It was dinner-time when Captain Raymond and his children reached their hotel, and at the conclusion of the meal they went immediately to the station of the Mount McGregor road. There was just time for the buying of the tickets and seating themselves comfortably in the cars before the train started.

"Papa, how long will it take us to go there?" asked Lulu.

"Thirty-five minutes," he answered. "It is about ten miles to the mountain; then we go up about eleven hundred feet above Saratoga Springs."

"Yes, sir," said Max; "and here on this time-table it says that in some places the grade is as high as two hundred and forty-six feet to the mile."

"Set that down in your memory," returned his father, with a smile. "Now look out of the windows, Max and Lulu; the country is well worth seeing."

The ride seemed very short,—it was so enjoyable,—and Lulu was quite surprised when the car stopped and all the passengers hurried out.

Every one went into the Drexel Cottage, which was close at hand. A man showed them about, pointing out the objects of special interest,—the bed where General Grant died, the candle he had extinguished but a few minutes before breathing his last, and so on.

They spent some time in the cottage, going quietly about, looking with a sad interest at everything which had any connection with the dear departed great man, then went on up to the mountain top, where stood a large hotel. They passed it, and went on to the edge of the mountain, which overlooks the Hudson River valley.

"Oh, what a lovely view!" cried Lulu, in delight. "What mountains are those, Papa?"

"Those to the east," he replied, pointing in that direction as he spoke, "are the Green Mountains, those to the north are the Adirondacks, and those to the south the Catskills."

"Oh, Lu, look yonder!" cried Max. "There's Schuylerville with its monument, I do believe,—isn't it, Papa?"

"Yes, you are right,—the place of Burgoyne's surrender, which we visited this morning," the Captain answered. "Now suppose we go to the observatory at the top of the hotel, and take the view from there."

Max and Lulu gave an eager assent to the proposal. There were a good many stairs to climb, but the view fully repaid them for the exertion. They spent some minutes in gazing upon it, then descended and wandered through the woods till the train was ready to start down the mountain.

Max and Lulu were tired enough to go to bed at dark; and the next morning they took an early train to Albany, where they boarded a fine steamer, which would carry them down the Hudson River to West Point, where, to the children's great delight, their father had promised to stay a day or two, and show them all of historical interest connected with the spot.

It was the first trip on the Hudson that Max or his sister had ever taken, and they enjoyed it greatly,—all the more because their father was sufficiently familiar with the scenes through which they were passing to call their attention to whatever was best worth noticing, and give all desired information in regard to it, doing so in the kindest and pleasantest manner possible. The weather was all that could be desired,—cloudy, with an occasional shower, seldom heavy enough to obscure the view to any great extent, and just cooling the air pleasantly, as Lulu remarked with much satisfaction.

It was not raining when they landed at West Point, though clouds still veiled the sun. They took a carriage near the wharf, and drove to the hotel. As they alighted, some gentlemen were talking upon its porch, one of whom was in military uniform.

"Raymond, this is a meeting as delightful as unexpected,—to me at least!" he exclaimed, coming hastily forward with out-stretched hand.

"Keith, I don't know when I have had a pleasanter surprise!" returned Captain Raymond, taking the offered hand and shaking it heartily, while his eyes shone with pleasure. "You are not here permanently?"

"No; only on a furlough. And you?"

"Just for a day or two, to show my children our military academy and the points of historical interest in its vicinity," replied Captain Raymond, glancing down upon them with a smile of fatherly pride and affection. "Max and Lulu, this gentleman is Lieutenant Keith, of whom you have sometimes heard me speak, and whom your mamma calls Cousin Donald."

"Your children, are they? Ah, I think I might have known them anywhere from their remarkable resemblance to you, Raymond!" Mr. Keith said, shaking hands first with Lulu, then with Max.

He chatted pleasantly with them for a few minutes, while their father attended to engaging rooms and having the baggage taken up to them. When he rejoined them Keith asked, "May I have the pleasure of showing you about, Raymond?"

"Thank you; no better escort could be desired," replied the Captain, heartily, "you being a valued friend just met after a long separation, and also an old resident here, thoroughly competent for the task, and thoroughly acquainted with all the points of interest."

"I think I may say I am that," returned Keith, with a smile; "and it will give me the greatest pleasure to show them to you,—as great, doubtless, as you seemed to find some years ago in showing me over your man-of-war. But first, let us take a view from the porch here. Yonder," pointing in a westerly direction, "at the foot of the hills, are the dwellings of the officers and professors. In front of them you see the parade-ground: there, on the south side, are the barracks. There is the Grecian chapel, yonder the library building, with its domed turrets, and there are the mess hall and hospital." Then turning toward the west again, "That lofty summit," he said, "is Mount Independence, and the ruins that crown it are those of 'Old Fort Put.' That still loftier peak is Redoubt Hill. There, a little to the north, you see Old Cro' Nest and Butter Hill. Now, directly north, through that magnificent cleft in the hills, you can see Newburgh and its bay. Of the scenery in the east we will have a better view from the ruins of 'Old Put.'"

"No doubt," said the Captain. "Shall we go up there at once?"

"If you like, Raymond. I always enjoy the view; it more than pays for the climb. But," and Mr. Keith glanced somewhat doubtfully at Lulu, "shall we not take a carriage? I fear the walk may be too much for your little girl."

"What do you say, Lulu?" her father asked with a smiling glance at her.

"Oh, I'd rather walk, Papa!" she exclaimed. "We have been riding so much for the last week and more; and you know I'm strong and well, and dearly love to climb rocks and hills."

"Very well, you shall do as you like, and have the help of Papa's hand over the hard places," he said, offering it as he spoke.

She put hers into it with a glad look and smile up into his face that almost made Donald Keith envy the Captain the joys of fatherhood.

They set off at once. Lulu found it a rather hard climb, or that it would have been without her father's helping hand; but the top of Mount Independence was at length reached, and the little party stood among the ruins of Fort Putnam. They stood on its ramparts recovering breath after the ascent, their faces turned toward the east, silently gazing upon the beautiful panorama spread out at their feet.

It was the Captain who broke the silence. "You see that range of hills on the farther side of the river, children?"

"Yes, sir," both replied with an inquiring look up into his face.

"In the time of the Revolution every pinnacle was fortified, and on each a watch-fire burned," he said.

"They had a battery on each, Papa?" queried Max.

"Yes; but yonder, at their foot, stands something that will interest you still more,—the Beverly House, from which Arnold the traitor fled to the British ship 'Vulture,' on learning that AndrÉ had been taken."

"Oh, is it, sir?" exclaimed Max, in a tone of intense interest. "How I would like to visit it,—can we, Papa?"

"I too; oh, very much!" said Lulu. "Please take us there,—won't you, Papa?"

"I fear there will be hardly time, my dears; but I will see about it," was the indulgent reply.

"You have been here before, Raymond?" Mr. Keith said inquiringly.

"Yes; on my first bridal trip," the Captain answered in a low, moved tone, and sighing slightly as the words left his lips.

"With our own mother, Papa?" asked Lulu, softly, looking up into his face with eyes full of love and sympathy.

"Yes, daughter; and she enjoyed the view very much as you are doing now."

"I'm glad; I like to think she saw it once."

An affectionate pressure of the hand he held was his only reply. Then turning to his friend, "It is a grand view, Keith," he said; "and one that always stirs the patriotism in my blood, inherited from ancestors who battled for freedom in those Revolutionary days."

"It is just so with myself," replied Keith; "and the view is a grand one in itself, though there were no such association,—a superb panorama! The beautiful, majestic river sweeping about the rock-bound promontory below us there, with its tented field; yonder the distant spires of Newburgh, and the bright waters of its bay, seen through that magnificent cleft in the hills," pointing with his finger as he spoke,—"ah, how often I have seen it all in imagination when out in the far West scouting over arid plains, and among desolate barren hills and mountains, where savages and wild beasts abound! At times an irrepressible longing for this very view has come over me,—a sort of homesickness, most difficult to shake off."

"Such as years in the ports of foreign lands have sometimes brought upon me," observed the Captain, giving his friend a look of heartfelt sympathy.

"Dear Papa, I'm so glad that is all over," Lulu said softly, leaning lovingly up against him as she spoke, and again lifting to his eyes her own so full of sympathy and affection. "Oh, it is so pleasant to have you always at home with us!"

A smile and an affectionate pressure of the little soft white hand he held were his only reply.

"Ah, my little girl, when Papa sees a man-of-war again, he will be likely to wish himself back in the service once more!" remarked Keith, in a sportive tone, regarding her with laughing eyes.

"No, sir, I don't believe it," she returned stoutly. "Papa loves his home and wife and children too well for that; besides, he has resigned from the navy, and I don't believe they'd take him back again."

"Well, Lu," said Max, "that's a pretty way to talk about Papa! Now, it's my firm conviction that they'd be only too glad to get him back."

"That's right, Max; stand up for your father always," laughed Keith. "He is worthy of it; and I don't doubt the government would be ready to accept his services should he offer them."

"Of course," laughed the Captain; "but I intend to give them those of my son instead," turning a look upon Max so proudly tender and appreciative that the lad's young heart bounded with joy.

"Ah, is that so?" said Keith, gazing appreciatively into the lad's bright young face. "Well, I have no doubt he will do you credit. Max, my boy, never forget that you have the credit of an honourable name to sustain, and that in so doing you will make your father a proud and happy man."

"That is what I want to do, sir," replied Max, modestly. Then hastily changing the subject, "Papa, is that town over there Phillipstown?"

"Yes; what do you remember about it?"

"That a part of our Revolutionary army was camped there in 1781. And there, over to the left, is Constitution Island,—isn't it, sir?"

"Yes," answered his father; then went on to tell of the building of the fort from which the island takes its name, and its abandonment a few days after the capture by the British of Forts Clinton and Montgomery, near the lower entrance to the Highlands, in 1777.

"Such a pity, after they had been to all the expense and trouble of building it!" remarked Lulu.

"Yes, quite a waste," said Max; "but war's a wasteful business anyway it can be managed."

"Quite true, Max," said, Mr. Keith; "and soldier though I am, I sincerely hope we may have no more of it in this land."

"No, sir; but the best way to keep out of it is to show ourselves ready for self-defence. That is what Papa says."

"And I entirely agree with him. Shall we go now, Raymond, and see what of interest is to be found in the buildings and about the grounds of the academy?"

The Captain gave a ready assent, and they retraced their steps, he helping Lulu down the mountain as he had helped her up.

Keith took them, first, to the artillery laboratory to see, as he said, some trophies and relics of the Revolution. Conducting them to the centre of the court, "Here," he remarked, "are some interesting ones," pointing, as he spoke, to several cannon lying in a heap, and encircled by some links of an enormous chain.

"Oh," exclaimed Max, "is that part of the great chain that was stretched across the Hudson, down there by Constitution Island, in the time of the Revolution?"

"Yes," replied Keith. "And these two brass mortars were taken from Burgoyne at Saratoga; this larger one, Wayne took from the British at Stony Point. I dare say you and your sister are acquainted with the story of that famous exploit."

"Oh, yes, sir!" they both replied; and Lulu asked, "Is that the English coat-of-arms on the big cannon?"

Her look directed the query to her father, and he answered, "Yes."

"And what do these words below it mean, Papa,—'Aschaleh fecit, 1741'?"

"Aschaleh is doubtless the name of the maker; 'fecit' means he executed it, and 1741 gives the time when it was done."

"Thank you, sir," she said. "Is there any story about that one?" pointing to another cannon quite near at hand.

"Yes," he said; "by its premature discharge, in 1817, a cadet named Lowe was killed. In the cemetery is a beautiful monument to his memory."

"Here are two brass field-pieces, each marked 'G. R.,'" said Max. "Do those letters stand for George Rex,—King George,—Papa?"

"Yes; that was the monogram of the king."

"And the cannon is fourteen years younger than those others," remarked Lulu; "for, see there, it says, 'W. Bowen fecit, 1755.'"

"Oh, here's an inscription!" exclaimed Max, and read aloud, "'Taken from the British army, and presented, by order of the United States, in Congress assembled, to Major-General Green, as a monument of their high sense of the wisdom, fortitude, and military talents which distinguished his command in the Southern department, and of the eminent services which, amid complicated dangers and difficulties, he performed for his country. October 18th, 1783.' Oh, that was right!" supplemented the lad, "for I do think Green was a splendid fellow."

"He was, indeed!" said the Captain; "and he has at last been given such a monument as he should have had very many years sooner."

"Where is it, Papa?" asked Lulu.

"In Washington. It is an equestrian statue, by Henry Kirke Brown."

"Yes; and very glad I am that even that tardy act of justice has been done him,—one of the bravest and most skilful commanders of our Revolutionary War," remarked Mr. Keith. Then he added, "I think we have seen about all you will care for here, Raymond, and that you might enjoy going out upon the parade-ground now. The sun is near setting, and the battalion will form presently, and go through some interesting exercises."

"Thank you!" the Captain said. "Let us, then, go at once, for I see Max and his sister are eager for the treat," he added, with a smiling glance from one brightly expectant young face to the other.