opening from which a culvert or small bridge had been washed
out. Nor with all this watchfulness did the trains always get through in
safety. Sometimes a bit of track, that looked all right, would suddenly
sink beneath the weight of a passing train into a quagmire that had been
formed beneath it, and then would follow the pitiful scenes of a
railroad wreck.

So nobody travelled except those who were compelled to do so, and the
passenger business of this particular road was lighter than it had been
since the opening. It was so light that on this night there were not
more than half a dozen persons in the single passenger coach of the
express, and only one of these was a woman. Another was her baby, a
sturdy, wholesome-looking little fellow, who, though he was but a year
old, appeared large enough to be nearly, if not quite, two. He had great
brown eyes, exactly like those of his mother. She was young and pretty,
but just now she looked utterly worn out, and no wonder. The train was
twelve hours late; and, instead of being comfortably established in a
hotel, at the end of her journey by rail, as she had expected to be
before dark that evening, she was wearily trying to sleep in the same
stuffy, jolting car she had occupied all day and had no hope of leaving
before morning.

There were no sleeping-cars in those days, nor vestibuled trains, nor
even cars with stuffed easy-chairs in which one could lie back and make
himself comfortable. No, indeed; there were no such luxuries as these
for those who travelled by rail at that time. The passenger coaches were
just long boxes, with low, almost flat roofs, like those of freight
cars. Their windows were small, and generally stuck fast in their
frames, so that they could not be opened. There was no other means of
ventilation, except as one of the end doors was flung open, when there
came such a rush of smoke and cinders and cold air that everybody was
impatient to have it closed again.

At night the only light was given by three candles that burned inside of
globes to protect them from being extinguished every time a door was
opened. There were no electric lights, nor gas, nor even oil-lamps, for
the cars of those days, only these feeble candles, placed one at each
end, and one in the middle of the coach. But worst of all were the
seats, which must have been invented by somebody who wished to
discourage railroad riding. They were narrow, hard, straight-backed, and
covered with s