CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT 51 



once; but this did not happen, and in due time we 

 reached the group of tents that formed the President's 

 camp. 



The situation was deh'ghtful, — no snow, scattered 

 pine trees, a secluded valley, rocky heights, and the 

 clear, ample, trouty waters of the Yellowstone. The 

 President was not in camp. In the morning he had 

 stated his wish to go alone into the wilderness. Major 

 Pitcher very naturally did not quite like the idea, and 

 wished to send an orderly with him. 



"No," said the President. "Put me up a lunch, 

 and let me go alone. I will surely come back." 



And back he surely came. It was about five o'clock 

 when he came briskly down the path from the east 

 to the camp. It came out that he had tramped about 

 eighteen miles through a very rough country. The day 

 before, he and the major had located a band of sev- 

 eral hundred elk on a broad, treeless hillside, and his 

 purpose was to find those elk, and creep up on them, 

 and eat his lunch under their very noses. And this he 

 did, spending an hour or more within fifty yards of 

 them. He came back looking as fresh as when he 

 started, and at night, sitting before the big camp fire, 

 related his adventure, and talked with his usual em- 

 phasis and copiousness of many things. He told me 

 of the birds he had seen or heard ; among them he had 

 heard one that was new to him. From his description 

 I told him I thought it was Townsend's solitaire, a 

 bird I much wanted to see and hear. I had heard the 

 West India solitaire, — one of the most impressive 

 songsters I ever heard, — and I wished to compare our 

 Western form with it. 



The next morning we set out for our second camp. 



