CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT 49 



they gone to the extreme end of the pool, we could 

 have had boiled mallard for dinner. 



Another novel spectacle was at night, or near sun- 

 down, when the deer came down from the hills into 

 the streets, and ate hay a few yards from the officers' 

 quarters, as unconcernedly as so many domestic sheep. 

 This they had been doing all winter, and they kept it 

 up till May, at times a score or more of them profiting 

 thus on the government's bounty. When the sundown 

 gun was fired a couple of hundred yards away, they 

 gave a nervous start, but kept on with their feeding. 

 The antelope and elk and mountain sheep had not 

 yet grown bold enough to accept Uncle Sam's charity 

 in that way. 



The President wanted all the freedom and solitude 

 possible while in the Park, so all newspaper men and 

 other strangers were excluded. Even the secret service 

 men and his physician and private secretaries were 

 left at Gardiner. He craved once more to be alone with 

 nature; he was evidently hungry for the wild and the 

 aboriginal, — a hunger that seems to come upon him 

 regularly at least once a year, and drives him forth on 

 his hunting trips for big game in the West. 



We spent two weeks in the Park, and had fail 

 weather, bright, crisp days, and clear, freezing nights. 

 The first week we occupied three camps that had been 

 prepared, or partly prepared, for us in the northeast 

 corner of the Park, in the region drained by the 

 Gardiner River, where there was but little snow, and 

 which we reached on horseback. 



The second week we visited the geyser region, 

 which lies a thousand feet or more higher, and where 

 the snow was still five or six feet deep. This part of 



