204 The King of the Thundering Herd 



On sped the long luxuriant train like a 

 whirlwind, a mighty force that nothing 

 could withstand. The white fury of the 

 steain had been caught by impotent little 

 man and taught to slave for him, to drive 

 this hissing, roaring dragon of commerce 

 far across the great plains. 



Across the plains as the whirlwind goes ; 

 with a force that would never tire; that 

 knew no hardship ; by an engine whose 

 parts never ached or broke. Such was the 

 mighty steed of steel that roared over 

 culverts and into deep cuts; that caused 

 strong trestles to shake with its passing and 

 the solid earth to tremble where it trod. 



Through waving corn-fields and billowing 

 acres of wheat it rushed ; for these were 

 the days in Illinois when wheat had not 

 been entirely supplanted by corn ; by strag- 

 gling villages which were too insignificant 

 for it to deign to stop ; over rivers where it 

 crept upon a bridge of seeming spider-web, 



