tation. In a panic of haste he scrambled out of his lumber
and dashed into the station house, where a sleepy, ill-natured agent
stood behind the ticket window. He looked sharply enough at the
freckled, square-jawed boy who asked for a second-class ticket to
Belltown. Chester's heart quaked within him at the momentary thought
that the ticket agent recognized him. He had an agonized vision of
being collared without ceremony and haled straightway back to Aunt
Harriet. When the ticket and his change were pushed out to him, he
snatched them and fairly ran.

"Bolted as if the police were after him," reflected the agent, who did
not sell many tickets and so had time to take a personal interest in
the purchasers thereof. "I've seen that youngster before, though I
can't recollect where. He's got a most fearful determined look."

Chester drew an audible sigh of relief when the train left the
station. He was fairly off now and felt that he could defy even
curious railway officials.

It was not his first train ride, for Mrs. Elwell had once taken him to
Belltown to get an aching tooth extracted, but it was certainly his
first under such exhilarating circumstances, and he meant to enjoy it.
To be sure, he was very hungry, but that, he reflected, was only what
he would probably be many times before he made his fortune, and it was
just as well to get used to it. Meanwhile, it behooved him to keep his
eyes open. On the road from Roxbury to Belltown there was not much to
be seen that morning that Chester did not see.

The train reached Belltown about noon. He did not mean to stop long
there--it was too near Upton. From the conductor on the train, he
found that a boat left Belltown for Montrose at two in the afternoon.
Montrose was a hundred miles from Upton, and Chester thought he would
be safe there. To Montrose, accordingly, he decided to go, but the
first thing was to get some dinner. He went into a grocery store and
bought some crackers and a bit of cheese. He had somewhere picked up
the idea that crackers and cheese were about as economical food as you
could find for adventurous youths starting out on small capital.

He found his way to the only public square Belltown boasted, and
munched his food hungrily on a bench under the trees. He would go to
Montrose and there find something to do. Later on he would gradually
work his way out West, where there was more room for an ambitious
small boy to expand and grow. Chester dreamed