of the wheels on bridge or culvert, would be familiar.

The first station, Whiting, is only three and one-half miles from
the starting-point. The night outside was intensely black, and it
was doubtful whether even the practised eye and ear of Superintendent
Newell would be able to catch the little station as it went by. With
one eye on our watches, therefore, we all had also one anxious eye on
him where he sat with his head hidden under the shade that was drawn
behind him, a blanket held over the crevices to shut out every ray
of light, and his face pressed close against the glass. The minutes
passed slowly--one, two, three, four, five! Whiting must be very near,
and--but just as we began to fear that he had missed the station, the
word came:

"Ready for Whiting!" and the response,

"Ready for Whiting!"

A few short seconds of silence, and then:

"Now!"

Instantly the muscles of the waiting fingers throbbed on the
split-stop; but no quicker than the roar told that the car was already
passing the station.

"Three--thirty-four--forty-five!" called the time-keeper.

"Three--thirty-four--forty-five!"

"Three--thirty-four--forty-five!"

"Three--thirty-four--forty-five!"

It was an immense relief to find that the system "worked."

When the warning "Ready for Pine "--the next station, six miles
further on--came from behind the envelope of window-shade and blanket,
we were at our ease, and the record, "Three--forty-one--three," was
called and echoed and tossed across the car with confidence.

[Illustration: THE BROOKS ENGINE 599, WHICH DREW THE TRAIN FROM
ELKHART TO TOLEDO. ALL BUT ONE (THE LAST) OF THE FIVE ENGINES USED ON
THE RUN WERE OF THIS TYPE.]

By the time that Miller's--fifteen miles from the start--was passed,
the train was moving at a speed of over a mile a minute, and at every
mile the velocity increased. At La Porte, forty-five miles from the
start, the speed was 66 miles an hour; and fourteen miles further
on, at Terre Coupee, it reached to 70. It was fast running--while it
lasted; but it did not last long. The next station showed that the
speed was down to 67 miles an hour, and at the next it was barely
over sixty. A speed of a mile a minute, however, is high enough when
passing through the heart of a city like South Bend, Indiana. South
Bend is understood to have a city ordinance forbidding trains to run
within the city limits at a speed exceeding 15 miles an hour. But if
any good citizen of S