2O2 The King of the Thundering Herd 



By degrees the streets grew less and less 

 congested and the way became clearer. The 

 buildings were not so high as they had been 

 and there were occasional vacant lots, a sure 

 indication that the suburbs were in sight. 



Then they passed simple cottages of the 

 rural type, and after fifteen or twenty min- 

 utes of patient crawling along the rails, the 

 broad unobstructed prairies opened out before 

 them, limitless as the sky and nearly level 

 as far as the railroad was concerned, for all 

 of the deeper swells had been slightly filled 

 and their tops cut down, so that there was 

 almost no grade from Chicago to the Missis- 

 sippi River, several hundred miles away. 



Williams, the engineer, heaved a deep 

 sigh of relief and pulled the throttle nearly 

 wide open. " I always feel better when I 

 get this far along," he said to the fireman. 

 " It does me good to give the old girl her 

 head. The city kinder suffocates me and I 

 am mighty afraid I'll run over somebody or 



