Outside half a hundred newspaper correspondents were assembled awaiting news. Meanwhile the nation—the world—stood watching for the final word. Buffalo, where the President was assassinated, stood agape with horror and rage. It was past midday when he had entered upon his final struggle. The thousands gathered at the Pan-American Exposition, the nation and the outside world were not prepared even then for a realization that the worst was at hand. A furious rainstorm was sweeping the city when the first ominous announcement came from the Milburn house: “President McKinley is dying. He can live but a few moments.” Then signal service operators took possession of the telegraph wires leading to the house of death. Cabinet officers and members of the President’s family began to arrive, and the beginning of the end had come. Then it was announced that the President might live for several hours. But even then his limbs were growing cold and his pulse was fluttering with the feeble efforts of his will alone. He was conscious. Every light in the house was aglow. Within, the wife had paid her last tribute to her dying sweetheart of thirty years. Dr. Rixey led her into the room, and as she laid her head alongside his she sobbed: “I cannot let him go.” She knew that the President was dying then, and in the dim silence of her adjoining room she waited and wept as the hours sped and the doctors wondered at the mighty battle of the dying man. It was midnight when Secretary Long of the Navy arrived. He found his beloved chief alive, but unconscious, and Dr. Mann told him, as he stood in the hallway, “The President is pulseless and dying, but he may live an hour.” At half an hour past midnight Coroner Wilson arrived at the Milburn house, and an unfounded announcement of McKinley’s death was quickly telegraphed to all parts of the country. He left as soon as he found that the order summoning him was a mistake. But the President, now finally unconscious, and breathing but faintly, struggled on. Midnight, 1 and 2 o’clock, found him wavering on the verge, and the men of science could but stand and marvel at the wondrous but hopeless fight which he had maintained so long. Intervals of apparent consciousness came upon him. Sometimes he opened his fading eyes and gazed calmly around. At 2 o’clock the dim, gray light began to fall across his shrunken face, and then—death won! He had been unconscious, the doctors said, for nearly six hours. During all this time he had been gradually sinking. For the last half hour he had been in such condition that it was difficult to tell when he breathed. With him at the time of his death was Dr. Rixey, alone of all the physicians, and by the side of the bed were grouped Senator Hanna and members of the President’s family.