(Previously: Chapter 1 - A Man Goes on A Journey) The Journal of Archimedes Croryton, July 23rd, 1888 I have been informed that my train has just crossed into Texas and the terrain has already become wilder than I could ever have imagined. The emptiness of these spaces is immense. It seems scarcely possible to me that men could lead their lives here. Not merely from want of sustenance and water, the scope of the landscape itself crushes a man with his own insignificance. In England each mile brings its a new town and a more pleasant vista. Ours is a land built on a scale a man can walk in a day. Well-tamed with its reassurances of ancient manor houses, village chapels, welcoming taverns. Our island is, as much as anything, a well-tended and civil garden. But this is a vast wild expanse. There is nothing on the grasslands to stop the wind on its rush to the equator. How could this place serve to do else but drive men mad? July 24th, 1888 Since San Antonio, the terrain has grown steadily more impossible. The train rises through rough terrain into a rocky desert almost devoid of life and greenery. This is the New Mexico territory. A fellow passenger, seeing a look of unabashed concern writ upon my face, attempted to reassure me by saying that all of the savages had been pacified shortly after the end of the war. But, I suspect they are all savages here, to one degree or another. What seemed a grand adventure in Boston and a splendid project in New Orleans now seems something else entirely. The wisdom of taking employment with Jean DuMont, a man I have never met, now escapes me. But as I have never wanted or needed employment before, perhaps mistakes are inevitable. The fact remains that I have designed and built the components for the largest Cornish engine the world has ever seen. While my technical employment may no longer qualify me to be a gentleman in the strictest sense, it gives great satisfaction to both my purse and my person. And I feel that the future belongs not to gentlemen but men with great machines and greater ambitions. On the morrow, I disembark the Union Pacific line in Tucson, with the 300 tons of my cargo. And from there, it and I go by wagon, to construct a pumping engine for the Morning Star Mine of Grantham, Az. Archimedes Croryton stepped down from the train into a scorching Arizona day. One of the roughnecks on the platform pointed him to the freight yard and Archie employed him to carry his trunk across the rail lines, and onto the freight platform, which was no more than a sea of railroad ties set directly on the desert floor. In the center of the freight platform was a crude shack, constructed against the relentless hammering of the Sun. Archie took shelter there and watched the yard crew unhook his boxcars from the train by means of a crude, small steam engine mounted on a cast-iron platform. Everywhere he looked his engineer’s eyes saw the opportunity for mechanical improvement. The diameter of the engine’s drive wheels needed to be enlarged. The platform also would benefit a trailing truck wheel. Without, it the drive wheels unweighted while reversing and slipped against the rails. This made the whole process of moving the freight cars a Sisyphean cycle of start, slip, stop that pained Archie to watch. Soon, he imagined, the cast iron platform would crack or bend so much against the strain that the engine would become unusable. Still, he allowed, it was easier than pulling boxcars by hand. Some distance off the siding men had gathered in a circle. He had assumed they were some of the men meant to haul his freight. They were yelling and cheering some action within their ranks. As Archie approached, he saw a large man with a full red beard hoist another man by his collar and belt and hurl him out of the circle. Unable to regain his footing after such an undignified exit, the poor soul sprawled on the railroad ties, just short of Archie’s fine English riding boots.