Whew! And when Ben Holladay, the King of the Overland Stage, had made fourteen miles in an hour with his special coach and a special team of fours, that had seemed like a lightning trip.
They had thundered over the long bridge above the North Platte River, and were scooting eastward, parallel with the main Platte. From across the river the emigrants who still stuck to their slow prairie schooners or covered wagons, waved at the train. At a safe distance some antelope fled, flashing their white rumps. Prairie-dogs sat up at the mouth of their burrows, to gaze.
Once in a while a ranch, with low adobe buildings, might be seen, south of the river; and an old stage station there, before or behind, was almost always in sight. The Overland had quit running, east of Cottonwood station, near North Platte.
On this side of the river there was not much to see, except the railroad telegraph poles, and the prairie-dogs, and the line of rails that stretched clear to Omaha on the Missouri River, and a side-station of one little building which slipped by so quickly that Terry could not read the sign.
The general and Superintendent Reed went back into the Lincoln car, to talk with the commissioners there. They left the headquarters car to Terry, Shep and the black cook.
“How you like this sort o’ travel, boy?” queried the cook, as he tidied the car with a dust-rag.
“We’re sure moving,” Terry grinned. “It beats staging. How fast are we going now, do you think?”
“Oh, mebbe thirty miles an houah. Reckon we gotto meet ’nother train. This heah road is shy on meetin’ places yet. But, sho’, thirty miles ain’t nothin’, boy. When the gin’ral heahs somethin’ callin’ him, he jest tells this old cah to step on the injine’s tail, an’—woof! ’Way we go, fifty, mebbe fifty-five miles an houah! Yessuh. Sometimes the gin’ral he likes to show off a bit, too, when there’s gover’ment folks abohd. He shuah gives ’em a ride, so they’ll know this ain’t any play road, down today an’ up tomorrow. Where you from?”
“End o’ track,” answered Terry.
“What you do there?”