d not be set down
against him in the catalogue of wilful sins. But whether so or
otherwise, this little unpleasantness in his disposition was an
established fact, and unfortunately there were two railroads to cross
between East Schodack and Castleton. On Glazier's first ride to
Castleton with the Westfall horse and sleigh, he had just crossed the
Boston and Albany Railroad when a freight-train rolled heavily by, which
put the horse under excellent headway, and on reaching the Hudson River
Railroad--the two tracks running very near each other--a passenger train
came up behind him. This completed the aggregation of causes, and away
flew the horse down the road to Castleton at break-neck speed. Fences
disappeared like gray streaks in the distance; roadside cottages came in
view and were swiftly left behind in the track of the foam-flecked
animal. All that Glazier could do was to keep him in the road, until at
length an old shed by the roadside served his purpose, and running him
into it, the horse, puffing and snorting, was obliged to stop. On his
return to East Schodack, Mr. Westfall asked him how he liked the horse.
He replied that he thought the animal a splendid traveler. He _did_
think so, beyond question.

The next Sunday young Glazier was driving again to Castleton with the
same stylish turn-out; this time with his sister Marjorie in the sleigh.
She had come up to East Schodack the evening before, and he was taking
her back to her school. The sleighing was excellent, the day fine, and
all went merry as a marriage bell until they reached the railroad. There
the inevitable train of cars loomed in view, and the puff, puff of the
engine, sending out great volumes of steam and its wild screech at the
crossing, completely upset what few ideas of propriety and steady travel
this horse may have had in his poor, bewildered head, and, with a leap
and a jerk, he was once more running away on the Castleton Road as if
the entire host of the nether regions were let loose after him.

For a little while he made things around them as lively as a pot of
yeast. Away went whip, robes, mittens and everything else lying loose in
the bottom of the sleigh at all calculated to yield to the velocity of a
whirlwind or a runaway. But Glazier proved himself master of the
situation in this as in many another event of his life, and with one
hand holding his frightened sister from jumping out of the sleigh, with
the other he twisted the lines fir