CHAPTER I. The Way It Happened.

CHAPTER II. John's Adventures with a Crazy Man.

CHAPTER III. Proposes to Leap From a Third-Story Window.

CHAPTER IV. Locked Up.

CHAPTER V. Accommodated with a "Room Lower down."

CHAPTER VI. The Way Smith gets Bored. An Episode.

CHAPTER VII. John Smith's Friend.

CHAPTER VIII. John thought he would like to Travel.

CHAPTER IX. Sea-Sick. Ugh!

CHAPTER X. The "Hub."

CHAPTER XI. Narrow Escape in a Row at Baltimore.

CHAPTER XII. How Smith traveled A-Foot and More.

CHAPTER XIII Romance in John Smith's "Real Life."

CHAPTER XIV. The Hudson.

CHAPTER XV. John at Saratoga.

CHAPTER XVI. The Sail Boat.

CHAPTER XVII. Niagara Falls.

CHAPTER XVIII. Cave of the Winds.

CHAPTER XIX. Canada.

CHAPTER XX. Colonel John Smith at an Hotel.

CHAPTER XXI. Courtesies of Travelers.

CHAPTER XXII. " The City of Magnificent Distances. "

CHAPTER XXIII. Smith's Experience on a Skate.

CHAPTER XXIV. Over the Mountains.

CHAPTER XXV. Difficulty with the Owner of Pittsburg.

CHAPTER XXVI. Peculiarities of Travelers.

CHAPTER XXVII. McCulloch's Leap.

CHAPTER XXVIII. Cincinnati.

CHAPTER XXIX. Falls City and Cave City.

CHAPTER XXX. John Smith's Absence from the Face of the Earth.

CHAPTER XXXI. The Nightingale.

CHAPTER XXXII. Smith's Extraordinary Adventures in the "Mound City."

CHAPTER XXXIII. How Not To Open a Patent Lock.

CHAPTER XXXIV. A Game of Checkers.

CHAPTER XXXV. John in Chicago.

CHAPTER XXXVI. Traveling Companions.

CHAPTER XXXVII. Milwaukee and the Lakes.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. Smith in search of his Uncle.

CHAPTER XXXIX. Smith's Knowledge of German, et cetera.

CHAPTER XL. "A life on the ocean wave, and a home on the rolling deep."

CHAPTER XLI. J. Smith's Curiosity to See a Gale more than Satisfied.

CHAPTER XLII. More of the Dreadful Sea.

CHAPTER XLIII John Smith's End Imminent.

CHAPTER XLIV. Courtesies at Sea.

CHAPTER XLV. Ho! for California!

CHAPTER XLVI. On the Isthmus.

CHAPTER XLVII. The "Golden City."

CHAPTER XLVIII. The Doctor.

CHAPTER XLIX. A Startling Bundle.

CHAPTER L. Exit Smith.

Transcriber's Notes

It is verily more difficult to write a good preface for a book than to write the book itself. We don’t mind telling the reader, very confidentially, that this is not, by any means, our first effort at a preface for this work: and we earnestly hope that the public will not pronounce this ninth one so stupid as we deemed the eight preceding ones that we tore up.

It will be perceived that our hero bears the historic name of John Smith. Original old John Smith, the Virginia settler, met with many adventures—some of them funny and others not so funny—among the latter was the affair with Miss Pocahontas and her stern old parent: and we claim, for our own John Smith, as many adventures as his illustrious namesake—some of them quite as funny and others funnier.

Nothing in this narrative of real incidents is at all calculated to reflect on the excellent character of Mr. Smith: and this is because we esteem him very highly and not from any dread of the law; for John Smith is so multitudinous, that one could handle the name with impunity, and not incur any risk of prosecution for libel. What would a court say to an action against a writer for libeling John Smith, yeoman!—especially when the writer should plead that he never meant that John Smith, but quite another, unknown to the court.

There are those who will shrewdly guess that the hero of the narrative represents the author himself, the chief grounds for such inference being a striking similarity in the number of nether limbs. That, however, should scarcely be taken as conclusive; for, since “this cruel war is over,” there are nearly as many one-legged men in the country as there are John Smiths!