We were still leagues from the railroad, and the miles of grasses flitted towards us ever more slowly. The last clump of birches took half an hour to raise, and the willows which fled behind us had been five long minutes taking the shape of trees. My watch was clenched in one hand, and, while bluff and ravine crawled, its fingers raced around the dial with an agonizing rapidity in testimony of the feebleness of flesh and blood when pitted against steel and steam. The clanging cars had swept clear of the foothills long ago, and the track ran straight and level across the prairie, a smooth empty road for the Accelerated to save time on in its race between the Pacific and the Laurentian waterway. When the prairie grew blurred before us, as it sometimes did, I could see instead the two huge locomotives veiled in dust and smoke thundering with a pitiless swiftness down the long converging rails, while the drumming of hoofs changed into the roar of wheels whose speed would brand me with dishonor. Yet we were doing all that man or beast could do, and at last a faint ray of hope and a new dismay came upon me. The difference in time had further lessened, but my horse was failing.
"Go on as you're going," shouted Steel, edging his whitened beast nearer. "I'm riding a stone lighter, and this beast has another hour's work left in him."
I went on, the horse growing more and more feeble and blundering in his stride, until at last, when it was a case of dismount or do murder, I dropped stiffly from the saddle. Steel was down in a second, and in another my jacket and vest were off, and I laid my foot to the stirrup in white shirt and trousers, with a handkerchief knotted around my waist.
"You'll startle the folks in Empress, and you can't strip off much more," said Steel.
"I'd ride into the depot naked sooner than rob the boys," I said; and was mounted before my comrade could reopen his mouth. When he did so his "Good luck!" sounded already faint and far away.
Steel's horse had more life left in him—one could feel it in his stride; but now that there was some hope of success I rode with more caution, sparing him up the low rises, and trying, so far as one might guess it, to keep within a very small margin of his utmost strength. So we pressed on until all the prairie grew dim to me, and my only distinct sensation was the rush of the cool wind. Then a flitting birch bluff roused me once more to watch, and minute by minute I strained my eyes for the first glimpse of the tall poles heralding the railroad track. At last a row of what looked like matches streaked the horizon, and grew in size until something that rose and fell with the heave of the prairie sea became visible beneath. Then, as we topped one of its grassy waves, a cluster of distant cubes loomed up, and a glance at the watch's racing fingers warned me that I was already behind the time that the train was due to reach the settlement. It might have passed; and a new torture was added until, when in an agony of suspense, I strained my eyes towards the west, a streak of whiteness crept out of the horizon.
The run of the Accelerated was at that time regarded as a national exploit, forming, as it did, part of a new link binding Japan and London—the East and the West; and I knew the conductor would hardly have waited for one of his own directors. The white streak rapidly grew larger; something sparkled beneath it, and there was flash of twinkling glass through the dust and steam. I fixed my eyes on the station, and taxed every aching sinew in hand and heel, for the weakening beast must bring me there in time or die. A smoke cloud, with bright patches beneath it, rolled up to the station when I was nearly half a mile away. The horse was reeling under me, the power had gone out of the leaden hands on switch and bridle, and—for the tension had produced a vertigo—my sight was almost gone.
Hearing, however, still remained, and shouts of encouragement reached me, while I could dimly see the station close ahead, and shapeless figures apparently waving hats and arms. The clang of a big bell rang in my ears, the twin locomotives snorted, and I fell from the saddle, sprang towards the track, and clutched at the sliding rails of a car platform. I missed them; the car, swaying giddily, so it seemed, rolled past, and I hurled myself bodily at the next platform. Somebody clutched my shoulder and dragged me up, and I fell with a heavy crash against the door of a vestibule.
"Just in time," said a man in uniform. "Say, are you doing this for a wager, or are some mad cow-chasers after you?"