At every division the crack engine of the shops was coupled on in seconds, rather than minutes, bellowed its challenge to all previous records, and scuttled away to the west; a new conductor swung up the steps and answered patiently the questions I hurled at him, and courteously passed over the invectives when I felt that we were crawling at a snail's pace and wanted him to hurry a bit.
At Ogden I hustled into the _Shasta_ and felt a grain of comfort in its familiar atmosphere, and a sense of companionship in the solemn face of Cromwell Jones, our porter.

I had taken many a jaunt in the old car, with Crom, and Rankin, and Tony, the best cook that ever fed a hungry man, and it seemed like coming home just to throw myself into my pet chair again, with Crom to fetch me something cold and fizzy.
From him I learned that it was pneumonia, and that if I got there in time it would be considered a miracle of speed and a triumph of faultless railroad system.

If I had been tempted to take my ease and to sleep a bit, that settled it for me.

The _Shasta_ had no more power to lull my fears or to minister to my comfort.

I refused to be satisfied with less than a couple of hundred miles an hour, and I was sore at the whole outfit because they refused to accommodate me.
Still, we got over the ground at such a clip that on the third day, with screech of whistle and clang of bell, we slowed at Oakland pier, where a crowd was cheering like the end of a race--which it was--and kodak fiends were underfoot as if I'd been somebody.
A motor-boat was waiting, and the race went on across the bay, where Crawford met me with the _Yellow Peril_ at the ferry depot.