The Search for Roosevelt

Took the Guides All Day Friday to Find Him.

     SARATOGA, N. Y., Sept. 14.—When Theodore Roosevelt and his guide left the Tahawus club early yesterday morning on a hunting expedition, the then Vice President fully believed that President McKinley was entirely out of danger and on the rapid road to recovery. The hunting party moved in the direction of Mount Marcy, the highest peek [sic] in the Adirondacks region. They had not been gone over three hours when a mounted courier rode rapidly up to the Tahawus club with messages to the vice president stating that President McKinley was in a critical condition. The messages had been telegraphed to North Creek and from there telephoned to a point ten miles south of the Tahawus club. Extra guides and runners were at once deployed from the club in the direction of Mount Marcy, with instructions to sound a general alarm in order to find the vice president as soon as possible. The far-reaching megaphones code and the rifle cracking signals of the mountain climbing guides, as hour after hour passed away, marked the progress of the searching mountaineers as they climbed the slope of Mount Marcy. Just as the afternoon began to merge with the shades of early evening, and as the searchers were nearing the summit of the lofty mountain, the responsive eachoes [sic] of distant signals were heard and answered and gradually the scouts and the Roosevelt party came within hailing distance of each other.
     When Col. Roosevelt was reached and informed of the critical condition of the president, he could scarcely believe the burden of the messages personally delivered to him. Startled at the serious nature of the news, the vice president, at 5:45 o’clock, immediately started back for the Tahawus club. In the meantime, the Adirondack stage line placed at his disposal relays of horses covering the thirty-five miles to North Creek. A deluging thunder storm had rendered the roads unusually heavy. Without any delay he moved as rapidly as possible in the direction of North Creek, the northern terminus of the Adirondacks railroad, where his secretary, William Loeb Jr., and Supt. C. D. Hammond, of the Delaware & Hudson railway, with a special train, were awaiting his arrival. Soon after Col. Roosevelt started, night came on and rendered the trip exceedingly difficult and dangerous, as mile after mile was traveled in almost impenetrable darkness, but the expert guides piloted the vice president safely to his objective point. Not until he dashed up to the special train at North Creek at 5:22 o’clock this morning, did he learn that President McKinley had passed away at Buffalo at 2:15 o’clock. Mr. Loeb, his secretary, was the first to break the news to him. The new president was visibly affected by the intelligence and expressed a desire to reach Buffalo as soon as possible.
     Within one minute of his arrival at North Creek he boarded the special train, which at once pulled out in the direction of Buffalo via Saratoga and Albany. He did not complain of fatigue, but looked somewhat pale and careworn.