Fix the Detective Considerably Furthers
the Interests of Phileas Fogg
Phileas Fogg found himself twenty hours behind time.
Passepartout, the involuntary cause of this delay, was desperate.
He had ruined his master!
At this moment the detective approached Mr. Fogg, and, looking
him intently in the face, said: "Seriously, sir, are you in great
haste?"
"Quite seriously."
"I have a purpose in asking," resumed Fix. "Is it absolutely
necessary that you should be in New York on the 11th, before nine
o'clock in the evening, the time that the steamer leaves for
Liverpool?"
"It is absolutely necessary."
"And, if your journey had not been interrupted by these Indians,
you would have reached New York on the morning of the 11th?"
"Yes, with eleven hours to spare before the steamer left."
"Good! You are therefore twenty hours behind. Twelve from twenty
leaves eight. You must regain eight hours. Do you wish to try to
do so?"
"On foot?" asked Mr. Fogg.
"No; on a sledge," replied Fix. "On a sledge with sails. A man
has proposed such a method to me."
It was the man who had spoken to Fix during the night, and whose
offer he had refused.
Phileas Fogg did not reply at once, but Fix, having pointed out
the man, who was walking up and down in front of the station, Mr.
Fogg went up to him. An instant after, Mr. Fogg and the American,
whose name was Mudge, entered a hut built just below the fort.
There Mr. Fogg examined a curious vehicle, a kind of frame on two
long beams, a little raised in front like the runners of a
sledge, and upon which there was room for five or six persons. A
high mast was fixed on the frame, held firmly by metallic
lashings, to which was attached a large brigantine sail. This
mast held an iron stay upon which to hoist a jib-sail. Behind, a
sort of rudder served to guide the vehicle. It was, in short, a
sledge rigged like a sloop. During the winter, when the trains
are blocked up by the snow, these sledges make extremely rapid
journeys across the frozen plains from one station to another.
Provided with more sails than a cutter, and with the wind behind
them, they slip over the surface of the prairies with a speed
equal if not superior to that of the express trains.
Mr. Fogg readily made a bargain with the owner of this
land-craft. The wind was favorable, being fresh, and blowing from
the west. The snow had hardened, and Mudge was very confident of
being able to transport Mr. Fogg in a few hours to Omaha. Thence
the trains eastward run frequently to Chicago and New York. It
was not impossible that the lost time might yet be recovered, and
such an opportunity was not to be rejected.
Not wishing to expose Aouda to the discomforts of traveling in
the open air, Mr. Fogg proposed to leave her with Passepartout at
Fort Kearney, the servant taking upon himself to escort her to
Europe by a better route and under more favorable conditions. But
Aouda refused to separate from Mr. Fogg, and Passepartout was
delighted with her decision, for nothing could induce him to
leave his master while Fix was with him.
It would be difficult to guess the detective's thoughts. Was this
conviction shaken by Phileas Fogg's return, or did he still
regard him as an exceedingly shrewd rascal, who, his journey
round the world completed, would think himself absolutely safe in
England? Perhaps Fix's opinion of Phileas Fogg was somewhat
modified, but he was nevertheless resolved to do his duty, and to
hasten the return of the whole party to England as much as
possible.
At eight o'clock the sledge was ready to start. The passengers
took their places on it, and wrapped themselves up closely in
their traveling-cloaks. The two great sails were hoisted, and
under the pressure of the wind the sledge slid over the hardened
snow with a velocity of forty miles an hour.
The distance between Fort Kearney and Omaha, as the birds fly, is
at most two hundred miles. If the wind held good, the distance
might be covered in five hours. If no accident happened the
sledge might reach Omaha by one o'clock.
What a journey! The travelers, huddled close together, could not
speak for the cold, intensified by the rapidity at which they
were going. The sledge sped on as lightly as a boat over the
waves. When the breeze came skimming the earth the sledge seemed
to be lifted off the ground by its sails. Mudge, who was at the
rudder, kept in a straight line, and by a turn of his hand
checked the lurches which the vehicle had a tendency to make. All
the sails were up, and the jib was so arranged as not to screen
the brigantine. A top-mast was hoisted, and another jib, held out
to the wind, added its force to the other sails. Although the
speed could not be exactly estimated, the sledge could not be
going at less than forty miles an hour.
"If nothing breaks," said Mudge, "we shall get there!"
Mr. Fogg had made it Mudge's interest to reach Omaha within the
time agreed on by the offer of a handsome reward.
The prairie, across which the sledge was moving in a straight
line, was as flat as a sea. It seemed like a vast frozen lake.
The railroad which ran through this section ascended from the
southwest to the northwest by Great Island, Columbus, an
important Nebraska town, Schuyler and Fremont, to Omaha. It
followed throughout the right bank of the Platte River. The
sledge, shortening this route, took a chord of the arc described
by the railway. Mudge was not afraid of being stopped by the
Platte River, because it was frozen. The road, then, was quite
clear of obstacles, and Phileas Fogg had but two things to fear--an
accident to the sledge, and a change or calm in the wind.
But the breeze, far from lessening its force, blew as if to bend
the mast, which, however, the metallic lashings held firmly.
These lashings, like the chords of a stringed instrument,
resounded as if vibrated by a violin bow. The sledge slid along
in the midst of a plaintively intense melody.
"Those chords give the fifth and the octave," said Mr. Fog.
These were the only words he uttered during the journey. Aouda,
cosily packed in furs and cloaks, was sheltered as much as
possible from the attacks of the freezing wind. As for
Passepartout, his face was as red as the sun's disc when it sets
in the mist, and he laboriously inhaled the biting air. With his
natural buoyancy of spirits, he began to hope again. They would
reach New York on the evening, if not on the morning, of the
11th, and there was still some chance that it would be before the
steamer sailed for Liverpool.
Passepartout even felt a strong desire to grasp his ally, Fix, by
the hand. He remembered that it was the detective who procured
the sledge, the only means of reaching Omaha in time; but,
checked by some presentiment he kept his usual reserve. One
thing, however, Passepartout would never forget, and that was the
sacrifice which Mr. Fogg had made, without hesitation, to rescue
him from the Sioux. Mr. Fogg had risked his fortune and his life.
No! His servant would never forget that!
While each of the party was absorbed in reflections so
different, the sledge flew past over the vast carpet of snow. The
creeks it passed over were not perceived. Fields and steams
disappeared under the uniform whiteness. The plain was absolutely
deserted. Between the Union Pacific road and the branch, which
unites Kearney with Saint Joseph it formed a great uninhabited
island. Neither village, station, nor fort appeared. From time to
time they sped by some phantom-like tree, whose white skeleton
twisted and rattled in the wind. Sometimes flocks of wild birds
rose, or bands of gaunt, famished, ferocious prairie-wolves ran
howling after the sledge. Passepartout, revolver in hand, held
himself ready to fire on those which came too near. Had an
accident then happened b the sledge, the travelers, attacked by
these beasts, would have been in the most terrible danger. But
the sledge held on its even course, soon gained on the wolves,
and before long left the howling band at a safe distance behind.
About noon Mudge perceived by certain landmarks that he was
crossing the Platte River. He said nothing, but he felt certain
that he was now within twenty miles of Omaha. In less than an
hour he left the rudder and furled his sails, while the sledge,
carried forward by the great impetus the wind had given it, went
on half a mile further with its sails unspread.
It stopped at last, and Mudge, pointing to a mass of roofs white
with snow, said: "We are there!"
Arrived! Arrived at the station which is in daily communication,
by numerous trains, with the Atlantic seaboard!
Passepartout and Fix jumped off, stretched their stiffened limbs,
and aided Mr. Fogg and the young woman to descend from the
sledge. Phileas Fogg generously rewarded Mudge, whose hand
Passepartout warmly grasped and the party directed their steps to
the Omaha railway station.
The Pacific Railroad proper finds its terminus at this important
Nebraska town. Omaha is connected with Chicago by the Chicago and
Rock Island Railroad, which runs directly east, and passes fifty
stations.
A train was ready to start when Mr. Fogg and his party reached
the station, and they only had time to get into the cars. They
had seen nothing of Omaha, but Passepartout confessed to himself
that this was not to be regretted, as they were not traveling to
see the sights.
The train passed rapidly across the State of Iowa by Council
Bluffs, Des Moines and Iowa City. During the night it crossed the
Mississippi at Davenport, and by Rock Island entered Illinois.
The next day, which was the 10th, at four o'clock in the evening,
it reached Chicago, already risen from its ruins, and more
proudly seated than ever on the borders of its beautiful Lake
Michigan.
Nine hundred miles separated Chicago from New York, but trains
run frequently from Chicago. Mr. Fogg passed at once from one to
the other, and the locomotive of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and
Chicago Railway left at full speed, as if it fully comprehended
that that gentleman had no time to lose. It raced over Indiana,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey like a flash, rushing through
towns with antique names, some of which had streets and
car-tracks, but as yet no houses. At last the Hudson came into
view, and, at a quarter-past eleven in the evening of the 11th,
the train stopped in the station on the right bank of the river,
before the very pier of the Cunard line.
The China, for Liverpool, had started three-quarters of an hour
before!