gainst her brother's wish, on which account he had declined ever to see
her again. When she died, after two years of poverty-stricken widowhood,
she left a loving, forgiving letter for her brother, and in it committed
her darling boy to his charge. If she had not done this, but had trusted
to his generous impulses, all would have gone well, and the events that
serve to make up this story would never have taken place. As it was, the
Major, feeling that the boy was forced upon him, was greatly aggrieved.
That the lad should bear a remarkable resemblance to his handsome artist
father also irritated him. As a result, while he really became very fond
of the boy, and was never unkind to him, he treated him with an assumed
indifference that was keenly felt by the loving, high-spirited lad. As for
Snyder Appleby, he was jealous of Rodman from the very first; and when,
only a short time before the race meeting of the Steel Wheel Club, the
latter was almost unanimously elected to his place as captain, this
feeling was greatly increased.

CHAPTER II.

A RACE FOR THE RAILROAD CUP.

Young Blake had now been in Euston two years, and was, among the boys,
decidedly the most popular fellow in the place. He was a slightly-built
chap; but with muscles like steel wires, and possessed of wonderful
agility and powers of endurance. He excelled in all athletic sports, was a
capital boxer, and at the same time found little difficulty in maintaining
a good rank in his classes. He had taken to bicycling from the very first,
and quickly became an expert rider, though he had never gone in for
racing. It was therefore a great surprise, even to his friends, when, on
the very day before the race meeting, he entered his name for the event
that was to result in the winning or losing of the Railroad Cup. It would
not have been so much of a surprise had anybody known of his conversation,
a few weeks before, with Eltje Vanderveer, the railroad president's only
daughter. She was a few months younger than Rod, and ever since he had
jumped into the river to save her pet kitten from drowning, they had been
fast friends.

So, when in talking of the approaching meeting, Eltje had said, "How I
wish you were a racer, and could win our cup, Rod," the boy instantly made
up his mind to try for it. He only answered, "Do you? Well, perhaps I may
go in for that sort of thing some time."

Then he began training, so secretly that nobody but Dan, a stable boy o