ago, despite
the deep nature of the wound, without seriously impairing his chances.

Arriving at Chicago about 3 in the morning of October 15, an ambulance
was procured and the Colonel taken to Mercy hospital, where he was
attended by Dr. John B. Murphy, Dr. Arthur Dean Bevan and Dr. S. L.
Terrell.

A week later, during which the surgeons concluded that the wound was
not mortal, and having recovered his strength somewhat, he was taken
East to his home at Oyster Bay.

The bullet lies where it imbedded itself. It has not been disturbed by
probes, because surgeons have concluded that such an effort would incur
additional danger.

That the shot fired by Schrank didn't succeed in murdering Col.
Roosevelt is a miracle of good fortune. A "thirty-eight" long Colt's
cartridge, fired from a pistol frame of "forty-four" caliber design, so
built because it gives a heavier drive to the projectile, fired at that
close range, meant almost inevitable death.

The aim was taken at a lower portion of Col. Roosevelt's body, but a
bystander struck Schrank's arm at the moment of explosion, and elevated
the direction of the shot. After passing through the Colonel's heavy
military overcoat, and his other clothing, it would have certainly
killed him had it not struck in its course practically everything which
he carried on his person which could impede its force.

In his coat pocket he had fifty pages of manuscript for the night's
speech, which had been doubled, causing the bullet to traverse a
hundred pages of manuscript.

It had struck also his spectacle case on the outer concave surface of
the gun metal material of which the case was constructed. It had passed
through a double fold of his heavy suspenders before reaching his body.

Had anyone of those objects been out of the range of the bullet,
Schrank's dastardly purpose would have been accomplished beyond any
conjecture.

Just before he went to the operating room in the Emergency hospital
Col. Roosevelt directed the following telegram to Mrs. Roosevelt and
gave orders that if the telegraph office at Oyster Bay was closed the
message should be taken to Sagamore Hill by taxicab.

"Am in excellent shape, made an hour and half speech. The wound is
a trivial one. I think they will find that it merely glanced on a
rib and went somewhere into a cavity of the body; it certainly did
not touch a lung and isn't a particle more serious than one of the
injuries any of