The next town was Dunkirk, where a local ordinance put a 10-mile limit on the speed of trains. Tunkey smiled as they roared past the station at more than 80. A crowd lined the tracks here, for the telegraph had carried ahead the news of a hair-raising run. That crowd was only a blur to staring, frightened eyes at the car-windows. The officials were beginning to realize what kind of an engineer they had ahead this time. Whizzzzz! How they did run! Wahr! Wahr! barked the little bridges and were left behind! H-o-o-o! bellowed a tunnel. And rip, whrrr! as they slammed around a double reverse curve with a vicious swing that made the bolts rattle in the last car. Men put their mouths to other men's ears and tried to say that perhaps Mr. Tunkey was getting a little overzealous. Much good that did! Mr. Tunkey had the bit in his teeth now and was playing the game alone.
At eleven-six they swept past Silver Creek with 29 miles to go and 25 minutes to make it in. Hurrah! They had made up time enough to save them!
At eleven-twenty they passed Lake View.
"Twelve miles more, and 11 minutes," yelled somebody, waving his hat.
"Toboggan-slide all the way," yelled somebody else. "We'll do it easy. Hooray!"
They passed Athol Springs at eleven-twenty-four, all mad with excitement. They had 7 minutes left for 8 miles, and were cheering already.
"We'll make it with half a minute to spare," said the only man in the private car who was reasonably cool. He was six seconds out of the way, for they crossed the line twenty-six seconds before eleven thirty-one, and won the race by less than half a minute, beating the New York Central's record per mile on the whole run by the fraction of a second, and beating the whole world's record in the last relay by several minutes, the figures standing—Tunkey's figures—86 miles from Erie to Buffalo in 70 minutes and 46 seconds, or an average speed of 72.91 miles an hour.
"Do?" said the official. "What did we do? Why, we—we—" He paused helplessly, and then added, with a grin: "Well, we didn't do a thing to Tunkey!"