where they had to
_do things_. Butler was 71/2 miles away, the first town in the down grade,
and they made it in 6 minutes and 40 seconds, nearly 68 miles an hour.
In the next 7 miles Dave pushed her up to 70 an hour, then to 721/2, and
let her out in a great burst which made the passengers sit up, and
showed for several miles a top-notch rate of 87 miles an hour.
Nevertheless, taking account of frost and slow-downs, they barely
finished the relay on schedule time, so that for the whole run they were
still seven minutes behind time; the schedule they had set themselves
called for such tremendous speed that it seemed almost impossible to
make up a single lost minute.

The third relay was 108 miles to Cleveland, and they did it in 104
minutes, including many slow-downs and a heart-breaking loss of four
minutes when a section-hand red-flagged the train and brought it to a
dead stop from a 70-mile gait because he had found a broken rail. The
officials were in such a state of tension that they would almost have
preferred chancing it on the rail to losing those four minutes. There is
a point of eagerness in railroad racing where it seems nothing to risk
one's life!

The train drew out of Cleveland 19 minutes behind the time they should
have made for a world's record. Every man had done his best, every
locomotive had worked its hardest, but fate seemed against them and
hopes of beating the Central's fast run were fading rapidly. The fourth
relay was to Erie, 951/2 miles, and some said that Jake Gardner with 598
might pull them out of the hole, but the others shook their heads. At
any rate, Jake did better than those who had preceded him, and he danced
that train along at 75, 80, 84 miles an hour, so the watches said, and
averaged 67 miles an hour for the whole relay.

"It's the kind of thing that makes you taste your heart, and packs a
week into ten minutes," said the superintendent, telling about it. "You
may take _one_ ride smashing around curves at 80 miles an hour, but
you'll never take another."

Still, in spite of these brave efforts, they pulled out of Erie 15
minutes late, and started on the last relay with gloomy faces. It was 86
miles to Buffalo, the end of the race, and they must be there by eleven
thirty-one to win, which called for an average speed of over 70 miles an
hour, including slow-downs. No train in the world had ever approached
such an average, and their own racing average since leaving Chicago was