I go in and make arrangements."

I think I held Dobbin about half a minute, at the end of which time he espied an open gate at the head of a long lane leading to the pasture, jerked the halter from my hand, and trotted off at surprising speed. When Phaeton came out of the house, of course I told him what had happened.

"But it's just as well," said I, "for he has gone right down to the pasture."

"No, it isn't just as well," said he; "we must get off the halter and blanket."

"But what about the dog?" said Ned.

"Oh, that one on the steps won't hurt anybody. The savage one is down in the wood-lot."

At this moment a woman appeared at the side door of the farm-house, looked out at us, and understood the whole situation in a moment.

"I suppose you hadn't watered your horse," said she, "and he's gone for the creek."

Phaeton led the way to the pasture, and we followed. I shouldn't like to tell you how very long we chased Dobbin around that lot, trying to corner him. We tried swift running, and we tried slow approaches. I suggested salt. Ned pretended to fill his hat with oats, and walked up with coaxing words. But Dobbin knew the difference between a straw hat and a peck measure.

"I wish I could remember what the book says about catching your horse," said Phaeton.

"I wish you could," said I. "Why didn't you bring the book?"

"I will next time," said he, as he started off in another desperate attempt to corner the horse between the creek and the fence.

Nobody can tell how long this might have kept up, had not an immense black dog appeared, jumping over the fence from the wood-lot.

Phaeton drew back and looked about for a stone. Ned began tugging at one of those in his pockets, but couldn't get it out. Instead of coming at us, the dog made straight for Dobbin, soon reached him, seized the halter in his teeth, and brought him to a full stop, where he held him till we came up. It only took a minute or two to remove the blanket and halter, and turn Dobbin loose, while a few pats on the head and words of praise made a fast friend of the dog.

With these trappings over our arms, we turned our steps homeward. As we drew near the place where we had given Dobbin the rubbing down to keep him from taking cold, we saw a man looking over the fence at the wet wisps of hay in the road.

"I wonder if that man will expect us to pay for the hay," said Phaeton.

"It would be just like him," said Ned. "These farmers are an awful stingy set."

"I haven't got any money with me," said Phaeton; "but I know a short cut home."

Ned and I agreed that any shortening of the homeward journey would be desirable just now,—especially as we were very hungry.

He led the way, which required him to go back to the first cross-road, and we followed. It seemed to me that the short cut home was about twice as long as the road by which we had come, but as I also was oppressed with a sense of having no money with me, I sympathized with Phaeton, and made no objection. When I found that the short cut led through the Deep Hollow culvert, I confess to some vague fears that the boy I had chased into the culvert might dam up the water while we were in there, or play some other unpleasant trick on us, and I was glad when we were well through it with only wet feet and shoulders spattered by the drippings from the arch.

We got home at last, and Phaeton told his uncle that Dobbin was safe in the pasture, at the same time giving him to understand that we were—as we always say at the end of a composition—much pleased with our brisk morning canter. But the boys couldn't help talking about it, and gradually the family learned every incident of the story. When Mr. Rogers heard about the hay, he sent Phaeton with some money to pay for it, but the stingy farmer said it was no matter, and wouldn't take any pay. But he asked Phaeton where we were going, and told him he had a pasture that was just as good as Kidd's, and nearer the town.

CHAPTER II.

If Phaeton Rogers was not an immediate success as a rider of horses, he certainly did what seemed some wonderful things in the way of inventing conveyances for himself and other people to ride.

One day, not long after our adventures with Dobbin, Ned and I found him sitting under the great plane-tree in the front yard, working with a knife at some small pieces of wood, which he put together, making a frame like this:

"What are you making, Fay?" said Ned.

"An invention," said Phaeton, without looking up from his work.

"What sort of invention? A new invention?"

"It would have to be new or it wouldn't be an invention at all."

"But what is it for?"

"For the benefit of mankind, like all great inventions."

"It seems to me that some of the best have been for the benefit of boykind," said Ned. "But what is the use of trying to be too smart? Let us know what it is. We're not likely to steal it, as Lem Woodruff thinks the patent-lawyer stole his idea for a double-acting washboard."

Phaeton was silent, and worked away. Ned and I walked out at the gate and turned into the street, intending to go swimming. We had not gone far when Phaeton called "Ned!" and we turned back.

"Ned," said he, "don't you want to lend me the ten dollars that Aunt Mercy gave you last week?"

Their Aunt Mercy was an unmarried lady with considerable property, who was particularly good to Ned. When Phaeton was a baby she wanted to name him after the man who was to have been her husband, but who was drowned at sea.

Mrs. Rogers would not consent, but insisted upon naming the boy Fayette, and Aunt Mercy had never liked him, and would never give him anything, or believe that he could do anything good or creditable. She was a little deaf, and if it was told her that Phaeton had taken a prize at school, she pretended not to hear; but whenever Ned got one she had no trouble at all in hearing about it, and she always gave him at least a dollar or two on such occasions. For when Ned was born she was allowed to do what she had wanted to do with Fayette, and named him Edmund Burton, after her long-lost lover. Later, she impressed it upon him that he was never to write his name E. B. Rogers, nor Edmund B. Rogers, but always Edmund Burton Rogers, if he wanted to please her, and be remembered in her will. She never called him anything but Edmund Burton. Whereas, she pretended not to remember Fayette's name at all, and would twist it in all sorts of ways, calling him Layit and Brayit, and Fater and Faylen, and once she called him Frenchman-what's-his-name, which was as near as she ever came to getting it right.

"Why should I lend you my ten dollars?" said Ned. "For the information you kindly gave us about your invention?"

"Oh, as to that," said Phaeton, "I've no objection to telling you two about it, now that I have thought it all out. I did not care to tell you before, because I was studying on it."

"All right; go ahead," said Ned, as we seated ourselves on the grass, and Phaeton began.

"It is called the Underground Railway. You see, there are some places—like the city of New York, for instance—where the buildings are so close together, and land is worth so much, that they can't build railroads enough to carry all the people back and forth. And so they have been trying, in all sorts of ways, to get up something that will do it—something different from a common railroad."

"Balloons would be the thing," said Ned.

"No; balloons won't do," said Phaeton. "You can't make them 'light where you want them to. I've thought of a good many ways, but