That was one of the great rides in our history. You would have said so if you had been there to see. There were thirty-five miles to be made before the nearest railroad station could be reached. The road was rough and muddy, for a very heavy thunderstorm had fallen that day. Darkness overhung the way, made more gloomy by the thick foliage of the trees. Here and there they stopped for a few minutes to change horses, and then plunged on at full speed again. What thoughts were in the mind of the solitary passenger whom fate was about to make President of the great United States, during that dark and dismal night, no one can tell. Fortune had built for him a mighty career and he was hastening to take up the reins of government, soon to be dropped by the man chosen to hold them. Alden's Lane was reached at 3:15 in the morning and the horses were again changed. The road now before them was the worst of all, for it was very narrow in places and had deep ravines on either side, while heavy forest timber shut it in. But the man who handled the horses knew his road and felt how great a duty had been placed in his hands, and at 5:22 that morning, when the light of dawn was showing in the east, the coach dashed up to the railroad station at North Creek. Here a special train, the locomotive puffing out steam, lay waiting for its distinguished passenger. News of greater weight now greeted the traveler. He was told that the President was dead. He had passed away at Buffalo three hours before. The man who landed as Vice-President on that solitary platform, was now President of the United States. Only the oath of office was needed to make him such. Disturbed in mind by the thrilling news, the traveler of the night stepped quickly into the car that waited for him, and the engine darted away through the dawn of the new day. Speed, speed, speed, was the thought in the mind of the engineer, and over the track dashed the iron horse and its single car, often at a rate of more than a mile a minute. Hour after hour passed by as they rushed across the state. At 1:40 in the afternoon the train came rattling into Buffalo, and its passenger leaped to the platform and made all haste to the house of Ainsley Wilcox, one of his special friends. There, that afternoon, he was sworn into office as President of the United States, and the scene we have described came to an end, one of the most dramatic among those in our country's history. Never before had a man been sought in the depths of a mountain wilderness and ridden through rain and gloom a whole night long, to be told at the end that he had become the ruler of one of the greatest nations on the earth!