ders to start in the morning with a corps of
Signal Service men, army officers, and electricians. It was to go
provided with every scientific appliance, and to carry an insulated
cable to be paid out from the car. The accounts said that the people
were all on the streets in Cheyenne, and an enormous mob surrounded the
station where the preparations were making.

For the first time I felt, as I threw the paper away, what I can only
call a sense of misgiving. As I walked up the deserted avenue this
feeling grew upon me, and when I reached Twenty-third Street, on my way
to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a sudden and entirely new reflection made me
stop unconsciously as I turned it over in my mind. "If this strange news
has affected Judge Brisbane and his daughter so seriously, why may it
not be affecting millions of other people similarly? If there is at this
moment a panic in the West, how long will it take the reflex wave to
reach New York?"

The next morning events, or at least the publication of them, had
reached that condition which arrests public attention everywhere. The
news from the West swamped all else in the morning journals. The
editors, by their work, now acknowledged that the mysterious silence on
the Pacific Slope was by far the most important subject for
consideration before the world. The moment I glanced at the sheets I saw
that there was but one theme in the journalistic mind.

Two days had passed, and the silence was unbroken. Never before in the
history of the world had the absence of news become such important news.
Public attention was now mainly centered on the attempt to get a train
of observation through from Cheyenne.

There was a hopeful spirit to most of the accounts, as if it was
believed that science would unravel the mystery. But there was nothing
from any quarter of the globe that as yet afforded the feeblest gleam of
comfort. The Government train was to start early on this, the morning of
the 28th, and the papers were only able to furnish details of the
preparation and reports of the public excitement in Cheyenne and Denver.
The officers on the train were to send dispatches from every station
west of Pocatello. They were sagacious, experienced men, and the
expedition was under the direction of the well-known engineer, General
Albert Carrall.

I felt as I read the accounts that these men would probably clear up the
mystery, and I resolved to delay engaging the passages on the ocean
steamer