oment previously we had been
wondering what would happen when the inevitable collision took place.

The fireman observes that the occurrence has somewhat unnerved us, and
in a good-natured way assures us that a little thing of that kind
doesn't amount to anything. It is pretty bad, he says, when a bunch of
cows get on a track, and he remembers once, several years ago, having a
train stopped out in the Far West by a bunch of fat steers, which
blocked up the track. "But," he adds, by way of parenthesis, "that was
on a very poor road with a broken-down freight locomotive. If we had had
"87," with a full head of steam on, we could have got through all right,
even if we had to overload the market with beef."

Now the train rushes around a curve in one direction and now in another.
The engineer never relaxes his vigilance, and, although he affects to
make light of the responsibility, and assures his somewhat nervous
passenger that there is no danger of any kind, his actions do not bear
out his words. We are running special, a little ahead of the mid-day
express schedule, and at every station there are waiting passengers who
herald our approach with delight, and, gathering together their
packages, advance to the edge of the platform evidently supposing we are
going to stop for them. That we are to dash through the station at a
speed of fifty or sixty miles an hour, does not occur to them as a
remote possibility, and the looks of astonishment which greet us as we
rush past the platform are amusing. Finally, we reach a long stretch of
level track, where the rails are laid as straight as an arrow for
apparently several miles ahead.

"Now's your time, if you want to take a good mile," says the friendly
fireman.

We take his advice, and by aid of a stop watch, especially borrowed for
the occasion, we ascertain the fact that a mile is covered in fifty-two
seconds. The next mile is two seconds slower, but the speed is more than
maintained on the third mile. Reduced to ordinary speed figures, this
means that we are making something like seventy miles an hour, and doing
vastly better than was even anticipated. Our good work is, however,
interfered with by the sudden application of the air brakes and the
shutting off of steam as we approach a little station, where the signal
is against us. A change in train orders proves to be the cause of the
hindrance to our progress, and the engineer grumbles somewhat as he
finds he will have to