be crazy.
Isn't there some way of making him slow down?"

"Not if he is crazy, as you suggest, sir," replied Conductor Tobin, with a
sly twinkle in his eyes. "It would only make matters worse to interfere
with him now, and all we can do is to hope for the best."

"It's glorious!" shouted Rod, forgetting all his troubles in the
exhilaration of this wild ride. "It's glorious! And I only hope he'll
make it. Do you really think a hundred miles an hour is within the
possibilities, Mr. Tobin?"

"Certainly I do," answered the Conductor. "It not only can be done, but
will be, very soon. I haven't any doubt but what by the time the Columbian
Exposition opens we shall have regular passenger trains running at that
rate over some stretches of our best roads, such as the Pennsylvania, the
Reading, the New York Central and this one. Moreover, when electricity
comes into general use as a motive power I shall expect to travel at a
greater speed even than that. Why, they are building an electric road now
on an air line between Chicago and St. Louis, on which they expect to make
a hundred miles an hour as a regular thing."

"I hope I shall have a chance to travel on it," said Rod.

"I have heard of another road," continued Conductor Tobin, "now being
built somewhere in Europe, Austria I believe, over which they propose to
run trains at the rate of one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour."

Here the conversation was interrupted by Snyder Appleby, who, in a frenzy
of terror that he could no longer control, shouted "Stop him! Stop him! I
order you to stop him at once!"

"All right, sir, I'll try," answered Conductor Tobin, with a scornful
smile on his face. Just as he lifted his hand to the bell-cord there came
a shriek from the locomotive whistle. It was instantly followed by such a
powerful application of brakes that the car in which our friends were
seated quivered in every joint and seemed as though about to be wrenched
in pieces.

As the special finally came to a halt, and its occupants rushed out to
discover the cause of its violent stoppage, they found the hissing
monster, that had drawn them with such fearful velocity, standing
trembling and panting within a few feet of one of the most complete and
terrible wrecks any of them had ever seen.

CHAPTER XXXII.

SNATCHING VICTORY FROM DEFEAT.

The wreck by which the terrific speed of the special had been so suddenly
checked was one of those that may happen at any