d, the crack of rifles could be heard on all sides and
megaphones were used to send their voices far through the mountain
defiles. But hour after hour passed and the shades of evening were at
hand, and still no answer came; no sign of Roosevelt and his party could
be traced. Finally, when they were near the high top of Mount Marcy,
answering shots and shouts were heard, and soon the hunting party came
in sight.

When Mr. Roosevelt was told the news they brought--that the President
was at the point of death--he could hardly believe it; for the last news
had said that he was likely to get well. He knew now that he must get to
Buffalo as soon as he could, so that the country should not be without a
President, and he started back for the clubhouse from which he had set
out at a pace that kept the others busy to keep up with him.

Night had fallen when he reached the clubhouse, but there was to be no
sleep for him that night. A stagecoach, drawn by powerful horses, waited
his coming, and in very few minutes he was inside it, the coachman had
drawn his reins and cracked his whip, and away went the horses, plunging
into the darkness of the woods that overhung the road.

That was one of the great rides in our history. You would have said so
if you had been there to see. There were thirty-five miles to be made
before the nearest railroad station could be reached. The road was rough
and muddy, for a very heavy thunderstorm had fallen that day. Darkness
overhung the way, made more gloomy by the thick foliage of the trees.
Here and there they stopped for a few minutes to change horses, and then
plunged on at full speed again. What thoughts were in the mind of the
solitary passenger whom fate was about to make President of the great
United States, during that dark and dismal night, no one can tell.
Fortune had built for him a mighty career and he was hastening to take
up the reins of government, soon to be dropped by the man chosen to hold
them.

Alden's Lane was reached at 3:15 in the morning and the horses were
again changed. The road now before them was the worst of all, for it was
very narrow in places and had deep ravines on either side, while heavy
forest timber shut it in. But the man who handled the horses knew his
road and felt how great a duty had been placed in his hands, and at 5:22
that morning, when the light of dawn was showing in the east, the coach
dashed up to the railroad station at North Creek. Here a special