noon
After the plains , came an arid country where a constantly beaten vegetation fought with the alkali until at last it gave way to a world of yellow sand and purple sky . After a day of this , far to the west appeared a delicate line of snowcapped peaks toward which the flying train snailed for hours , until Jim , watching eagerly , saw the sand give way to low grassy hills , the hills merge into ridges and the ridges into pine-clad mountain slopes . For the last two days of the trip the train swung through dizzy spaces , slid through dim , dripping canyons , crossed trestles even greater than the trestles of Jim 's boyhood dreams ; twisted about peaks that gave unexpected , fleeting views of other peaks of other ranges until Jim crawled into his berth at night sight-weary and with a sense of loneliness that appalled him . At noon of a bright day , Jim landed at a little way station from which a single-gauge track ran off into apparent nothingness . Puffing on the single-gauge track was a `` dinky '' engine , coupled to a flat car . Wooden benches were fastened along one end of the car . The engineer and fireman were loading sheet iron on the other end .