I have said that I stood in dread of the necessity of snowshoeing in
the Park, and, in lieu of that, of horseback riding. Yet when we
reached Gardiner, the entrance 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 saddle-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 cowboys 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-off;" 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 curtain, but, looking ahead
out of the sides of the vehicle, I saw two good-sized logs lying
across our course. Surely, I thought (and barely had time to think),
he will avoid these. But he did not, and as we passed over them I was
nearly thrown through the top of the ambulance. "This _is_ a lively
send-off," I said, rubbing my bruises with one hand, while I clung to
the seat with the other. Presently I saw the cowboys scrambling up the
bank as if to get out of our way; then the President on his fine gray
stallion scrambling up the bank with his escort, and looking ominously
in my direction, as we thundered by.