e passengers.

"Only a mile, but on the other side of the river."

"And can't we cross in a boat?" asked the Colonel.

"Quite impossible; the creek has swollen with the rains; we shall have
to go round ten miles to a ford."

The Colonel vented a choice collection of oaths, condemning the
company, the guard, and creation generally; and Passe-partout, who was
very angry, felt inclined to join him. Here was a material obstacle
which all his master's money would not be able to remove.

The disappointment of the passengers was general, for, without
reckoning the delay, they found themselves obliged to walk fifteen
miles in the snow. The commotion would have attracted Phileas Fogg's
attention had he not been entirely absorbed in his game.

Nevertheless, Passe-partout would have told him of it if the engineer,
a true Yankee, named Foster, had not said:

"Perhaps there is a way we can get over after all, gentlemen."

"Over the bridge?" asked a passenger.

"Yes."

"With the train, do you mean?" asked the Colonel.

"With the train."

Passe-partout stopped and listened anxiously for the engineer's
explanation.

"But the bridge is almost broken," said the guard.

"Never mind," replied Foster: "I think that by putting on full-steam
we may have a chance of getting across."

"The devil!" muttered Passe-partout.

But a certain number of the passengers were attracted by the
suggestion; Colonel Proctor was particularly pleased, and thought the
plan quite feasible. He related various anecdotes concerning
engineers, whom he had known, who crossed over rivers without any
bridges at all by merely putting on full-steam, etc. The end of it was
that many of the passengers agreed with the engineer.

"The chances are fifty to a hundred about our getting over," said one.

"Sixty!" said another.

"Eighty, ninety!" said a third.

Passe-partout was dumfounded, and although he was very anxious to
cross the river, he thought the proposed plan a little too American.

"Besides," he thought, "there is an easier way, which does not seem to
have occurred to either of them;" so he said aloud to one of the
passengers:

"The engineer's plan seems to me somewhat dangerous; but--"

"Eighty chances!" replied the person addressed, turning away.

"I know that," replied Passe-partout, as he spoke to another; "but an
idea--"

"Ideas are no use," replied the American; "the engineer tells us we
can cross."

"No doubt," replied Passe-p