Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [227]
Roosevelt had been pleasantly surprised, during his earlier wolf hunt in Oklahoma, to find that he still had plenty of physical vitality. (“One run was nine miles long and I was the only man in at the finish except the professional wolf hunter Abernathy.”) Going without lunch for weeks had reduced his weight, while leaping and sliding down mountain ravines gave him the exultant, if illusory, sense of being young again. On 24 April, he killed another bear, and on 25 April yet another, a small female, breaking her neck with a single bullet. Then he began to feel ill.
Late that evening, a telegram in cipher from Taft arrived by special messenger at the White House communications center in Glenwood Springs. After it was decoded overnight, William Loeb found that it contained the text of a secret cable from Baron Jutaro Komura, the Japanese Foreign Minister, to Takahira.
You are hereby instructed to convey to the President through the Secretary of War cordial thanks of the Imperial Government for his observation and at the same time to declare that Japan adheres to the position of maintaining the Open Door in Manchuria and of restoring that province to China. Further you will say that the Imperial Government, finding that the views of the President coincide with their own on the subject of direct negotiations, would be highly gratified if he has any views of which he is willing or feels at liberty to give … in order to pave the way for the inauguration of such negotiation.
Taft added, in a postscript to Roosevelt: “Letter from Griscom today says Denison of Japanese Foreign Office says they are anxious to effect peace through you.… Cassini has sulked ever since your departure. Would it be wise to suggest beginning through him or through Jusserand?”
Loeb felt unable to trust any messenger with such a document, and decided to deliver it himself. He took a train to New Castle, then hired a mustang and a horse wrangler and ascended the mountain there. Arriving at Roosevelt’s camp late that afternoon, he handed the telegram over.
The President read it, and at once became deeply thoughtful. At dinner, Loeb and Lambert both noticed that Roosevelt was not himself. He said little and had no appetite. The telegram was clearly weighing on him. Before going to bed, he wrote a letter to Philip B. Stewart, the organizer of his hunt, saying that he was not well and would be returning to Washington earlier than planned.
At 9:00 P.M., Loeb accompanied him and Lambert to the log cabin. The night was cold, and clouds obscured the mountain. Snowdrifts covered the creek bottom. Loeb was assigned a bunk with thick blankets. Before blowing out his candle, he saw Skip snuggling against the President for extra warmth.
Around midnight, Loeb was awakened by the sound of footfalls scrunching in the drifts outside. Roosevelt’s bunk was empty. Fresh snow was falling outside the cabin’s open door. Not for several moments did Loeb make out the pajama-clad figure of the President of the United States walking barefoot to and fro in the whiteness, with Skip clasped in his arms.
Incredulous, Loeb called out. Roosevelt stopped and turned. “Is that you, Billy?”
Loeb could see that he was completely disoriented with Cuban fever. The President allowed himself to be led back inside, but held fast to Skip. Loeb silently prodded Lambert awake. They treated Roosevelt with lemon juice, calomel, and quinine, then tucked him into bed like a child, the dog still close to his chest.
The next morning at eight, he was dressed and ready for breakfast. He looked seedy, but talked for an hour about the Japanese proposal, as if not quite sure how to respond. Certainly he did not intend to come running back. He dictated a telegram for Loeb to send Taft from Glenwood Springs:
Am a good deal puzzled by your telegram and in view of it and the other information I receive I shall come in from my hunt and start home Monday, May eighth instead of May fifteenth as