t. They had 7 minutes left for 8 miles, and were cheering
already.

"We'll make it with half a minute to spare," said the only man in the
private car who was reasonably cool. He was six seconds out of the way,
for they crossed the line twenty-six seconds before eleven thirty-one,
and won the race by less than half a minute, beating the New York
Central's record per mile on the whole run by the fraction of a second,
and beating the whole world's record in the last relay by several
minutes, the figures standing--_Tunkey's_ figures--86 miles from Erie to
Buffalo in 70 minutes and 46 seconds, or an average speed of 72.91 miles
an hour.

"Do?" said the official. "What did we do? Why, we--we--" He paused
helplessly, and then added, with a grin: "Well, we didn't do a thing to
Tunkey!"

IV

WE HEAR SOME THRILLING STORIES AT A ROUNDHOUSE AND REACH THE END OF THE
BOOK

IT was in the round-house at Forty-fifth Street, a place of drip and
steam and oil smears, that I listened to Bronson and Lewis, two good men
at the throttle, as they held forth on the subject of killing people
with an engine.

"After all, it's an easy death," said Bronson.

"I know," said Lewis; "but I don't like it, just the same--I mean
killing 'em."

"Last one I killed," observed Bronson, "was a woman, wife of a
congressman, they said, all done up in furs. 'Member her?"

"Up by New Rochelle?"

"Yes, sir, there at the platform end, where they've made a path over the
tracks. Too lazy to follow the road, those folks are. Take a short cut
and get killed. Well, this congressman's wife, she sauntered across just
as I came through with the express. Never turned her head. Never heard
the whistle. Queer about women, ain't it?"

Lewis nodded.

"Had four minutes to make up, and we were going good--fifty-five an hour
easy. Slammed the brakes on, but--pshaw! Congressman's wife she stopped
the last second, and that settled it. If she'd taken one more step I'd
have scraped by her, but she stopped. Had to kill her. What's a man to
do?"

"Why did she stop?" I asked.

"Oh, some idea. Prob'ly forgot where she was. Nice lady. Makes a man
sick."

"Tell ye what I think," said Lewis. "I think there's women start across
a track to take a chance. If they get hit it's all right, and if they
don't it's all right. Same as girls pull leaves off a flower to see if
some fellow loves 'em. There was--"

"She didn't do that," put in Bronson.

"I don't say she d