I have not time or space to tell all the little adventures we met with--all the good jokes Mat uttered, or the smart speeches he made. I must hurry on in my story, for I am afraid that, if I do not, my readers will think it like the old woman’s stocking--the more she knit, the further she got from the end of it. We reached Albany in a few days, and finding a sloop about departing for New York, we concluded to take passage in her and go to that city. This was a little out of our way, but we did not mind that. The captain of the vessel was a Dutchman, and his name was Dyke. He was a short, stout, broad-shouldered man, and his pantaloons were made somewhat like petticoats hitched up between his legs. He had a pipe in his mouth nearly the whole time; and such clouds of smoke as he did send forth! Puff, puff, puff! Mat Olmsted called him Captain Volcano, more than half the time. However, he was a good sailor, and he managed the sloop very well. Beside Mat and myself, there was a young man on board, who had been collecting furs from the Indians, and was now proceeding to sell them at New York. He was a pleasant fellow, and such lots of stories as he and Mat and the Dutch captain told, I never heard before. I could fill a book with them; but I shall only give a sample from each of the narrators. One moonlight evening, as we were gliding down the Hudson river, its broad bosom seeming like a sea of silver, we were all seated on the deck of the vessel, the captain, as usual, puffing at his pipe as if he was carrying on a manufactory of clouds, and was paid by the hogshead. For some time there was a dead silence; when at last the captain took his pipe from his mouth, and gravely remarked that his father was the bravest man that ever lived. “How so?” says Matthew. “Look there,” said Captain Dyke, pointing to a little island in the river, which we were then passing. “That island,” he continued, “was once the resort of Captain Kid, the famous pirate, who had a fine ship in which he sailed over the world, and, robbing every vessel he met of its money, collected a vast deal of gold and silver. After a long voyage, he used to sail up this river and bury his money on this island. When I was a boy, there was a hut still standing there, which was said to have been built by Kid himself. “There were a great many wild stories told about this hut; for it was said that the captain and his crew used to hold their revels there. Long after the famous freebooter was hung, and his companions were dead, it was maintained that strange noises were heard in the hut, and several persons who had peeped in at night declared that they had seen Kid there in the midst of his jolly sailors, all of them drinking, singing, and telling wild tales of the sea.