GIANT HIPPOPOTAMUS.]

I have not said much about our Presidents, but there was a President
elected in the first year of the twentieth century of whom I must speak,
since his election led to a dreadful event. In the following year (1901)
a beautiful exhibition was held at Buffalo, New York. It was called the
Pan American Exhibition, and was intended to show what the nations of
America had done in the century just closed.

I shall say little about the splendid electrical display, the fountains
with their colored lights, the shining cascades, the glittering domes
and pinnacles, the caverns and grottoes, and all the other brilliant
things to be seen, for I have to speak of something much less pleasant,
the dark deed of murder and treachery which took place at this
exhibition.

President McKinley came to Buffalo early in September to see the fine
display and let the people see him, and on the 6th he stood with smiling
face while many hundreds of visitors passed by and shook hands with him.
In the midst of all this there came a loud, sharp sound. A pistol had
been fired. The President staggered back, with pallid face. Men shouted;
women screamed; a crowd rushed towards the spot; the man who held the
pistol was flung to the floor and hundreds surged forward in fury. "He
has shot our President! Kill him! Kill him!" they cried. The guards had
a hard fight to keep the murderer from being torn to pieces by the
furious throng.

The man who had shot the President belonged to a society called
Anarchists, who hate all rulers and think it their duty to kill all
kings and presidents. Poor, miserable wretch! he suffered the death he
deserved. But his shot had reached its mark, and after a week of fear
and hope, President McKinley died. He was mourned by all the people as
if each of them had lost a member of his or her own family.

You probably know that when a President dies the Vice-President takes
his place. McKinley's Vice-President was a capable man named Theodore
Roosevelt. He was very fond of tramping through the wilds and of hunting
wild beasts. At the time we speak of, when the news of the death of
President McKinley was sent abroad, Vice-President Roosevelt was off on
a long tramp through the Adirondack Mountains of New York, perhaps
hoping to shoot a deer, or possibly a bear.

When the news came, no one knew where he was, and dozens of the
mountain-climbers were sent out to find him. As they spread out and
pushed forwar