ust before me. Dan, with his shovel, is out on a
shaky steel shelf behind, that bridges the space between engine and
tender. That is where he works, poor lad! We are breathing coal-dust
and torch-smoke and warm oil.

"F-s-s-s-s-s!" comes the signal, and instantly we are moving. Lights
flash about us everywhere--green lights, white lights, red lights, a
phantasmagoria of drug-store bottles. The tracks shine yellow far ahead.
A steady pounding and jarring begins, and grows like the roar of battle.
Our cab heaves with the tugging of a captive balloon. Our speed
increases amazingly. We seem constantly on the point of running straight
through blocks of houses, and escape only by sudden and disconcerting
swayings around curves that all lead, one will vow, straight into black
chasms under the dazzle. Whoever rides here for the first time feels
that he is ticketed for sure destruction, understands that this plunging
engine _must_ necessarily go off the rails in two or three minutes, say
five at the latest; for what guidance, he reasons, can any man get from
a million crazy lights, and who that is human can avoid a snarl in such
a tangle of bumping switches? I am free to confess, for my own part,
that I found the first half hour of my ride on 590 absolutely
terrifying.

Thus, at break-neck speed, we come out of Chicago, all slow-going city
ordinances to the contrary notwithstanding. We are chasing a
transcontinental record schedule, and have fifteen minutes to make up. I
breathe more freely as we get into open country. We are going like the
wind, but the track is straighter, and the darkness comfortable. I begin
to notice things with better understanding. As the lurches come, I brace
myself against the boiler side without fear of burning; that is
something learned. I find out later that I owe this protection to a
two-inch layer of asbestos. I catch a faint sound of the engine bell,
and discover, to my surprise, that it has been ringing from the
start--indeed, it rings, without ceasing, all the way to Burlington, the
rope pulled by a steam jerking contrivance, but the roar of the engine
drowns it.

Deep shadows inwrap the cab, all the deeper for the glare that flashes
through them every minute or two as Dan, back there on his iron shelf,
stokes coal in at the red-hot door. Two faint lights burn for the
gages--a jumping water column in front, a pair of wavering needles on
the boiler. These Bullard watches coolly, and from time