about
nine o'clock
The locomotive , its great funnel emitting a weird light , with its sharp bell , and its cow-catcher extended like a spur , mingled its shrieks and bellowings with the noise of torrents and cascades , and twined its smoke among the branches of the gigantic pines . There were few or no bridges or tunnels on the route . The railway turned around the sides of the mountains , and did not attempt to violate nature by taking the shortest cut from one point to another . The train entered the State of Nevada through the Carson Valley about nine o'clock , going always northeasterly ; and at midday reached Reno , where there was a delay of twenty minutes for breakfast . From this point the road , running along Humboldt River , passed northward for several miles by its banks ; then it turned eastward , and kept by the river until it reached the Humboldt Range , nearly at the extreme eastern limit of Nevada . Having breakfasted , Mr. Fogg and his companions resumed their places in the car , and observed the varied landscape which unfolded itself as they passed along the vast prairies , the mountains lining the horizon , and the creeks , with their frothy , foaming streams . Sometimes a great herd of buffaloes , massing together in the distance , seemed like a moveable dam .