to time reaches
back past me to turn the injector-cock, whereupon steam hisses by my
head. For the most part he is quite still, like an Indian pilot, head
forward at the lookout window, right hand down by the air-brake valve,
left hand across the throttle lever, with only a second's jump to the
reversing lever that rises up from the floor straight before him. As we
race into towns and roar through them, he sounds the chime whistle,
making its deep voice challenge the darkness. At curves he eases her
with the brakes. And for grades and level stretches and bridges he
notches the throttle up or down as the need is. Watch his big, strong
grip on the polished handles! Think of the hours he spends here all
alone, this man who holds life and death in his quick, sure judgment!

Now he catches the window-frame and slides it open. A blast sweeps in
like an arctic hurricane. Bullard leans out into the night and seems to
listen. "Try it," he cries, but his voice is faint. I put my head out,
and come into a rush of air billows that strangle like breakers.

[Illustration: AT THE THROTTLE.]

"Greggs--Hill--three--miles--long. Let--her--go--soon." He closes the
window. And now, as we clear the grade, begins a burst of speed that
makes the rest of small account. Faster and faster we go, until the
very iron seems alive and straining underneath us. I am tossed about in
hard pitches. The glow of the furnace lights up continuously. There is
no sense of fear any longer. It is too splendid, what we are doing. Of
course it means instant death if anything breaks. Let the massive side
rod that holds the two drivers snap, and a half--ton knife sweeping
seventy miles an hour will slice off our cab and us with it like a cut
of cheese. Did not an engineer go to his death that way only last week
on the Union Pacific run? After all, why not this death as well as any
other? Have we not valves and tubes in our bodies that may snap at any
moment!

"How--fast?" I call out.

"Eighty--miles--an--hour," says Bullard, close to my ear, and a moment
later pulls the rope for a grade crossing. "Ooooo--ooooo--oo--oo,"
answers the deep iron voice, two long and two short calls, as the code
requires. "Year--ago--killed--two--men--here," he shouts as we whiz over
the road. "Struck--buggy--threw--men--sixty--feet." I wonder how far we
would throw them now.

In the two hundred and six miles' run to the Mississippi we stop only
twice--for water, at Mendota and at