d
one more dawn, and, before the sun rose, the hills had grown smaller
and smaller and the glimpses between them more frequent and, at last,
far down the river, Chad saw a column of smoke and all the men on the
raft took off their hats and shouted. The end of the trip was near, for
that black column meant the capital!

Chad trembled on his feet and his heart rose into his throat, while
Caleb Hazel seemed hardly less moved. His hat was off and he stood
motionless, with his face uplifted, and his grave eyes fastened on that
dark column as though it rose from the pillar of fire that was leading
him to some promised land.

As they rounded the next curve, some monster swept out of the low hills
on the right, with a shriek that startled the boy almost into terror
and, with a mighty puffing and rumbling, shot out of sight again. The
school-master shouted to Chad, and the Turner brothers grinned at him
delightedly:

"Steam-cars!" they cried, and Chad nodded back gravely, trying to hold
in his wonder.

Sweeping around the next curve, another monster hove in sight with the
same puffing and a long "h-o-o-ot!" A monster on the river and moving
up stream steadily, with no oar and no man in sight, and the Turners
and the school-master shouted again. Chad's eyes grew big with wonder
and he ran forward to see the rickety little steamboat approach and,
with wide eyes, devoured it, as it wheezed and labored up-stream past
them--watched the thundering stern-wheel threshing the water into a
wake of foam far behind it and flashing its blades, water-dripping in
the sun--watched it till it puffed and wheezed and labored on out of
sight. Great Heavens! to think that he--Chad--was seeing all that!

About the next bend, more but thinner columns of smoke were visible.
Soon the very hills over the capital could be seen, with little green
wheat-fields dotting them and, as the raft drew a little closer, Chad
could see houses on the hills--more strange houses of wood and stone,
and porches, and queer towers on them from which glistened shining
points.

"What's them?" he asked.

"Lightnin'-rods," said Tom, and Chad understood, for the school-master
had told him about them back in the mountains. Was there anything that
Caleb Hazel had not told him? The haze over the town was now visible,
and soon they swept past tall chimneys puffing out smoke, great
warehouses covered on the outside with weather-brown tin, and, straight
ahead--Heavens, what