It had its effect. Three or four volunteered at once. We all pushed; we slithered to right and left; we slipped over each other and ourselves. But we got there.
Riding on the sleepers was hardly humorous, but it was better than the road. They were not filled in and were very irregular. Consequently progress was slow and a trifle disjointed. The "depot" was not far away. The "line-boss" looked at me curiously, as though I were a strange offshoot from some wayward train.
"Many trains coming along this way?" I queried, wishing to know what I should have to meet, as there was only a single track, double tracks being seldom, if ever, laid in the States, and if one was unprepared it might prove embarrassing to meet a train coming in the opposite direction just in the middle of a tunnel or a bridge. American railway bridges are remarkable for their narrowness. Very often the sleepers themselves project into space, and never is there any track beyond them.
"You said it, brother," he replied, "dozens of 'em." "And what's more, there's a couple of long tunnels just a mile away—look, you can see the beginning—and beyond them there's a bridge pretty nigh half a mile long—and trains is mighty funny things to play hide and seek with, y' know!"
I was of that opinion myself. As I looked, I saw a train emerge from the tunnel ahead. I reflected that I should have been just about there by now if I hadn't stopped. I went back to Wheeling.
The next day I covered twenty miles in four hours and found myself back in Wheeling again, but this time by another road. Nothing daunted, I said nothing, clenched my teeth, and polished off another twenty until dark.
The day after I did better. The nett progress at the end of the day's work was twenty-five miles instead of twenty. I arrived at the conclusion that Missouri had one great advantage that I had hitherto overlooked. It was an excellent place to get out of!
On the next day I covered five miles in six hours, and although only forty miles or so from Kansas City, which marks the commencement of the historic Santa Fé Trail leading to the Pacific Coast, I made a solemn vow that I would "ship" everything there by train at the next town. The next town happened to be "Excelsior Springs," twenty miles further on. The road improved considerably, and the comforting thought of civilization at so short a distance urged me on and I broke that solemn vow. I rode into Kansas City late that afternoon, a mass of bruises from head to foot, just as the speedometer showed 1,919 miles from New York. I ferreted out the Henderson agent and left Lizzie in his tender keeping.