awn by two span of mules for me, I confess that I
experienced just a slight shade of mortification. I thought they might
have given me the option of the saddle or the ambulance. Yet I entered
the vehicle as if it was just what I had been expecting.

The President and his escort, with a cloud of cowboys hovering in the
rear, 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 gripping
the seat with both hands. "Well," I said to myself, "they are giving
me a regular Western send-off;" and I thought, as the ambulance swayed
from side to side, that it would suit me just as well if my driver did
not try to keep up with the presidential procession. The driver and
his mules were shut off from me by a curtain, but, looking ahead out
of the sides of the vehicle, I saw two good-sized logs lying across
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 was nearly
thrown through the top of the ambulance. "This _is_ a lively
send-off," I said, rubbing my bruises with one hand, while I clung to
the seat with the other. Presently I saw the cowboys scrambling up
the bank as if to get out of our way; then the President on his fine
gray stallion scrambling up the bank with his escort, and looking
ominously in my direction, as we thundered by.

[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT WITH MR. BURROUGHS AND SECRETARY
LOEB JUST BEFORE ENTERING THE PARK.

From stereograph, copyright 1906, by Underwood & Underwood,
New York.]

"Well," I said, "this is indeed a novel ride; for once in my life I
have sidetracked the President of the United States! I am given the
right of way over all." On we tore, along the smooth, hard road, and
did not slacken our pace till, at the end of a mile or two, we began
to mount the hill toward Fort Yellowstone. And not till we reached the
fort did I learn that our mules had run away. They had been excited
beyond control by the presidential cavalcade, and the driver, finding
he could not hold them, had aimed only to keep them in the road, and
we very soon had the road all to ourselves.

Fort Yellowstone is at Mammoth Hot Springs, where one gets his first
view of the characteristic scenery of the Park,--huge, boiling springs
with their columns of vapor, and the first characteristic odors which
suggest the traditional infernal regions quite as much as the boil