During the school term in their respective districts, it was Willard Glazier's habit to visit his sister once a week, on Saturday or Sunday, and on several occasions a gentleman living at East Schodack, William Westfall by name, who owned a fine horse and sleigh, loaned him the use of his conveyance to drive to Castleton and return. The sleigh was provided with warm robes of fur and the horse was beyond doubt spirited, and a handsome specimen of the genus horse. But as we cannot look for absolute perfection in anything pertaining to earth, it may be stated that this animal was no exception to the universal rule. He had his fault, as young Glazier discovered--a disagreeable habit of running away every time he saw a train of cars. Perhaps the horse couldn't help it; it was no doubt an inherited disposition, descended to him through long lines of fractious ancestors, and therefore it need not be set down against him in the catalogue of wilful sins. But whether so or otherwise, this little unpleasantness in his disposition was an established fact, and unfortunately there were two railroads to cross between East Schodack and Castleton. On Glazier's first ride to Castleton with the Westfall horse and sleigh, he had just crossed the Boston and Albany Railroad when a freight-train rolled heavily by, which put the horse under excellent headway, and on reaching the Hudson River Railroad--the two tracks running very near each other--a passenger train came up behind him. This completed the aggregation of causes, and away flew the horse down the road to Castleton at break-neck speed. Fences disappeared like gray streaks in the distance; roadside cottages came in view and were swiftly left behind in the track of the foam-flecked animal. All that Glazier could do was to keep him in the road, until at length an old shed by the roadside served his purpose, and running him into it, the horse, puffing and snorting, was obliged to stop. On his return to East Schodack, Mr. Westfall asked him how he liked the horse. He replied that he thought the animal a splendid traveler. He _did_ think so, beyond question. The next Sunday young Glazier was driving again to Castleton with the same stylish turn-out; this time with his sister Marjorie in the sleigh. She had come up to East Schodack the evening before, and he was taking her back to her school. The sleighing was excellent, the day fine, and all went merry as a marriage bell until they reached the railroad. There the inevitable train of cars loomed in view, and the puff, puff of the engine, sending out great volumes of steam and its wild screech at the crossing, completely upset what few ideas of propriety and steady travel this horse may have had in his poor, bewildered head, and, with a leap and a jerk, he was once more running away on the Castleton Road as if the entire host of the nether regions were let loose after him.