Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/315

 the track, jumped upon the steps of the last car, and fell, out of breath, on one of the seats.

Passepartout, who had followed with emotion the incidents of this gymnastic feat, went to look at the tardy one, in whom he took a lively interest, when he learned that this citizen of Utah had thus taken flight in consequence of a household scene.

When the Mormon had recovered his breath, Passepartout ventured to ask him politely how many wives he had to himself—and from the manner in which he had just run away he would suppose that he had at least twenty of them.

"One, sir!" replied the Mormon, raising his arms heavenward—"One, and that was enough!"

train leaving Great Salt Lake and the station at Ogden, ran for an hour towards the north, as far as Weber River, having accomplished about nine hundred miles from San Francisco. Leaving this point, it resumed the easterly direction across the rocky hills of the Wahsatch Mountains. It is in this part of the territory, comprised between these mountains and the Rock Mountains properly so called, that the American engineers were confronted with the greatest difficulties. On this portion of the route the subsidy of the United States Government was raised to forty-eight thousand dollars per mile, whilst on the plains it was only sixteen thousand dollars; but the engineers, as has already been said, have not done violence to nature—they have played with her, going round the difficulties. To reach the great basin, only one tunnel, fourteen thousand feet long, was bored in the entire route of the railroad.

At Salt Lake the road had up to this time reached its greatest altitude. From this point its profile described a very long curve, descending towards Bitter Creek Valley, then re-ascending to the dividing ridge of the waters between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The creeks were numerous in this mountainous region. It was necessary to cross the Muddy, the Green, and others, on culverts.