"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.

SIDETRACKING THE PRESIDENT

"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.

HUGE BOILING SPRINGS

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 boiling
and steaming water does. One also gets a taste of a much more rarefied
air than he has been used to, and finds himself panting for breath on
a very slight exertion. The Mammoth Hot Springs have built themselves
up an enormous mound that stands there above the village on the side
of the mountain, terraced and scalloped and fluted, and suggesting
some vitreous formation, or rare carving of enormous, many-colored
precious stones. It looks quite unearthly, and, though the devil's
frying pan, and ink pot, and the Stygian caves are not far off, the
suggestion is of something celestial rather than of the nether
regions,--a vision of jasper w