "--our attention wasattracted by plaintive, musical, bird-like chirps that rose from thegrass about us. I was almost certain it was made by a bird; thePresident was of like opinion; and I kicked about in the tufts ofgrass, hoping to flush the bird. Now here, now there, arose thissharp, but bird-like note. Finally we found that it was made by aspecies of gopher, whose holes we soon discovered. What its specificname is I do not know, but it should be called the singing gopher. Our destination this day was a camp on Cottonwood Creek, near "HellRoaring Creek. " As we made our way in the afternoon along a broad, open, grassy valley, I saw a horseman come galloping over the hill toour right, starting up a band of elk as he came; riding across theplain, he wheeled his horse, and, with the military salute, joined ourparty. He proved to be a government scout, called the "Duke of HellRoaring, "--an educated officer from the Austrian army, who, for someunknown reason, had exiled himself here in this out-of-the-way partof the world. He was a man in his prime, of fine, military look andbearing. After conversing a few moments with the President and MajorPitcher, he rode rapidly away. THE SECOND CAMP Our second camp, which we reached in mid-afternoon, was in the edge ofthe woods on the banks of a fine, large trout stream, where ice andsnow still lingered in patches. I tried for trout in the head of alarge, partly open pool, but did not get a rise; too much ice in thestream, I concluded. Very soon my attention was attracted by a strangenote, or call, in the spruce woods. The President had also noticed it, and, with me, wondered what made it. Was it bird or beast? Billy Hofersaid he thought it was an owl, but it in no way suggested an owl, andthe sun was shining brightly. It was a sound such as a boy might makeby blowing in the neck of an empty bottle. Presently we heard itbeyond us on the other side of the creek, which was pretty good proofthat the creature had wings. "Let's go run that bird down, " said the President to me. So off we started across a small, open, snow-streaked plain, towardthe woods beyond it. We soon decided that the bird was on the top ofone of a group of tall spruces. After much skipping about over logsand rocks, and much craning of our necks, we made him out on the peakof a spruce. I imitated his call, when he turned his head down towardus, but we could not make out what he was. "Why did we not think to bring the glasses?" said the President. "I will run and get them, " I replied. TREEING AN OWL "No, " said he, "you stay here and keep that bird treed, and I willfetch them. " So off he went like a boy, and was very soon back with the glasses. Wequickly made out that it was indeed an owl, --the pigmy owl, as itturned out, --not much larger than a bluebird. I think the Presidentwas as pleased as if we had bagged some big game. He had never seenthe bird before. Throughout the trip I found his interest in bird life very keen, andhis eye and ear remarkably quick. He usually saw the bird or heard itsnote as quickly as I did, --and I had nothing else to think about, andhad been teaching my eye and ear the trick of it for over fifty years. Of course, his training as a big-game hunter stood him in good stead, but back of that were his naturalist's instincts, and his genuine loveof all forms of wild life. ROOSEVELT THE NATURALIST I have been told that his ambition up to the time he went to Harvardhad been to be a naturalist, but that there they seem to haveconvinced him that all the out-of-door worlds of natural history hadbeen conquered, and that the only worlds remaining were in thelaboratory, and to be won with the microscope and the scalpel. ButRoosevelt was a man made for action in a wide field, and laboratoryconquests could not satisfy him. His instincts as a naturalist, however, lie back of all his hunting expeditions, and, in a largemeasure, I think, prompt them. Certain it is that his hunting recordscontain more live natural history than any similar records knownto me, unless it be those of Charles St. John, the Scotchnaturalist-sportsman. The Canada jays, or camp-robbers, as they are often called, soon foundout our camp that afternoon, and no sooner had the cook begun to throwout peelings and scraps and crusts than the jays began to carry themoff, not to eat, as I observed, but to hide them in the thickerbranches of the spruce trees. How tame they were, coming within threeor four yards of one! Why this species of jay should everywhere be sofamiliar, and all other kinds so wild, is a puzzle. In the morning, as we rode down the valley toward our nextcamping-place, at Tower Falls, a band of elk containing a hundred ormore started along the side of the hill a few hundred yards away. Iwas some distance behind the rest of the party, as usual, when I sawthe President wheel his horse off to the left, and, beckoning to meto follow, start at a tearing pace on the trail of the fleeing elk. Heafterwards told me that he wanted me to get a good view of those elkat close range, and he was afraid that if he sent the major or Hoferto lead me, I would not get it. I hurried along as fast as I could, which was not fast; the way was rough, --logs, rocks, spring runs, anda tenderfoot rider. WILD ELK Now and then the President, looking back and seeing what slow progressI was making, would beckon to me impatiently, and I could fancy himsaying, "If I had a rope around him, he would come faster than that!"Once or twice I lost sight of both him and the elk; the altitude wasgreat, and the horse was laboring like a steam-engine on an upgrade. Still I urged him on. Presently, as I broke over a hill, I saw thePresident pressing the elk up the opposite slope. At the brow of thehill he stopped, and I soon joined him. There on the top, not fiftyyards away, stood the elk in a mass, their heads toward us and theirtongues hanging out. They could run no farther. The President laughedlike a boy. The spectacle meant much more to him than it did to me. Ihad never seen a wild elk till on this trip, but they had been amongthe notable game that he had hunted. He had traveled hundreds ofmiles, and undergone great hardships, to get within rifle range ofthese creatures. Now here stood scores of them, with lolling tongues, begging for mercy. After gazing at them to our hearts' content, we turned away to look upour companions, who were nowhere within sight. We finally spied them amile or more away, and, joining them, all made our way to an elevatedplateau that commanded an open landscape three or four miles across. It was high noon, and the sun shone clear and warm. From this lookoutwe saw herds upon herds of elk scattered over the slopes and gentlevalleys in front of us. Some were grazing, some were standing or lyingupon the ground, or upon the patches of snow. Through our glasses wecounted the separate bands, and then the numbers of some of the bandsor groups, and estimated that three thousand elk were in full view inthe landscape around us. It was a notable spectacle. Afterward, inMontana, I attended a council of Indian chiefs at one of the Indianagencies, and told them, through their interpreter, that I had beenwith the Great Chief in the Park, and of the game we had seen. When Itold them of these three thousand elk all in view at once, theygrunted loudly, whether with satisfaction or with incredulity, I couldnot tell. In the midst of this great game amphitheatre we dismounted and enjoyedthe prospect. And the President did an unusual thing, he loafed fornearly an hour, --stretched himself out in the sunshine upon a flatrock, as did the rest of us, and, I hope, got a few winks of sleep. Iam sure I did. Little, slender, striped chipmunks, about half the sizeof ours, were scurrying about; but I recall no other wild thing savethe elk. TOWER FALLS From here we rode down the valley to our third camp, at Tower Falls, stopping on the way to eat our luncheon on a washed boulder beside acreek. On this ride I saw my first and only badger; he stuck hisstriped head out of his hole in the ground only a few yards away fromus as we passed. Our camp at Tower Falls was amid the spruces above a caņon of theYellowstone, five or six hundred feet deep. It was a beautiful andimpressive situation, --shelter, snugness, even cosiness, --looking overthe brink of the awful and the terrifying. With a run and a jump Ithink one might have landed in the river at the bottom of the greatabyss, and in doing so might have scaled one of those natural obelisksor needles of rock that stand up out of the depths two or threehundred feet high. Nature shows you what an enormous furrow her ploughcan open through the strata when mowing horizontally, at the same timethat she shows you what delicate and graceful columns her slower andgentler aerial forces can carve out of the piled strata. At the Fallsthere were two or three of these columns, like the picket-pins of theelder gods. MOUNTAIN SHEEP Across the caņon in front of our camp, upon a grassy plateau which wasfaced by a wall of trap rock, apparently thirty or forty feet high, aband of mountain sheep soon attracted our attention. They were withinlong rifle range, but were not at all disturbed by our presence, norhad they been disturbed by the road-builders who, under CaptainChittenden, were constructing a government road along the brink of thecaņon. We speculated as to whether or not the sheep could get down thealmost perpendicular face of the chasm to the river to drink. Itseemed to me impossible. Would they try it while we were there to see?We all hoped so; and sure enough, late in the afternoon the word cameto our tents that the sheep were coming down. The President, with coatoff and a towel around his neck, was shaving. One side of his face washalf shaved, and the other side lathered. Hofer and I started for apoint on the brink of the caņon where we could have a better view. "By Jove, " said the President, "I must see that. The shaving can wait, and the sheep won't. " WATCHING THE "STUNT" So on he came, accoutred as he was, --coatless, hatless, but notlatherless, nor towelless. Like the rest of us, his only thought wasto see those sheep do their "stunt. " With glasses in hand, wewatched them descend those perilous heights, leaping from point topoint, finding a foothold where none appeared to our eyes, looseningfragments of the crumbling rocks as they came, now poised upon somenarrow shelf and preparing for the next leap, zigzagging or plungingstraight down till the bottom was reached, and not one accident ormisstep amid all that insecure footing. I think the President was themost pleased of us all; he laughed with the delight of it, and quiteforgot his need of a hat and coat till I sent for them. [Illustration: MR. BURROUGHS'S FAVORITE PASTIME. By kind permission of Forest and Stream. ] In the night we heard the sheep going back; we could tell by the noiseof the falling stones. In the morning I confidently expected to seesome of them lying dead at the foot of the cliffs, but there they allwere at the top once more, apparently safe and sound. They do, however, occasionally meet with accidents in their perilous climbing, and their dead bodies have been found at the foot of the rocks. Doubtless some point of rock to which they had trusted gave way, andcrushed them in the descent, or fell upon those in the lead. TROUT FISHING The next day, while the rest of us went fishing for trout in theYellowstone, three or four miles above camp, over the roughest trailthat we had yet traversed on horseback, the President, who neverfishes unless put to it for meat, went off alone again with his lunchin his pocket, to stalk those sheep as he had stalked the elk, and tofeel the old sportsman's thrill without the use of firearms. To dothis involved a tramp of eight or ten miles down the river to a bridgeand up the opposite bank. This he did, and ate his lunch near thesheep, and was back in camp before we were. We took some large cut-throat trout, as they are called, from theyellow mark across their throats, and I saw at short range ablack-tailed deer bounding along in that curious, stiff-legged, mechanical, yet springy manner, apparently all four legs in the air atonce, and all four feet reaching the ground at once, affording a verysingular spectacle. RETURN TO FORT YELLOWSTONE We spent two nights in our Tower Falls camp, and on the morning of thethird day set out on our return to Fort Yellowstone, pausing atYancey's on our way, and exchanging greetings with the oldfrontiersman, who died a few weeks later. AROUND THE CAMP FIRE While in camp we always had a big fire at night in the open near thetents, and around this we sat upon logs or camp-stools, and listenedto the President's talk. What a stream of it he poured forth! and whata varied and picturesque stream!--anecdote, history, science, politics, adventure, literature; bits of his experience as a ranchman, hunter, Rough Rider, legislator, Civil Service commissioner, policecommissioner, governor, president, --the frankest confessions, the mosttelling criticisms, happy characterizations of prominent politicalleaders, or foreign rulers, or members of his own Cabinet; alwayssurprising by his candor, astonishing by his memory, and diverting byhis humor. His reading has been very wide, and he has that rare typeof memory which retains details as well as mass and generalities. Onenight something started him off on ancient history, and one would havethought he was just fresh from his college course in history, thedates and names and events came so readily. Another time he discussedpalæontology, and rapidly gave the outlines of the science, and themain facts, as if he had been reading up on the subject that very day. He sees things as wholes, and hence the relation of the parts comeseasy to him. At dinner, at the White House, the night before we started on theexpedition, I heard him talking with a guest, --an officer of theBritish army, who was just back from India. And the extent and varietyof his information about India and Indian history and the relations ofthe British government to it were extraordinary. It put the Britishmajor on his mettle to keep pace with him. THE PRESIDENT TELLING STORIES One night in camp he told us the story of one of his Rough Riders whohad just written him from some place in Arizona. The Rough Riders, wherever they are now, look to him in time of trouble. This one hadcome to grief in Arizona. He was in jail. So he wrote the President, and his letter ran something like this:-- "DEAR COLONEL, --I am in trouble. I shot a lady in the eye, but I didnot intend to hit the lady; I was shooting at my wife. " And the presidential laughter rang out over the treetops. To anotherRough Rider, who was in jail, accused of horse stealing, he had loanedtwo hundred dollars to pay counsel on his trial, and, to his surprise, in due time the money came back. The Ex-Rough wrote that his trialnever came off. "_We elected our district attorney_;" and the laughteragain sounded, and drowned the noise of the brook near by. On another occasion we asked the President if he was ever molested byany of the "bad men" of the frontier, with whom he had often come incontact. "Only once, " he said. The cowboys had always treated him withthe utmost courtesy, both on the round-up and in camp; "and the fewreal desperadoes I have seen were also perfectly polite. " Once onlywas he maliciously shot at, and then not by a cowboy nor a _bona fide_"bad man, " but by a "broad-hatted ruffian of a cheap and commonplacetype. " He had been compelled to pass the night at a little frontierhotel where the bar-room occupied the whole lower floor, and was, inconsequence, the only place where the guests of the hotel, whetherdrunk or sober, could sit. As he entered the room, he saw that everyman there was being terrorized by a half-drunken ruffian who stood inthe middle of the floor with a revolver in each hand, compellingdifferent ones to treat. FLOORING A RUFFIAN "I went and sat down behind the stove, " said the President, "as farfrom him as I could get; and hoped to escape his notice. The fact thatI wore glasses, together with my evident desire to avoid a fight, apparently gave him the impression that I could be imposed upon withimpunity. He very soon approached me, flourishing his two guns, andordered me to treat. I made no reply for some moments, when the fellowbecame so threatening that I saw something had to be done. The crowd, mostly sheep-herders and small grangers, sat or stood back against thewall, afraid to move. I was unarmed, and thought rapidly. Saying, 'Well, if I must, I must, ' I got up as if to walk around him to thebar, then, as I got opposite him, I wheeled and fetched him as heavy ablow on the chin-point as I could strike. He went down like a steerbefore the axe, firing both guns into the ceiling as he went. Ijumped on him, and, with my knees on his chest, disarmed him in ahurry. The crowd was then ready enough to help me, and we hog-tied himand put him in an outhouse. " The President alludes to this incident inhis "Ranch Life, " but does not give the details. It brings out hismettle very distinctly. He told us in an amused way of the attempts of his political opponentsat Albany, during his early career as a member of the Assembly, tobesmirch his character. His outspoken criticisms and denunciations hadbecome intolerable to them, so they laid a trap for him, but he wasnot caught. His innate rectitude and instinct for the right coursesaved him, as it has saved him many times since. I do not think thatin any emergency he has to debate with himself long as to the rightcourse to be pursued; he divines it by a kind of infallible instinct. His motives are so simple and direct that he finds a straight and easycourse where another man, whose eye is less single, would flounder andhesitate. RARE COMBINATION OF QUALITIES The President unites in himself powers and qualities that rarely gotogether. Thus, he has both physical and moral courage in a degreerare in history. He can stand calm and unflinching in the path of acharging grizzly, and he can confront with equal coolness anddetermination the predaceous corporations and money powers of thecountry. He unites the qualities of the man of action with those of the scholarand writer, --another very rare combination. He unites the instinctsand accomplishments of the best breeding and culture with the broadestdemocratic sympathies and affiliations. He is as happy with afrontiersman like Seth Bullock as with a fellow Harvard man, and SethBullock is happy, too. He unites great austerity with great good-nature. He unites greatsensibility with great force and will power. He loves solitude, and heloves to be in the thick of the fight. His love of nature is equaledonly by his love of the ways and marts of men. He is doubtless the most vital man on the continent, if not on theplanet, to-day. He is many-sided, and every side throbs with histremendous life and energy; the pressure is equal all around. Hisinterests are as keen in natural history as in economics, inliterature as in statecraft, in the young poet as in the old soldier, in preserving peace as in preparing for war. And he can turn all hisgreat power into the new channel on the instant. His interest in thewhole of life, and in the whole life of the nation, never flags for amoment. His activity is tireless. All the relaxation he needs orcraves is a change of work. He is like the farmer's fields, that onlyneed a rotation of crops. I once heard him say that all he caredabout being President was just "the big work. " During this tour through the West, lasting over two months, he madenearly three hundred speeches; and yet on his return Mrs. Roosevelttold me he looked as fresh and unworn as when he left home. SLEIGHING AMONG THE GEYSERS We went up into the big geyser region with the big sleighs, each drawnby four horses. A big snowbank had to be shoveled through for usbefore we got to the Golden Gate, two miles above Mammoth Hot Springs. Beyond that we were at an altitude of about eight thousand feet, on afairly level course that led now through woods, and now through opencountry, with the snow of a uniform depth of four or five feet, exceptas we neared the "formations, " where the subterranean warmth kept theground bare. The roads had been broken and the snow packed for us byteams from the fort, otherwise the journey would have been impossible. The President always rode beside the driver. From his youth, he said, this seat had always been the most desirable one to him. When thesleigh would strike the bare ground, and begin to drag heavily, hewould bound out nimbly and take to his heels, and then all three ofus--Major Pitcher, Mr. Childs, and myself--would follow suit, sometimes reluctantly on my part. Walking at that altitude is nofun, especially if you try to keep pace with such a walker as thePresident is. But he could not sit at his ease and let those horsesdrag him in a sleigh over bare ground. When snow was reached, we wouldagain quickly resume our seats. [Illustration: SUNRISE IN YELLOWSTONE PARK. From stereograph, copyright 1904, by Underwood & Underwood, New York. ] As one nears the geyser region, he gets the impression from thecolumns of steam going up here and there in the distance--now frombehind a piece of woods, now from out a hidden valley--that he isapproaching a manufacturing centre, or a railroad terminus. And whenhe begins to hear the hoarse snoring of "Roaring Mountain, " theillusion is still more complete. At Norris's there is a big vent wherethe steam comes tearing out of a recent hole in the ground withterrific force. Huge mounds of ice had formed from the congealed vaporall around it, some of them very striking. OLD FAITHFUL The novelty of the geyser region soon wears off. Steam and hot waterare steam and hot water the world over, and the exhibition of themhere did not differ, except in volume, from what one sees by his ownfireside. The "Growler" is only a boiling teakettle on a large scale, and "Old Faithful" is as if the lid were to fly off, and the wholecontents of the kettle should be thrown high into the air. To be sure, boiling lakes and steaming rivers are not common, but the new featuresseemed, somehow, out of place, and as if nature had made a mistake. One disliked to see so much good steam and hot water going to waste;whole towns might be warmed by them, and big wheels made to go round. I wondered that they had not piped them into the big hotels which theyopened for us, and which were warmed by wood fires. At Norris's the big room that the President and I occupied was on theground floor, and was heated by a huge box stove. As we entered it togo to bed, the President said, "Oom John, don't you think it is toohot here?" "I certainly do, " I replied. "Shall I open the window?" "That will just suit me. " And he threw the sash, which came down tothe floor, all the way up, making an opening like a doorway. The nightwas cold, but neither of us suffered from the abundance of fresh air. The caretaker of the building was a big Swede called Andy. In themorning Andy said that beat him: "There was the President of theUnited States sleeping in that room, with the window open to thefloor, and not so much as one soldier outside on guard. " The President had counted much on seeing the bears that in summerboard at the Fountain Hotel, but they were not yet out of their dens. We saw the track of only one, and he was not making for the hotel. Atall the formations where the geysers are, the ground was bare over alarge area. I even saw a wild flower--an early buttercup, not an inchhigh--in bloom. This seems to be the earliest wild flower in theRockies. It is the only fragrant buttercup I know. CAPTURING A MOUSE As we were riding along in our big sleigh toward the Fountain Hotel, the President suddenly jumped out, and, with his soft hat as a shieldto his hand, captured a mouse that was running along over the groundnear us. He wanted it for Dr. Merriam, on the chance that it might bea new species. While we all went fishing in the afternoon, thePresident skinned his mouse, and prepared the pelt to be sent toWashington. It was done as neatly as a professed taxidermist wouldhave done it. This was the only game the President killed in the Park. In relating the incident to a reporter while I was in Spokane, thethought occurred to me, Suppose he changes that _u_ to an _o_, andmakes the President capture a moose, what a pickle I shall be in! Isit anything more than ordinary newspaper enterprise to turn a mouseinto a moose? But, luckily for me, no such metamorphosis happened tothat little mouse. It turned out not to be a new species, as it shouldhave been, but a species new to the Park. I caught trout that afternoon, on the edge of steaming pools in theMadison River, that seemed to my hand almost blood-warm. I supposethey found better feeding where the water was warm. On the table theydid not compare with our Eastern brook trout. I was pleased to be told at one of the hotels that they had kalsominedsome of the rooms with material from one of the devil's paint-pots. Itimparted a soft, delicate, pinkish tint, not at all suggestive ofthings satanic. THE MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD One afternoon at Norris's, the President and I took a walk to observethe birds. In the grove about the barns there was a great number, themost attractive to me being the mountain bluebird. These birds we sawin all parts of the Park, and at Norris's there was an unusual numberof them. How blue they were, --breast and all. In voice and manner theywere almost identical with our bluebird. The Western purple finch wasabundant here also, and juncos, and several kinds of sparrows, with anoccasional Western robin. A pair of wild geese were feeding in thelow, marshy ground not over one hundred yards from us, but when wetried to approach nearer they took wing. A few geese and ducks seem towinter in the Park. The second morning at Norris's, one of our teamsters, George Marvin, suddenly dropped dead from some heart affection, just as he hadfinished caring for his team. It was a great shock to us all. I neversaw a better man with a team than he was. I had ridden on the seatbeside him all the day previous. On one of the "formations" our teamshad got mired in the soft, putty-like mud, and at one time it lookedas if they could never extricate themselves, and I doubt if they couldhave, had it not been for the skill with which Marvin managed them. Westarted for the Grand Caņon up the Yellowstone that morning, and, inorder to give myself a walk over the crisp snow in the clear, frostyair, I set out a little while in advance of the teams. As I did so, Isaw the President, accompanied by one of the teamsters, walkinghurriedly toward the barn to pay his last respects to the body ofMarvin. After we had returned to Mammoth Hot Springs, he madeinquiries for the young woman to whom he had been told that Marvin wasengaged to be married. He looked her up, and sat a long time with herin her home, offering his sympathy, and speaking words of consolation. The act shows the depth and breadth of his humanity. TRAVELING ON SKIS At the Caņon Hotel the snow was very deep, and had become so soft fromthe warmth of the earth beneath, as well as from the sun above, thatwe could only reach the brink of the Caņon on skis. The President andMajor Pitcher had used skis before, but I had not, and, starting outwithout the customary pole, I soon came to grief. The snow gave waybeneath me, and I was soon in an awkward predicament. The more Istruggled, the lower my head and shoulders went, till only my heels, strapped to those long timbers, protruded above the snow. To reversemy position was impossible till some one came, and reached me the endof a pole, and pulled me upright. But I very soon got the hang of thethings, and the President and I quickly left the superintendentbehind. I think I could have passed the President, but my mannersforbade. He was heavier than I was, and broke in more. When one of hisfeet would go down half a yard or more, I noted with admiration theskilled diplomacy he displayed in extricating it. The tendency of myskis was all the time to diverge, and each to go off at an acute angleto my main course, and I had constantly to be on the alert to checkthis tendency. Paths had been shoveled for us along the brink of the Caņon, so thatwe got the usual views from the different points. The Caņon was nearlyfree from snow, and was a grand spectacle, by far the grandest to beseen in the Park. The President told us that once, when pressed formeat, while returning through here from one of his hunting trips, hehad made his way down to the river that we saw rushing along beneathus, and had caught some trout for dinner. Necessity alone could inducehim to fish. Across the head of the Falls there was a bridge of snow and ice, uponwhich we were told that the coyotes passed. As the season progressed, there would come a day when the bridge would not be safe. It would beinteresting to know if the coyotes knew when this time arrived. The only live thing we saw in the Caņon was an osprey perched upon arock opposite us. Near the falls of the Yellowstone, as at other places we had visited, a squad of soldiers had their winter quarters. The President alwayscalled on them, looked over the books they had to read, examined theirhousekeeping arrangements, and conversed freely with them. In front of the hotel were some low hills separated by gentle valleys. At the President's suggestion, he and I raced on our skis down thoseinclines. We had only to stand up straight, and let gravity do therest. As we were going swiftly down the side of one of the hills, Isaw out of the corner of my eye the President taking a header into thesnow. The snow had given way beneath him, and nothing could save himfrom taking the plunge. I don't know whether I called out, or onlythought, something about the downfall of the administration. At anyrate, the administration was down, and pretty well buried, but it wasquickly on its feet again, shaking off the snow with a boy'slaughter. I kept straight on, and very soon the laugh was on me, forthe treacherous snow sank beneath me, and I took a header, too. "Who is laughing now, Oom John?" called out the President. The spirit of the boy was in the air that day about the Caņon of theYellowstone, and the biggest boy of us all was President Roosevelt. HOMEWARD BOUND The snow was getting so soft in the middle of the day that our returnto the Mammoth Hot Springs could no longer be delayed. Accordingly, wewere up in the morning, and ready to start on the home journey, adistance of twenty miles, by four o'clock. The snow bore up the horseswell till mid-forenoon, when it began to give way beneath them. But byvery careful management we pulled through without serious delay, andwere back again at the house of Major Pitcher in time for luncheon, being the only outsiders who had ever made the tour of the Park soearly in the season. A few days later I bade good-by to the President, who went on his wayto California, while I made a loop of travel to Spokane, and aroundthrough Idaho and Montana, and had glimpses of the great, optimistic, sunshiny West that I shall not soon forget.