He Governs a Great State Justly in Spite of the
On September 6th President
McKinley was shot in Buffalo.
Roosevelt heard the news at Isle La
Motte, in Lake Champlain. He went to Buffalo at once, ar- 
riving early the following morning, feeling, as he confessed that
evening, “a hundred years old.” The sudden realization that he might
at any moment be called to the chief place in the nation staggered
him. The possibility had never entered his head.
The news with which he was greeted was
cheering. The President was resting well. Recovery was more than
possible. Roosevelt’s spirits rose.
The bulletins from the bedside continued
favorable. He conferred with the members of the Cabinet, who had
hurried to Buffalo. The affairs of the nation were in firm control.
On the 11th the physicians in attendance declared that the President
was practically out of danger. The members of the Cabinet began
to leave the city. Roosevelt decided to join his family, who were
at the Tahawus Club in the heart of the Adirondacks.
The morning of the 13th was misty,
threatening rain, but Roosevelt had determined to ascend Mount Marcy
with Mrs. Roosevelt and the children that day, and at six they were
on their way. At a pretty lake called “Tear in the Clouds,” Mrs.
Roosevelt and the smaller children turned back, while Roosevelt,
who was hoping that above the clouds on the summit there might be
sunlight, pushed on with the older boys. On the peak, as below,
they found only fog. They descended and camped for luncheon at the
timber-line. A thin rain was falling. They spread out their lunch,
feeling wet and uncomfortable.
News had meanwhile come to North Creek,
 thirty-five miles from Tahawus,
that the President had had a sudden relapse. The message was telephoned
to the lower club, twenty-five miles north. Mounted messengers were
sent to the upper club, ten miles away.
The man in charge of the club told
the riders, when they came, that the Vice-President was somewhere
on the sides of Mount Marcy.
Runners were despatched in all directions.
Roosevelt, descending the mountain
in the late afternoon, heard shots fired in the distance, at regular
intervals. It occurred to him that it was a signal. He fired his
own gun in answer.
It was five o’clock when the men who
were searching for him found him at last. They gave him a message
from the President’s secretary:
The President’s condition has changed for the worse.—CORTELYOU.
He descended quickly
to the club-house. No further news had come. He sent runners to
the lower club-house, ten miles away, where there was telephone
connection with the outside world, and waited. The hours passed.
He walked alone up and down in front
of the cottage where he was living, trying to think it all out.
At one in the morning the summons
arrived, “Come at once.”
He flung his grip into the buckboard
that was waiting for him and was off.
It was a bad night, misty and black.
The road  was less a road
than a wide trail, cut into gorges only a day or two before by a
cloudburst which had drenched Roosevelt on his way to the club.
The driver turned to the man beside
“Go ahead!” cried Roosevelt.
The man went ahead. The light wagon
jumped from side to side, threatening to fling its passengers out
now on this side, now on that. It skirted dangerous abysses, it
just missed dashing into boulders and trees. The driver turned once
“Go on!” cried Roosevelt.
He went on. Into the blackness he
went, the horses finding their way by instinct rather than sight,
the wagon holding together by the grace of Providence.
Ten miles down the trail they found
fresh horses waiting for them. Roosevelt helped the driver unhitch
the exhausted team by the light of a lantern and hitch the new team
to the shaken buckboard. Then again they were off into the blackness.
It was thirty-five miles to the railroad
at North Creek. Ten miles farther down they came on another fresh
relay. They changed the horses and again were away along the rocky
trail at breakneck speed.
Roosevelt clung to the seat as the
wagon swayed this way and that.
“Too fast?” cried the driver.
“Go on!” cried Roosevelt.
The east was paling as they dashed
into North Creek at five in the morning. A special train was 
waiting at the station. The driver drew up at the platform.
Loeb was there to meet him. “The President
is dead,” he said.
Theodore Roosevelt was President of
the United States.