The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-05-06

silver door-handle, only moaned little
and begged her husband to bid them
hurry" And so they dropped the dry
sands and moon-struck rocks of
Arizona behind them, and grilled on
till the crash of the couplings and the
wheeze of the brakehose told them
they were at Coolidge by the COnti-
mental Divide.
Three bold and experienced men
cool, confident, and dry when they be-
gan; white, quivering and wet when
they finished their trick at those ter
rible wheels-swung her over the great
lift from Albuquerque to Glorietta ana
beyond Springer, up and up to the
Ration Tunnel on the State line, whence
they dropped rocking into La Junta,
had sight of the Arkansaw, and tore
down the long slope to Dodge City,
where Cheyne took comfort once again
from setting his watch an hour ahead.
There was very little talk in the car.
The secretary and typewriter sat to-
gether on the stamped Spanish-leather
cushions by the plate-glass observation
window at the rear end, watching the
surge and ripple of the ties crowded
back behind them, and, it is believed,
making notes of the sceparY. Cheyne
moved nervously between nIs eX-
travagant gorgeousness and the naked
necessity of the combination, an unlit
cigar in his teeth, till the plying crews
forgot that he was their tribal enemy,
and did their best to entertain him.
At night the punched electrics lit up
that distressful palace of all the luXur-
les, and they Jared sumptuously, swing
ing on through the emptiness of abject
desolation. Now they heard the swish
of a water-tanlS, and the cultural voice
of a Chinaman, the clink-clink or ham,
mers that tested the Krupp steel wheels
and the oath of tramp chased off the
rear-platform; now the solid crash OF
coal shot into the tender and now a
beating back of noises as they flew past
q waiting train. Now they looked out
into great abysses, a treste purrinG
beneath their tread, or up to rocks that
barred out half the stars. Now scauI
and ravine changed and rolled back to
jagged mountains on the horizons edge
and now broke into hills lower anc
lower, till at last came the true plains
At Dodge City an unknown hand
threw in a copy of Kansas paper con-
tanning some sort Of an interview with
Harvey, VINO ndu SNluciltiy idlicii IL
with an enterprsing reporter tele'
graphed on from Boston. The Joyful
journalese revealed that it was beyorf
question their boy, and it soothed Mrs
Cheyne for a while. Her one wore
hurry" was conveyed by the crews L
the engineers at Nickerson, Topeka, and
| Marceline, where the grades are cas-!
and they brushed the Continent behind
them. Towns and villages were clos
together now, and a man could fee
here that he moved among people.
"I can't see the dial, and my eyes
ache so. What are we doing?"
The very best we can, mama. There's
no sense in getting in before the Limit
ed. We'd only have to wait"
IT don't care. l want TO feel We're
moving. Sit down and tell me the
miles"
Cheyne sat down and read the dia
for her (there were some miles which
stand for records to this day), but the
seventy-foot car never changed it'
long steamer-like roll, moving through
| the heat with the hum of a giant bee
Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs
! Cheyne: and the heat, this remorseles.
August heat, was making her giddy
the clock-hands would not move, and
when, oh, when Yauld they be in Chi
! cago?