[Illustration:  We Met Some Farmers.]

The farmers thought we were great and they followed us back to the farm, where we found the herd of elephants had taken possession and were having the time of their lives.  About a dozen of the big elephants had found a couple of barrels of cider in a shed and had been drinking it, and when we got there they were like section hands with jags on.

Bolivar, the big elephant, was the drunkest, and when he saw pa coming with the gang of hands, with ropes and spears, he winked at the other elephants and seemed to say:  “Watch me tree ’em,” for he came out of the gate and bellowed, and made a charge at the gang, and pa beat them all going up crab apple trees.  The senator’s son saw pa up a tree, and he said:  “Old gentleman, if these are your animals, or insects, or whatever they are, you ought to come down off your perch and take them to a Keeley cure, because they are intoxicated.”

[Illustration:  Old Gentleman, You Ought to Come Down Off Your Perch.]

And pa came down and took a fence rail and sharpened it with an ax, and he run it into Bolivar about a foot, and Bolivar trumpeted for surrender, and that settled the elephant strike, for pa ordered Bolivar into the road, and in five minutes the whole herd of elephants was following Bolivar back to Washington, as meek as a drunken husband being led home by his wife.

Gee, what do you think?  The president heard how the senator’s boy and I stampeded the elephants and invited the senator’s boy to bring his young friend around to the white house to supper.  Well, we went.

I forgot what we had to eat, I was so interested in the president’s conversation.  He talked about the show business as though he had been a ringmaster in a circus.  He said he was in the show the day before when we stampeded the elephants, and he told us about his hunting trips in the west, until I could smell bacon cooking at the camp fire, and I could smell the balsam boughs they slept on, on the ground.

When he let up a little on his talk, I braced up and asked him if he had rather shoot wild cats and bears than be president.  He hedged and said both occupations worked pretty well together and he had enjoyed ’em both.  Then I asked him if he was going to run for president again, and he winked at his wife, and then he asked me what made me ask the question.  I told him pa wanted me to find out.  I told him all the boys wanted him to run, ’cause he was a good feller, and not afraid of the cars.

The president laughed and said:  “Well, it’s this way.  The president business is a good deal like bear hunting.  You get on a fresh track, either in politics or bear hunting, and follow the game with dogs, or politicians, as the case may be.  The trail keeps getting fresher and by and by the game is in sight, and the dogs are nipping its hind legs, if it is a bear, or chewing big words if it is an opposing candidate, and nipping him in exposed