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Around the World in Eighty Days
Chapter 29. IN WHICH CERTAIN INCIDENTS ARE NARRATED WHICH ARE ONLY TO BE MET WITH ON AMERICAN RAILROADS
The train continued its course that evening without interruption, passing Fort Saunders, crossing Cheyne Pass, and reaching Evans Pass.
The road here reached the highest height of the journey, eight thousand and ninety-two feet above sea level.
The travellers now only had to go down to the Atlantic by wide plains made flat by nature.
A branch of the "grand trunk" led off south to Denver, the capital of Colorado.
The country around there's rich in gold and silver, and more than fifty thousand people already live there.
Thirteen hundred and eighty-two miles had been passed from San Francisco in three days and three nights.
Four more days and nights would probably bring them to New York.
Phileas Fogg wasn't behind time yet.
During the night they passed Camp Walbach on the left.
Lodge Pole Creek ran next to the road, marking the border between Wyoming and Colorado.
They entered Nebraska at eleven, passed near Sedgwick, and stopped at Julesburg on the southern branch of the Platte River.
It was here that the Union Pacific Railroad was opened on the 23rd of October, 1867, by the main engineer, General Dodge.
Two powerful locomotives, with nine cars of guests, among whom was Thomas C.
Durant, vice-president of the road, stopped at this point.
People cheered, and the Sioux and Pawnees made a fake Indian battle.
They set off fireworks, and the first number of the Railway Pioneer was printed by a press brought on the train.
Thus they celebrated the opening of this great railroad, a big help to progress and modern life.
It was built across the desert to join cities and towns that don't exist yet.
The whistle of the locomotive, louder than Amphion's lyre, was about to call them away from American land.
Fort McPherson was left behind at eight in the morning, and three hundred and fifty-seven miles had still to be done before reaching Omaha.
The road followed the twisting line of the southern branch of the Platte River on its left bank.
At nine the train stopped at the important town of North Platte.
North Platte is built between the two arms of the river, which join each other around it and form a single large river.
Its waters flow into the Missouri a little above Omaha.
They crossed the one hundred and first meridian.
Mr. Fogg and his partners had started their game again.
No one, not even the dummy, complained about the length of the trip.
Fix had begun by winning several guineas, which he seemed likely to lose.
But he showed himself to be a no less eager whist-player than Mr. Fogg.
During the morning, chance clearly favoured that gentleman.
Trumps and honours came to his hands.
Once, having decided on a bold move, he was about to play a spade, when a voice behind him said, "I should play a diamond."
Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and Fix lifted their heads and saw Colonel Proctor.
Stamp Proctor and Phileas Fogg recognised each other at once.
"Ah! it's you, is it, Englishman?" cried the colonel.
"It's you who are going to play a spade!"
"And who plays it," replied Phileas Fogg coolly, throwing down the ten of spades.
"Well, it pleases me to have it diamonds," replied Colonel Proctor in an insolent tone.
He moved as if to take the card that had just been played, and added, "You don't understand anything about whist."
"Perhaps I do, as well as another," said Phileas Fogg, standing up.
"You have only to try, son of John Bull," replied the colonel.
Aouda went pale and felt cold.
She took Mr. Fogg's arm and gently pulled him back.
Passepartout was ready to jump at the American, who was staring insolently at his opponent.
But Fix got up and, going to Colonel Proctor, said,
"You forget that it's I you have to deal with, sir, for it was I whom you not only insulted, but struck!"
"Mr. Fix," said Mr. Fogg.
"Pardon me, but this matter is mine, and mine only."
"The colonel has again insulted me by saying I shouldn't play a spade, and he shall give me satisfaction for that."
"When and where you'll," replied the American, "and with whatever weapon you choose."
Aouda tried in vain to hold Mr. Fogg, as in vain did the detective try to make the quarrel his.
Passepartout wished to throw the colonel out of the window, but a sign from his master stopped him.
Phileas Fogg left the car, and the American followed him on the platform.
"Sir," said Mr. Fogg to his opponent.
"I'm in a great hurry to get back to Europe, and any delay will be very bad for me."
"Well, what's that to me?" replied Colonel Proctor.
"Sir," said Mr. Fogg very politely.
"After our meeting at San Francisco I decided to return to America and find you as soon as I had finished the business that called me to England."
"Really!"
"Will you make a meeting for six months from now?"
"Why not ten years from now?"
"I say six months," returned Phileas Fogg.
"And I'll be at the place of meeting on time."
"All this is an evasion," cried Stamp Proctor.
"Now or never!"
"Very good. You're going to New York?"
"No."
"To Chicago?"
"No."
"To Omaha?"
"What difference is it to you? Do you know Plum Creek?"
"No," replied Mr. Fogg.
"It's the next station."
"The train will be there in an hour and will stop there ten minutes."
"In ten minutes several revolver shots could be fired."
"Very well," said Mr. Fogg.
"I'll stop at Plum Creek."
"And I guess you'll stay there too," added the American insolently.
"Who knows?" replied Mr. Fogg, going back to the car as cool as usual.
He began to calm Aouda, saying that loud men were never to be feared.
He then asked Fix to be his second for the duel, and the detective could not refuse.
Mr. Fogg resumed the interrupted game with perfect calm.
At eleven the locomotive's whistle showed they were near Plum Creek station.
Mr. Fogg stood up and, followed by Fix, went out on the platform.
Passepartout went with him, carrying a pair of revolvers.
Aouda stayed in the car as pale as death.
The door of the next car opened and Colonel Proctor appeared on the platform, with a Yankee of his kind as his second.
But just as the fighters were about to step from the train, the conductor hurried up and shouted, "You can't get off, gentlemen!"
"Why not?" asked the colonel.
"We're twenty minutes late and we won't stop."
"But I'm going to fight a duel with this gentleman."
"I'm sorry," said the conductor, "but we must go now. There's the bell ringing."
The train started again and moved forward with a loud, steady noise.
"I'm really very sorry, gentlemen," said the conductor.
"In other times I'd have been glad to help. But, since you haven't had time to fight here, why not fight as we go on?"
"That wouldn't be convenient, perhaps, for this gentleman," said the colonel, in a jeering tone.
"It would be perfectly so," replied Phileas Fogg.
"Well, we're really in America," thought Passepartout, "and the conductor is a gentleman of the first order!"
So saying, he followed his master.
The two fighters, their seconds, and the conductor went through the cars to the rear of the train.
The last car had only a dozen passengers.
The conductor politely asked them to leave it empty for a few moments because two gentlemen had an affair of honour to settle.
The passengers agreed quickly and went out on the platform.
The car, which was about fifty feet long, was very convenient for their purpose.
The opponents could walk toward each other in the aisle and fire easily.
Never was a duel more simply arranged.
Mr. Fogg and Colonel Proctor, each with two six-barrelled revolvers, went into the car.
The seconds, staying outside, shut the doors.
They were to begin firing at the first whistle of the locomotive.
After two minutes, what was left of the two gentlemen would be taken from the car.
Nothing could be more simple, or so it seemed to everyone on board.
Indeed it was all so simple that Fix and Passepartout felt their hearts beat as if they'd break.
They listened for the agreed whistle when savage cries rose and shots rang out from cars other than the duellists'.
The shots continued along the front and the whole length of the train.
Cries of terror came from inside the cars.
Colonel Proctor and Mr. Fogg, revolvers in hand, quickly left their prison and rushed forward where the noise was loudest.
They then saw that the train was attacked by a band of Sioux.
This wasn't the first time these bold Indians tried this, for more than once they had stopped trains on the road.
A hundred of them, as usual, jumped onto the steps without stopping the train, as easily as a clown mounting a horse.
The Sioux had guns, from which came the shots, to which the passengers, who were almost all armed, answered with revolver shots.
The Indians had first climbed onto the engine and half stunned the engineer and stoker with blows from their muskets.
A Sioux chief tried to stop the train but did not know controls and opened the steam wide instead of closing it.
The locomotive rushed forward at great speed.
The Sioux also got into the cars, leaping like wild monkeys over the roofs, opening the doors, and fighting hand to hand with the passengers.
Entering the baggage-car, they looted it, throwing the trunks out of the train.
The cries and shots were constant.
The travellers defended themselves bravely, Some cars were barricaded and held out like moving forts, carried along at a great speed.
Aouda was brave from the first.
She defended herself like a true heroine with a revolver, which she fired through broken windows whenever a savage appeared.
Twenty Sioux had fallen mortally wounded to the ground, and the wheels crushed those who fell on the rails as if they were worms.
Several passengers, shot or stunned, lay on the seats.
It was necessary to end the fight, which had lasted ten minutes and which would make the Sioux win if the train wasn't stopped.
Fort Kearney station, where soldiers were, was only two miles away.
Once past it, the Sioux would be masters of the train between Fort Kearney and the next station.
The conductor was fighting beside Mr. Fogg when he was shot and fell.
At the same moment he cried, "Unless the train is stopped in five minutes, we're lost!"
"It shall be stopped," said Phileas Fogg, getting ready to rush from the car.
"Wait, monsieur," cried Passepartout.
"I'll go."
Mr. Fogg had no time to stop the brave fellow, who, opening a door the Indians didn't see, managed to slip under the car.
While the fight continued and bullets flew over his head, he used his old acrobatic skill.
With great agility he moved under the cars, holding the chains and using the brakes and edges of the doors.
He crawled from one car to another with great skill and so reached the front of the train.
There, hanging by one hand between the baggage-car and the tender, with the other he loosened the safety chains.
But because of the pull, he wouldn't have been able to unscrew the yoking-bar, if a violent shake hadn't knocked this bar out.
The train, now cut off from the engine, fell a little behind, while the locomotive ran forward with more speed.
Carried by the force already given, the train still moved for several minutes.
But the brakes were used and it stopped at last less than a hundred feet from Kearney station.
The soldiers of the fort, drawn by the shots, hurried up.
The Sioux hadn't expected them and ran away together before the train fully stopped.
But when the passengers counted each other on the station platform several were missing, among them the brave Frenchman, whose devotion had just saved them.