would be only the better for the animals, and fit them for the grand effort to come later. When, about seven o'clock of that calm August evening, the Presidential party stepped out of the Sinclair House, General Grant's trained eye, sweeping over the team with the glance of a connoisseur, at once recognized its excellence. Walking quickly to the driver's seat, he said to Cox, "If you have no objections, I will get up there with you." "It is pretty rough riding up here, General," was the reply. "I can stand it if you can," said Grant, as he climbed to the place and settled himself. The President was dressed in high silk hat, black suit, and a long linen duster covering as much of his clothing as possible. The others of the party adjusted themselves in the big, heavy wagon according to their ideas of comfort, and all was ready. Sixteen people were in that vehicle, including Mr. Cox.

The driver tightened the reins with a "whist!" and with a spring, in perfect unison, the noble animals were off for the Profile. The telegraphoperator at the Sinclair sat with finger on the key, looking out of the window and watching for the moment of the start. A message at once flashed over the wire to the Profile House, say ing that they had gone, and the time was noted. It was precisely seven o'clock.

At the Profile a large company had gathered in the office, waiting for the arrival. Among them were several stage drivers, who with becoming gravity gave various opinions, as sages and oracles of profundity in road knowledge, and fully discussed the situation. It was known that Cox intended to break all records if he could; but it was the unanimous expression of the drivers, knowing every foot of the road as they did, that "Ed" could not make the drive in less than two hours, and a portion of them thought he had better make it two and a half, as the last three miles were right up into the mountain, with a steep grade all the way into Franconia Notch. But that he could make the eleven miles in less than two hours was not believed for a moment.

Those of my readers who have visited this famous hotel, the Profile, will remember Echo Lake, and the little cannon kept there to wake the echoes. This beautiful sheet of water,

famous far and near for its echoes and their many repetitions, is about a quarter of a mile from the hotel, and the Presidential party had to pass it to get to the house. It had been arranged that when they drove by, the gunner should fire the cannon, to announce the fact to the house. At the hotel we were listening for the signal-gun, chatting, discussing the event, and passing the time as best we could, when— bang! went the gun. The echo-maker had spoken. We looked at the clock hanging in the office. It was not believed it was the President. "It cannot be!" "Look at the time!" "Some mistake has been made!" Such were the expressions heard on all sides.

The proprietor hurried a bell-boy to the lake, to ascertain why the gun was fired before the time. But it was the expected party. In what seemed an incredibly short time we heard the tramping of the flying steeds, and the rattle of the chariot; and in another moment they swept around the corner of the house into plain view.

Never will I forget the scene, as they swung into the large circular space before the building. Ed Cox stood up on the foot-board, with teeth set, eyes blazing, and every rein drawn tight in his hands. General Grant sat beside him, holding his hat on with one hand, the other grasping the seat. The eight horses were on the full run, with mouths wide open, ears back flat to their heads, and nostrils distended. They were covered with sweat and foam, yet all under perfect control of the magician on the box. As they made the circle and drew up in front of the hotel, Cox threw his weight on the brake and stopped at once. He had made the drive in precisely fifty-eight minutes.

In The Century Magazine for November, 1892, Mr. T. Suffern Tailer gave the result of a trial of speed in modern coaching. This journey was in France over roads kept in constant repair by strict enforcement of law, and the trial was under the direction of Mr. James Gordon Bennett, which implies that every possible effort was made to insure quick time. The course was from the Herald office in Paris to Trouville, distant 140 miles. Horses stationed in advance were changed thirteen times, and driven, as Mr. Tailer himself shows, unsparingly. Nine people were in the party, and the time made was,

When the other carriages had come up, and the whole party was registered, it presented some names well known to our country. It included General Grant and Mrs. Grant, Miss Nelly Grant, and Master Jesse R. Grant; the Governor of New Hampshire, his wife and two daughters. Also one of the senators from New Hampshire, a former Minister to Switzerland, a president of a railroad, and others.

But to all these, one of the heroes of the occasion was Ed Cox. After driving to the stables and caring for the horses, he came into the office of the hotel. In reply to a question as to how the horses were, he said they were ready to make the same trip over again if called upon. But he held up his little fingers, showing that they were so stiff he could not bend them; he said they would ache all night.

After supper and an impromptu reception in the parlor, the President came down into the hotel office, where he entertained a few of those who happened to be present with a description of his ride. He said he supposed he had had as many opportunities of seeing fine driving as men in general, but that the manner in which Mr. Cox handled his big team surpassed anything he had ever witnessed. Nothing could be more skilful than the driver's avoidance of most of the ruts and gullies along the route. The President said that at no time on the journey was he uneasy. He saw they were getting over the ground, but did not realize the rapid gait at which they were going. The great soldier further said that the last three miles were enough to test the wind and endurance of any ordinary team, but that these horses traveled better the farther they went.

Such was General Grant's opinion of his wonderful drive from Bethlehem to the Profile House, on that evening in August, nearly twenty-eight years ago. And among the traditions of the Profile House that the old stagedrivers still love to relate, and over which they linger with fond recollection, is Ed Cox's great achievement of driving eight horses eleven miles in fifty-eight minutes over the mountain roads, with sixteen persons in the Flume Chariot, and with General Grant beside him on the box.

Then you are quite unanimously wrong. Does your teacher say you are right? Does your geography say you are right? ST. NICHOLAS'S compliments then to both, and both are wrong. Why? Because part of the State of Iowa lies west of the Missouri River: so it is bounded on the west by South Dakota, the Missouri River, and Nebraska. Now don't look for a large portion of Iowa west of the Missouri a whole county, or anything of that sort. If there were several hundred square miles of it over there, your teachers would know all about it. You would n't have the fun of correcting them; neither would ST. NICHOLAS be obliged to set the geographers right. Besides, have n't your teachers always warned you to be correct in small things? There is at least enough of Iowa over there to have caused a serious trouble between Iowa and Nebraska, which, after no end of bickering and years of angry litigation, had to be settled at last by the wise men of the East that is, by the Supreme Court at Washington, which finally decided that Iowa's claim to several miles of territory on the Nebraska side of the Missouri was perfectly valid.

Of course you 've heard of the curious freaks of the Missouri River the " Big Muddy": how the sudden, treacherous mountain waters roll down in mighty floods from Montana and Wyoming, ricochet from side to side of the broad valley they have eaten deep into the soft

prairies, and pour headlong into the Mississippi near St. Louis; how, night and day, winter and summer, the twisting torrent shifts its channel, cuts its banks, undermines railroads, astonishes the muskrats, keeps the fish studying guide-posts, worries the bridge guards, and sets the farmers crazy. For, just think of it: the Nebraska farmer whose land stretches along the river goes to bed thinking he will cut his broad acres of golden wheat in the morning; but lo! in the night that madcap river has entered his waving fields, and like snow they have melted away. Grain, fences, trees, buildings, land are gone! And a great, sullen, yellow flood boils and eddies where his harvest smiled yesterday.

Next week, very likely, the reckless stream will make his neighbor across the river a present of a hundred or more acres, just because he does n't need them. Of course it was natural for a man who lost his land that way to look longingly across the river, and think, after a while, that the newly made land over there belonged to him; and many a wearisome lawsuit has been begun to recover title to "made" land which lies, maybe, exactly where the lost farm lay, but on the other side of the river. Perhaps there is some equity in such a claim; but the trouble is, that sort of thing is going on all the time, and the courts said they could n't keep track of such pranks; that lands acquired by accretion - mark that word should belong to the farmer who owned the river-bank where they were thrown up; that if the river took your farm, you would have to fish it out of the stream you lost it in; at least, you need n't ask the courts to give you another for it.

I suppose an injunction might be issued commanding the Missouri River to stop stealing farms in that way; but that would be like trying to mandamus a comet. Suppose the river

paid no attention to the injunction? How could it be punished if it did swallow a township? And you know judges are very touchy on a question of contempt. So the unhappy farmer- the farmless farmer, so to speaksubsided, and the courts thought they were through for good with the River Missouri. But they did n't begin to comprehend the disposition and the ability of that irresponsible stream to make trouble for the dwellers along its banks. Now, this is the way it tangled up a boundary line, set two friendly States at odds, and finally ran into the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, so to speak.

You must know that the real business of the Missouri is to carry the mountain waters east and south into the Gulf of Mexico. But in bounding from side to side of its valley through the tedious. centuries, it has twisted and turned so many times that no doubt its head is confused. Carrying the quantity of mud it does, you would hardly expect it to be clear-headed. There is actually so much sand in the water that the fish all have sore eyes: some are totally blind-the saddest-looking creatures you ever caught.

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straying west once in a while; but what earthly excuse could it have for running right back north? Yet that is just what it used to do at a point just above Omaha. It almost "boxed the compass" for it ran in nearly every direction. If you wish to see its course for yourself, look at this map of its bends at that place.

Lake

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A really fastidious trout or bass dropped into the Missouri would hang himself in despairon a fish-hook.

Naturally, such an absurd caper was bound to cause comment that was natural. Just across from Omaha a chain of great, beetling

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