at so late an hour soon became painfully
evident. The sun was so nearly overhead that the heat was almost
unbearable, and there was not a particle of shade. The boys had not had
a full night's sleep, and had tired themselves before starting by trying
to dig a canal. Of course the labor of rowing in such circumstances was
very severe; and it was not long before first one and then another
proposed to go ashore and rest in the shade.

"Hadn't we better keep on till we get into the Highlands? We can do it
in a quarter of an hour," said Tom.

As Tom was pulling the stroke oar, and doing rather more work than any
one else, the others agreed to row on as long as he would row. They soon
reached the entrance to the Highlands, and landed at the foot of the
great hill called St. Anthony's Nose. They were very glad to make the
boat fast to a tree that grew close to the water, and to clamber a
little way up the hill into the shade.

"What will we do to pass away the time till it gets cooler?" said Harry,
after they had rested awhile.

"I can tell you what I'm going to do," said Tom; "I'm going to get some
of the sleep that I didn't get last night, and you'd better follow my
example."

All the boys at once found that they were sleepy; and having brought the
tent up from the boat, they spread it on the ground for a bed, and
presently were sleeping soundly. The mosquitoes came and feasted on
them, and the innumerable insects of the summer woods crawled over them,
and explored their necks, shirt sleeves, and trousers legs, as is the
pleasant custom of insects of an inquiring turn of mind.

"What's that?" cried Harry, suddenly sitting up, as the sound of a heavy
explosion died away in long, rolling echoes.

"I heard it," said Joe; "it's a cannon. The cadets up at West Point are
firing at a mark with a tremendous big cannon."

"Let's go up and see them," exclaimed Jim. "It's a great deal cooler
than it was."

With the natural eagerness of boys to be in the neighborhood of a
cannon, they made haste to gather up the tent and carry it to the boat.
As they came out from under the thick trees, they saw that the sky in
the north was as black as midnight, and that a thunder-storm was close
at hand.

"Your cannon, Joe, was a clap of thunder," said Harry. "We're going to
get wet again."

"We needn't get wet," said Tom. "If we hurry up, we can get the tent
pitched and put the things in it, so as to keep them dry."

They worked rapid