Chapter XXVI

“From ocean to ocean”—so say the Americans about the line which crosses the entire width of the United States. The Pacific Railroad is, however, really divided into two distinct lines: the Central Pacific, between San Francisco and Ogden, and the Union Pacific, between Ogden and Omaha. Five main lines connect Omaha with New York.

New York and San Francisco are thus united by an uninterrupted metal ribbon, which measures no less than three thousand seven hundred and eighty-six miles. Between Omaha and the Pacific the railway crosses a territory populated by Indians and various wild beasts. The journey from New York to San Francisco consumed, formerly, under the most favourable conditions, at least six months. Now it could be accomplished in seven days.

The car which Fogg occupied was a sort of long omnibus on eight wheels, and with no compartments in the interior. It was supplied with two rows of seats, perpendicular to the direction of the train on either side of an aisle which conducted to the front and rear platforms. These platforms were found throughout the train, and the passengers were able to pass from one end of the train to the other. It was supplied with saloon cars, balcony cars, restaurants, and smoking-cars. Book and news dealers, sellers of edibles, drinkables, and cigars were continually circulating in the aisles.

The train left Oakland station at six o’clock. It was already night, cold and cheerless, the heavens being overcast with clouds which seemed to threaten snow. The train did not proceed rapidly; it did not run more than twenty miles an hour, which was a sufficient speed, however, to enable it to reach Omaha within its designated time.

There was but little conversation in the car, and soon many of the passengers were overcome with sleep. Passepartout found himself beside the detective; but he did not talk to him. After recent events, their relations with each other had grown somewhat cold; there could no longer be mutual sympathy or intimacy between them. Fix’s manner had not changed; but Passepartout was very reserved.

Snow began to fall an hour after they started, a fine snow, however, which happily could not obstruct the train; nothing could be seen from the windows but a vast, white sheet.

At eight o’clock a steward entered the car and announced that the time for going to bed had arrived; and in a few minutes the car was transformed into a dormitory. The backs of the seats were thrown back, bedsteads carefully packed were rolled out by an ingenious system, berths were suddenly improvised, and each traveller had soon at his disposition a comfortable bed, protected from curious eyes by thick curtains. The sheets were clean and the pillows soft. It only remained to go to bed and sleep which everybody did—while the train sped on across the State of California.

The country between San Francisco and Sacramento is not very hilly. The Central Pacific extends eastward to meet the road from Omaha. The line from San Francisco to Sacramento runs in a north-easterly direction, along the American River. The one hundred and twenty miles between these cities were accomplished in six hours, and towards midnight, while fast asleep, the travellers passed through Sacramento; so that they saw nothing of that important place, the seat of the State government, with its fine quays, its broad streets, its noble hotels, squares, and churches.

There were few or no bridges or tunnels on the route. The railway turned around the sides of the mountains, and did not attempt to violate nature by taking the shortest cut from one point to another.

The train entered the State of Nevada about nine o’clock, going always northeasterly; and at midday there was a delay of twenty minutes for breakfast.

Having breakfasted, Mr. Fogg and his companions observed the varied landscape as they passed along the vast prairies, the mountains lining the horizon, and the creeks, with their frothy, foaming streams. Sometimes a great herd of buffaloes, massing together in the distance, seemed like a moveable dam. These innumerable multitudes of ruminating beasts often form an insurmountable obstacle to the passage of the trains. The locomotive is then forced to stop and wait till the road is once more clear.

About twelve o’clock a troop of ten or twelve thousand head of buffalo encumbered the track. The buffaloes marched along with a tranquil gait. There was no use of interrupting them, nothing can moderate and change their course.

Passepartout was furious at the delay.

“What a country!” cried he. “Mere cattle stop the trains, and go by in a procession! I should like to know if Mr. Fogg foresaw this mishap in his programme!”

The engineer did not try to overcome the obstacle, and he was wise. The best course was to wait patiently, and regain the lost time by greater speed when the obstacle was removed. The procession of buffaloes lasted three full hours, and it was night before the track was clear.

Chapter XXVII

During the night of the 5th of December, the train ran south-easterly for about fifty miles; then rose an equal distance in a north-easterly direction, towards the Great Salt Lake.

Passepartout, about nine o’clock, went out upon the platform to take the air. The weather was cold, the heavens grey, but it was not snowing. The sun’s disc, enlarged by the mist, seemed an enormous ring of gold, and Passepartout was amusing himself by calculating its value in pounds sterling.

The train had been making good progress, and towards half-past twelve it reached the northwest border of the Great Salt Lake. Thence the passengers could observe the vast extent of this interior sea, which is also called the Dead Sea, and into which flows an American Jordan.

The train reached Ogden at two o’clock, where it rested for six hours. Mr. Fogg and his party had time to pay a visit to Salt Lake City, connected with Ogden by a branch road; and they spent two hours in this American town, built on the pattern of other cities of the Union, like a checker-board. In this strange country, everything is done “squarely”—cities, houses, and follies.

The travelers were promenading about the streets of the town. They saw few churches, the court-house, and the arsenal, blue-brick houses with verandas and porches, surrounded by gardens bordered with acacias, palms, and locusts. A clay and pebble wall, built in 1853, surrounded the town; and in the principal street were the market and several hotels adorned with pavilions. The place did not seem thickly populated. At four the party found themselves again at the station, took their places in the train, and the whistle sounded for starting.

Chapter XXVIII

The train, on leaving Great Salt Lake at Ogden, passed northward for an hour. From this point it took an easterly direction towards the Wahsatch Mountains. Here the American engineers found the most formidable difficulties in laying the road, and the government granted a subsidy of forty-eight thousand dollars per mile, instead of sixteen thousand. But the engineers, instead of violating nature, avoided its difficulties by winding around, instead of penetrating the rocks. One tunnel only, fourteen thousand feet in length, was pierced in order to arrive at the great basin.

Snow had fallen abundantly during the night, but, being mixed with rain, it had half melted, and did not interrupt their progress. The bad weather, however, annoyed Passepartout; for the accumulation of snow, by blocking the wheels of the cars, would certainly have been fatal to Mr. Fogg’s tour.

“What an idea!” he said to himself. “Why did my master make this journey in winter? Couldn’t he have waited for the good season to increase his chances?”

Several passengers had got off at Green River, and were walking up and down the platforms; and among these Aouda recognised Colonel Stamp Proctor, the same who had so grossly insulted Phileas Fogg at the San Francisco meeting. Not wishing to be recognised, the young woman drew back from the window, feeling much alarm at her discovery. She was attached to the man who gave her daily evidences of the most absolute devotion. She did not comprehend, perhaps, the depth of the sentiment with which her protector inspired her, which she called gratitude, but which, though she was unconscious of it, was really more than that.

Aouda seized a moment when Mr. Fogg was asleep to tell Fix and Passepartout whom she had seen.

“That Proctor on this train!” cried Fix. “Well, reassure yourself, madam; before he settles with Mr. Fogg; he has got to deal with me! It seems to me that I was the more insulted of the two.”

“And, besides,” added Passepartout, “I’ll take charge of him, colonel as he is.”

“Mr. Fix,” resumed Aouda, “Mr. Fogg will allow no one to avenge him. He said that he would come back to America to find this man. Should he perceive Colonel Proctor, we could not prevent a collision which might have terrible results. He must not see him.”

“You are right, madam,” replied Fix; “a meeting between them might ruin all. Whether he were victorious or beaten, Mr. Fogg would be delayed, and—”

“And,” added Passepartout, “that would be good for the gentlemen of the Reform Club. In four days we shall be in New York. Well, if my master does not leave this car during those four days, we may hope that chance will not bring him face to face with this confounded American.”

The conversation dropped. Mr. Fogg had just woke up, and was looking out of the window. Soon after Passepartout whispered to the detective:

“Would you really fight for him?”

“I would do anything,” replied Fix, “to get him back living to Europe!”

Was there any means of detaining Mr. Fogg in the car, to avoid a meeting between him and the colonel? It ought not to be a difficult task, since that gentleman was naturally sedentary and little curious. The detective said to Mr. Fogg,

“You were in the habit of playing whist on the steamers.”

“Yes; but it would be difficult to do so here. I have neither cards nor partners.”

“Oh, but we can easily buy some cards, for they are sold on all the American trains. And as for partners, if madam plays—”

“Certainly, sir,” Aouda quickly replied; “I understand whist. It is part of an English education.”

“And I like to play whist, too.”

“As you please, sir,” replied Phileas Fogg.

Passepartout soon returned with two packs of cards, some pins, counters, and a shelf covered with cloth. The game commenced. Aouda understood whist sufficiently well, and even received some compliments on her playing from Mr. Fogg. As for the detective, he was simply an adept.

“Now,” thought Passepartout, “we’ve got him. He won’t move.”

At eleven in the morning the train had reached the Bridger Pass. After going about two hundred miles, the travellers at last found themselves on one of those vast plains which extend to the Atlantic.

At half-past twelve the travellers caught sight for an instant of Fort Halleck; and in a few more hours the Rocky Mountains were crossed. There was reason to hope, then, that no accident would mark the journey through this difficult country. The snow had ceased falling, and the air became crisp and cold. Large birds, frightened by the locomotive, rose and flew off in the distance. No wild beast appeared on the plain. It was a desert in its vast nakedness.

Suddenly a violent whistling was heard, and the train stopped. Passepartout put his head out of the door, but saw nothing to cause the delay; no station was in view. Passepartout rushed out of the car. Thirty or forty passengers had already descended, amongst them Colonel Stamp Proctor.

The train had stopped before a red signal which blocked the way. Passepartout, joining the group, heard the signal-man say, “No! You can’t pass. The bridge is shaky, and would not bear the weight of the train.”

This was a bridge, about a mile from the place where they now were. According to the signal-man, it was in a ruinous condition, several of the iron wires being broken; and it was impossible to risk the passage. He did not in any way exaggerate the condition of the bridge.

“Hum!” cried Colonel Proctor; “but we are not going to stay here, I imagine, and take root in the snow?”

The colonel launched a volley of oaths, denouncing the railway company and the conductor. Here was an obstacle, indeed, which all his master’s banknotes could not remove.

Passepartout found that he could not avoid telling his master what had occurred, and, with hanging head, he was turning towards the car, when the engineer, a true Yankee, called out:

“Gentlemen, perhaps there is a way, after all, to get over.”

“On the bridge?” asked a passenger.

“On the bridge.”

“With our train?”

“With our train.”

Passepartout stopped and eagerly listened to the engineer.

“But the bridge is unsafe,” urged the conductor.

“No matter,” replied Forster; “I think that by putting on the very highest speed we might have a chance of getting over.”

“The devil!” muttered Passepartout.

But many passengers were at once attracted by the engineer’s proposal, and Colonel Proctor was especially delighted, and found the plan a very feasible one.

“We have fifty chances out of a hundred of getting over,” said somebody.

“Eighty! Ninety!”

“Sir,” said Passepartout aloud to one of the passengers, “the engineer’s plan seems to me a little dangerous, but—”

“Eighty chances!” replied the passenger.

“I know it,” said Passepartout, turning to another passenger, “but a simple idea—”

“Ideas are no use,” returned the American, shrugging his shoulders, “as the engineer assures us that we can pass.”

“Doubtless,” urged Passepartout, “we can pass, but perhaps it would be more prudent—”

“What! Prudent!” cried Colonel Proctor. “At full speed, don’t you see, at full speed!”

“Who! What! What’s the matter with this fellow?” cried several.

The poor fellow did not know to whom to address himself.

“Are you afraid?” asked Colonel Proctor.

“I afraid? Very well; I will show these people that a Frenchman can be as brave as Americans!”

“All aboard!” cried the conductor.

“Yes, all aboard!” repeated Passepartout, and immediately. “But they can’t prevent me from thinking that it would be more natural for us to cross the bridge on foot, and let the train come after!”

But no one heard this sage reflection. The passengers resumed their places in the cars. Passepartout took his seat without telling what had passed. The whist-players were quite absorbed in their game.

The locomotive whistled vigorously; the engineer, reversing the steam, backed the train for nearly a mile—retiring, like a jumper, in order to take a longer leap. Then, with another whistle, he began to move forward; the train increased its speed, and soon its rapidity became frightful; a prolonged screech issued from the locomotive. The train was rushing on at the rate of a hundred miles an hour.

And they passed over! It was like a flash. No one saw the bridge. The train leaped, so to speak, from one bank to the other, and the engineer could not stop it until it had gone five miles beyond the station. But scarcely had the train passed the river, when the bridge, completely ruined, fell with a crash into the river.