Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/299



HERE have you started for, anyway?" inquired the conductor, after a little pause.

Joe replied that they had set out from Mount Airy to run across the State, and that when they reached the farther end of their route they would be about three hundred miles from home.

"I suppose your object is to have fun and see the country, isn't it?" said the conductor. "Now of course I don't know anything about wheeling, but I should say that you could not have selected a worse route. You'll see the wildest bit of country there is, but how much fun you'll have I don't know. After you leave Dorchester you'll get into the mountains, and then your road will be all up-hill."

"But the ascent is so gradual that we can 289