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in a level and docketed world, appeared to his generation as the reincarna- 

 tion of forces primitive, overmastering, and heroic. An honest Odysseus ! 

 — toil-worn and stormbeaten, yet still with the spirit and strength, the 

 many devices of a boy ; capable, like his prototype, in one short day of 

 crushing his enemies, upholding his friends, purifying his house ; and then, 

 with the heat of righteous battle still upon him, with its gore, so to 

 speak, still upon his hands, of turning his mind, without a pause and 

 without hypocrisy, to things intimate and soft and pure — the domestic- 

 sweetness of Penelope, the young promise of Telemachus. The President 

 stood, a rugged figure, among the cosmopolitan crowd, breasting the 

 modern world, like some ocean headland, yet not truly of it, one of the 

 great fighters and workers of mankind, with a laugh that pealed above * 

 the noise, blue eyes that seemed to pursue some converse of their own, 

 and a hand that grasped and cheered, where other hands withdrew and 

 repelled. This one man's will had now, for some years, made the pivot 

 on which vast issues turned — issues of peace and war, of policy embracing 

 the civilised world ; and here, one saw him in drawing-rooms, discussing 

 Alaric's campaigns with an Oxford professor, or chatting with a young 

 mother about her children." 



On leaving White House, Mr. Bryce and I lunched with Mr. Fisher. 

 The Ambassador was exceedingly kind, and although very busy, placed the 

 best part of a whole day at my service. At 5.45 on the same afternoon, in 

 company with three agricultural experts from the National Department 

 % bf Agriculture, Messrs. Chilcott, Jardine, and Briggs — who were also 

 journeying to the Congress — I left Washington for Chicago on the 

 Pennsylvania Express. Next afternoon at 4- p.m. on the very minute of 

 time, we drew into the Chicago depot, having done a distance of almost 

 900 miles. And two hours later I boarded the Overland Limited for 

 Cheyenne. Next morning we crossed the Missouri River at Omaha. It 

 was frozen solid, and all day we rushed through the snow-clad plains of 

 Nebraska. Towards evening we encountered a blinding blizzard ; a 

 hurricane of snow and sleet swept along the line, and finally our train 

 slowed down and stopped. All night long the storm raged ; and as the 

 dawn broke we could just make out, massed on a short side track beside 

 us, three great transcontinental trains with their engines buried in snow 

 and ice from cow-catcher to coal-box. The Union Pacific Company has 

 adopted the electric block system by which at every half-mile signals rise 

 and fall, and red lights change to green, at the touch of the passing 

 engine ; and there is but little doubt that to this marvellous device was 

 due our safety in the midst of a blinding snowstorm, on a single line, 

 crowded with tremendous traffic. That same day, at noon, on the 23rd 

 February, we reached Cheyenne, the Capital of the State of Wyoming, 

 which lies roughly 2,000 miles from New York. 



Half an hour later the third annual meeting of the Trans-Missouri 

 Dry-farming Congress Avas opened by His Excellency Governor Bryant 

 B. Brooks of Wyoming, in the Capital Avenue Theatre, in the presence 

 of a large and varied gathering. The proceedings were marked by great 

 enthusiasm and sustained interest. Over 500 delegates were 

 present. A great many more, however, were expected, but were delayed 

 by the snowstorm. It is worthy of note that the first dry-farming congress 

 was held in the City of Denver where, curiously enough, the first National 

 Irrigation Congress also met. This first congress started as a sort of 

 s ; de show to the National Live Stock Association, but it was soon seen 



