EUGENE COOPER.

"WELL, begin," said George Dunlap.

The other boys laughed.

It was just at the close of summer vacation, and the five friends having met under the old tree, had agreed to give the story of their travels. It had not been decided who should be first speaker, so there seemed nothing to do but laugh over George Dunlap's direction.

"All of us do you mean?" Charlie Smythe asked.

"No, I mean you; or, no, the fellow that took the longest journey shall have the first chance."

"I went just twenty-four miles," said Charlie, meditatively.

Then they all laughed again.

"We needn't laugh, yet," George Dunlap said, when his laugh was over. "It may happen that Charlie saw more in those twenty-four miles, than we who went a thousand."

"I don't believe a single one of us went a thousand miles."

"Oh ho! You don't? Then you are mistaken. I went very nearly two thousand." This from Eugene Cooper.

"Then begin," said George Dunlap. "You're the very fellow."

"Well, from the very beginning, do you mean? It will take a week! In the first place we struck a bee line for Albany, in New York State, you know."

"How do you go to Albany?"

"Well now, that depends on what point you start from; I met a fellow who walked to Albany every Monday morning, and walked back on Friday; but we went by rail."

"Of course; I mean what road?"

"Oh, we went down the New York Central,—took it at Buffalo, you know. We went by steamer to Buffalo, down Lake Erie. That's a splendid ride: great handsome steamer, saloon all carpeted, and curtains and mirrors and sofas, finer than some folks' parlors. I went on deck, and one of the sailors walked around with me and showed me the life-boat, and how they lowered it, and the ropes, and everything. I was sorry when we got to Buffalo. There we took the train. Little narrow cars, not like the Erie, that I've been used to riding on; nice enough, though, and they go like sixty. Why, we were in Albany by dark, and it is two hundred and ninety-eight miles!"

"Well now, we shall be more likely to be astonished, if you tell us what time you left Buffalo."

"Why, in the morning, about ten o'clock."

"That 'was' doing pretty well. Better than my father did; he went from Albany to Buffalo about fifty years ago, and it took him three weeks."

"How long is it since the Central Railroad was built, anyhow?"

"Look here, boys," interrupted Eugene Cooper, "you are stealing my time; I didn't promise to tell about the Central Railroad, nor the way folks used to travel before it was built."

"All right. Tell us about Albany. How big a town is it?"

"Oh, it's big enough, eighty or ninety thousand or so; a handsome old city I tell you! Nice wide streets, some of them; State street is the handsomest,—wide and clean, and straight up a hill. We stopped at the Delavan house; that's the nicest in the city I guess,—nice enough to suit me, anyhow. My! But it's elegant.

"Do you fellows know about Delavan? Father says he was a poor boy, a boot-black, and he used to hear the folks talking a good deal about a house, somewhere in Albany, that cost a great deal of money and was considered very grand in those days. And Delavan stood looking at it one day, and says he to himself, 'I'll build a bigger house than that, one of these days.' He did it, too; father says the house they used to think so fine was just nothing by the side of the Delavan."

"He did a bigger thing than build the Delavan house. I think," said George Dunlap.

"Why, what did he do?" chorused the boys.

"He was a grand temperance man, and worked for the cause and gave money for it."

"Did you go down the Hudson?" questioned Robert Hall, whose mind was on travel, and not on great men.

"I reckon I did! Boys, the Hudson is just the grandest river on this continent I do believe. I got up before daylight to see the palisades."

"I haven't the faintest kind of an idea what the palisades are." This, Charlie Smythe said, stretched out at full length on the grass, a wistful look in his eyes. About twenty-four miles had been the extent of his travels every year, but he longed to see and know.

"Why, my child, the palisades are, are—well now it's difficult to explain things to people who have never seen them."

This was the most comprehensive answer that Horace Brooks, with his extensive opportunities could make, and the boys roared.

"They are rocks, my child, great splendid rocks, from three to five hundred feet high, straight up and down, and they are as much as fifteen miles long. What do you think of such a showing of rocks as that!"

"Where's the sense in calling them palisades? I thought palisades were nothing, but a row of sharp-pointed sticks, built up around a fort, or something of that kind."

This time the boys stared at each other instead of laughing; Charlie was always asking questions that were hard to answer.

"I don't know," said Eugene, frankly. "Do any of you? They look as though they might have been built up for forts, that's a fact. I shouldn't wonder if they took their name from that. Anyhow, they are grand to look at. Oh, that reminds me! Don't you think I saw—"

Just at that moment came an interruption,—a young man tearing down the road in hot haste, waving his hat, and shouting lustily to some one in the distance.

"What's that he is yelling?" asked four of the five boys.

And none of them answering, George Dunlap said, "He's scared at something; let's go and see."

Then every one of those fellows sprang up and took to their heels, regardless of the wonders of travel and the beauties of the Hudson.