46 CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT 



out-and-out, unequivocal character of him that is one 

 source of his popularity. The people do love trans- 

 parency, — all of them but the politicians. 



A friend of his one day took him to task for some 

 mistake he had made in one of his appointments. " My 

 dear sir," replied the President, " where you know of 

 one mistake I have made, I know of ten." How such 

 candor must make the politicians shiver! 



I have said that I stood in dread of the necessity of 

 snowshoeing in the Park, and, in lieu of that, of horse- 

 back riding. Yet when we reached Gardiner, the en- 

 trance to the Park, on that bright, crisp April morning, 

 with no snow in sight save that on the mountain-tops, 

 and found Major Pitcher and Captain Chittenden at 

 the head of a squad of soldiers, with a fine saddler 

 horse for the President, and an ambulance drawn 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 cow- 

 boys 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 my hands. "Well," I said to myself, 

 "they are giving me a regular Western send-ofi^;" 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 cur- 

 tain, but, looking ahead out of the sides of the vehicle, 

 I saw two good-sized logs lying across our course. 



