But how do all these compare with the ride of Whitman? It, too, was a ride for life or death. Over snow-capped mountains, along ravines, traveled only by savage beasts and savage men. It was a plunge through icy rivers, tired, hungry, cold, and yet he rode on and on, until he stood before the President, four thousand miles away! Let us hope and believe that the time will come when Whitman, standing before President Tyler and Secretary Webster, in his buckskin breeches and a dress as we have shown, which was never woven in loom, will be the subject of some great painting. It would be grandly historical and tell a story that a patriotic people should never forget. Alice Wellington Rollins wrote the following poem, which was published in the New York Independent, and widely copied. The Cassell Publishing Company made it one of their gems in their elegant volume, "Representative Poems of Living Poets," and kindly consent to its use in this volume: WHITMAN'S RIDE. Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of a hero's ride that saved a State. A midnight ride? Nay, child, for a year He rode with a message that could not wait. Eighteen hundred and forty-two; No railroad then had gone crashing through To the Western coast; not a telegraph wire Had guided there the electric fire; But a fire burned in one strong man's breast For a beacon light. You shall hear the rest. He said to his wife; "At the Fort to-day, At Walla Walla, I heard them say That a hundred British men had crossed The mountains; and one young, ardent priest Shouted, 'Hurrah for Oregon! The Yankees are late by a year at least!' They must know this at once at Washington. Another year, and all would be lost. Someone must ride, to give the alarm Across the Continent; untold harm In an hour's delay, and only I Can make them understand how or why The United States must keep Oregon!" Twenty-four hours he stopped to think, To think! Nay then, if he thought at all, He thought as he tightened his saddle-girth. One tried companion, who would not shrink From the worst to come, with a mule or two To carry arms and supplies, would do. With a guide as far as Fort Bent. And she, The woman of proud, heroic worth, Who must part from him, if she wept at all, Wept as she gathered whatever he Might need for the outfit on his way. Fame for the man who rode that day Into the wilds at his Country's call; And for her who waited for him a year On that wild Pacific coast, a tear!