cross
the track in close array in thousands and thousands, occupying several
hours in their passage. On these occasions the train is brought to a
standstill and obliged to wait till the track is clear.

In fact, an incident of this kind happened on this occasion. About
three o'clock in the afternoon a troop of ten or twelve thousand
beasts blocked the line. The engineer slackened speed and tried to
proceed slowly, but he could not pass the mass of buffaloes.

The passengers could see the buffaloes defiling quietly across the
track, and now and then bellowing loudly. They were larger than
European bulls, the head and shoulders being covered with a long mane,
beneath which rises a hump; the legs and tails are short. No one would
ever think of attempting to turn them aside. When once they have taken
a certain direction, they cannot be forced to swerve from it. They
compose a torrent of living flesh which no dam can withstand.

The passengers gazed on this curious spectacle, but the man most
interested of all in the speedy progress of the train, Phileas Fogg,
remained calmly in his place to wait till the buffaloes had passed by.
Passe-partout was furious at the delay which the animals caused, and
wished to discharge his armoury of revolvers at them.

"What a country this is!" he exclaimed. "Fancy a whole train being
stopped by a herd of cattle, which do not hurry themselves in the
least, as if they were not hindering us; I should like to know whether
Mr. Fogg anticipated this delay. And here we have an engine-driver who
is afraid to run his train against a few cows."

The engine-driver certainly did not attempt to do so, and he was quite
right. No doubt he might have killed two or three of the first
buffaloes he came in contact with; but the engine would soon have been
thrown off the line, and progress would have been hopeless.

The best thing to do, then, was to wait patiently, and trust to make
up time when the buffaloes had passed; but the procession of animals
lasted for fully three hours, and it was night before the track was
clear. The head of the column had ere this disappeared below the
southern horizon.

It was eight o'clock when the train had traversed the defiles of the
Humboldt range, and half-past nine when it entered Utah, the region of
the great Salt Lake and the curious Mormon territory.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Showing how Passe-partout went through a Course of Mormon History, at
the rate of Twe