the tank to carry us on;
besides, we always had a gallon in reserve. At the next village we
found all we needed.

When we returned through Herkimer some weeks later nearly every
store had gasoline.

If hotels, stables, and drug stores, wherever automobiles are apt
to come, would keep a five-gallon can of gasoline on hand, time
and trouble would be saved, and drivers of automobiles would be
only too glad to pay an extra price for the convenience.

The grades of gasoline sold in this country vary from the common
so-called "stove gasoline," or sixty-eight, to seventy-four.

The country dealers are becoming wise in their generation, and all
now insist they keep only seventy-four. As a matter of fact nearly
all that is sold in both cities and country is the "stove
gasoline," because it is kept on hand principally for stoves and
torches, and they do not require higher than sixty-eight. In fact,
one is fortunate if the gasoline tests so high as that.

American machines, as a rule, get along very well with the low
grades, but many of the foreign machines require the better
grades. If a machine will not use commercial stove gasoline, the
only safe thing is to carry a supply of higher grade along, and
that is a nuisance.

It is difficult to find a genuine seventy-four even in the cities,
since it is commonly sold only in barrels. If the exhaust of a
gasoline stationary engine is heard anywhere along the road-side,
stop, for there will generally be found a barrel or two of the
high-grade, and a supply may be laid in.

The best plan, however, is to have a carburetor and motor that
will use the ordinary "stove-grade;" as a matter of fact, it
contains more carbon and more explosive energy if thoroughly
ignited, but it does not make gas so readily in cold weather and
requires a good hot spark.

All day we rode on through the valley, now far up on the
hill-sides, now down by the meadows; past Palatine Church,
Palatine Bridge; through Fonda and Amsterdam to Schenectady.

It was a glorious ride. The road winds along the side of the
valley, following the graceful curves and swellings of the hills.
The little towns are so lost in the recesses that one comes upon
them quite unexpectedly, and, whirling through their one long main
street, catches glimpses of quaint churches and buildings which
fairly overhang the highway, and narrow vistas of lawns, trees,
shrubbery, and flowers; then all is hidden by the next bend in the
road.