The train started from Oakland Station at six p.m. It was already dark, and snow was threatening; the pace did not exceed twenty miles an hour, including stoppages. There was not much conversation amongst the passengers, and most of them soon went to sleep. Passe-partout was next to the detective, but did not address him, for after what had happened there could be no sympathy between them. Fix had not altered, but Passe-partout was extremely reserved, and on the least suspicion would have strangled his former friend. In about an hour snow began to fall, but not sufficiently thick to hinder the progress of the train. Nothing could be seen from the windows but an immense white sheet, against which the steam of the engine looked gray. At eight o'clock the steward entered and said that bed-time had come. The backs of the seats were thrown down, bedsteads were pulled out, and berths improvised in a few moments. By this ingenious system each passenger was provided with a bed, and protected by curtains from prying eyes. The sheets were clean, the pillows soft. There was nothing to do but to go to bed and sleep, which everybody did as if they were on board ship, while the train rushed on across the State of California. The territory between San Francisco and Sacramento is not very hilly, and the railroad runs in a north-easterly direction along the American river which falls into the Bay of San Pablo. The hundred and twenty miles' distance between these cities was accomplished in six hours, and as it was midnight when they passed through Sacramento, the travellers could see nothing of the city. Leaving Sacramento and passing Junction, Rochin, Auburn, and Colfax, the railroad passes through the Sierra Nevada range, and the train reached Cisco at seven o'clock. An hour afterwards the sleeping-car was retransformed to an ordinary carriage, and the passengers were enabled to look out upon the magnificent scenery of this mountainous country. The track followed all the caprices of the mountains, at times suspended over a precipice, boldly rounding angles, penetrating narrow gorges which had apparently no outlet. The engine, with fire gleaming from the grate and black smoke issuing from its funnel, the warning-bell ringing, the "cow-catcher" extending like a spur, mingled its whistlings and snortings with the roar of torrents and waterfalls, and twining its black smoke around the stems of the pine-trees. There are few tunnels or bridges on this portion of the route, for the line winds round the sides of the mountains and does not penetrate them. About nine o'clock the train entered the State of Nevada by the Carson Valley, still proceeding in a north-easterly direction. At midday the train quitted Reno, where it had stopped twenty minutes for luncheon.