CHAPTER IV--Tom and Joe Cross the Continent With Their Faces Glued

to the Car Window and Reach the Rocky Mountains

Neither Tom nor Joe had ever been West before, even as far as Chicago. As soon as they had changed cars to the through train, not far from their home town, each armed with a ticket about a yard and a half long, and got settled in their seats in the sleeping car, they glued themselves to the windows, and watched the country. There was something new to see every minute--the Berkshire Hills, the Hudson River at Albany, the great factories at Schenectady, the Mohawk River and the Erie Canal, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. They slept soundly that night, and woke up as they were passing along the southern shore of Lake Michigan. In Chicago they had to change cars again, to another station, and they had time, after seeing that their baggage was transferred, to walk around a little, among the high buildings, and out to the lake front.

"It's an awful dirty place, strikes me," said Joe. "All the buildings look as if somebody had spilled soot over 'em."

"I guess somebody has," Tom answered. "I guess they burn soft coal here. The air's full of it. Wait till we get to the Rockies, though; there's the air!"

The trip from Chicago to St. Paul was even more interesting than the first stage, because after a while the train followed the bank of the Mississippi River (the scouts had a railroad folder with a map spread out in their seat, to see where they were every minute), and there was something thrilling to both of them about the first sight of the great river, which they had heard about all their lives.

"Say, it's yellow, all right," Joe exclaimed. "I'd rather go swimming in our old hole back home, I guess. It ain't so awful big, either."

"Not way up here. We're a thousand miles from the mouth. But you'd better not try to jump it, even here--not till you get well," Tom laughed.

At St. Paul they changed once more, for the final train, the trans-continental limited which would take them right through to the Park.

"Golly, we won't see any of Minnesota," Tom complained. "It'll be dark while we go through that. And look at all those lakes we pass." He pointed to the map.

"Well, there has to be night as well as day out here, just like home. I guess we can't do anything about it," said Joe. "I'm kind o' glad to sleep, at that."

"Poor old Joe, I forget you get tired," Tom cried, penitently. "Seems to me I _never_ want to go to sleep, with so much to see!"

"Oh, I'm not tired any more,--just sleepy," Joe said, bravely. But Tom saw he was tired, and called the porter to make up the berths.

They woke up in the prairie country of North Dakota--or, rather, Spider