had been decently wide.

As the freight got out of Philadelphia she began to hit up speed. Then
I understood what the shack had meant by suicide. The freight went
faster and faster. She was a through freight, and there was nothing to
stop her. On that section of the Pennsylvania four tracks run side by
side, and my east-bound freight didn't need to worry about passing
west-bound freights, nor about being overtaken by east-bound
expresses. She had the track to herself, and she used it. I was in a
precarious situation. I stood with the mere edges of my feet on the
narrow projections, the palms of my hands pressing desperately against
the flat, perpendicular ends of each car. And those cars moved, and
moved individually, up and down and back and forth. Did you ever see a
circus rider, standing on two running horses, with one foot on the
back of each horse? Well, that was what I was doing, with several
differences. The circus rider had the reins to hold on to, while I had
nothing; he stood on the broad soles of his feet, while I stood on the
edges of mine; he bent his legs and body, gaining the strength of the
arch in his posture and achieving the stability of a low centre of
gravity, while I was compelled to stand upright and keep my legs
straight; he rode face forward, while I was riding sidewise; and also,
if he fell off, he'd get only a roll in the sawdust, while I'd have
been ground to pieces beneath the wheels.

And that freight was certainly going some, roaring and shrieking,
swinging madly around curves, thundering over trestles, one car-end
bumping up when the other was jarring down, or jerking to the right at
the same moment the other was lurching to the left, and with me all
the while praying and hoping for the train to stop. But she didn't
stop. She didn't have to. For the first, last, and only time on The
Road, I got all I wanted. I abandoned the bumpers and managed to get
out on a side-ladder; it was ticklish work, for I had never
encountered car-ends that were so parsimonious of hand-holds and
foot-holds as those car-ends were.

I heard the engine whistling, and I felt the speed easing down. I knew
the train wasn't going to stop, but my mind was made up to chance it
if she slowed down sufficiently. The right of way at this point took a
curve, crossed a bridge over a canal, and cut through the town of
Bristol. This combination compelled slow speed. I clung on to the
side-ladder and waited. I didn't know it