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mouth wide. It’s coming right for Will.
    A huge net unfurls from the air and drops over the small sasquatch. The creature knocks against the tree, struggling and yelping. Will leans far out of its reach.
    â€œDon’t shoot it!” calls a voice from the trees.
    Mr. Dorian emerges on snowshoes, along with three other large men carrying thick measures of rope over their shoulders. The snow has finally stopped moving.
    â€œWe’ve got him, gentlemen. It’s quite all right,” calls Mr. Dorian. “Take our ropes!”
    Ropes are thrown out for all of them, and Will grabs hold. Mr. Van Horne and Will’s father are pulled up alongside him.
    â€œWill,” his father says. “You’re all right?”
    Will nods, unable to speak.
    â€œWell, Dorian,” puffs Van Horne, “you didn’t come just for my painting, did you?”
    â€œI came for many reasons,” says Mr. Dorian. “To see the greatest railway in the world finished—and to find a sasquatch for the greatest show on earth.”

THE BOUNDLESS
----
THREE YEARS LATER
    â€œHow long is the train exactly?”
    â€œHow many people is she carrying?”
    â€œWill she arrive on schedule for her maiden voyage?”
    The reporters’ questions come in a barrage as Will and his father stand on the platform beside the massive locomotive. Despite the chill of the April day, Will can feel the heat from her mighty furnace.
    â€œWell, gentlemen,” says Will’s father, smiling easily at the reporters, “quite simply the Boundless is the longest train in the world. When we’re finished coupling the last of her cars, she’ll be pulling nine hundred and eighty-seven.”
    â€œIs she strong enough?” cries out a reporter whose body is all angles.
    Will’s father looks astonished. “Is she strong enough? Gentlemen, look at her!”
    Will stares up too. The locomotive steams, her hot breath curling from the smokestacks atop the three-story boiler. He can feel the tremor of her expectant power through the station platform, through the very air. Massive and black, she’s like something forged with lightning and thunder. A steel galleon on nine sets of towering wheels. Behind the boiler jut metal scaffolds where soot-blackened men stand ready to shovel coal into the furnace and set the Boundless in motion.
    â€œShe’s the most powerful engine in the world,” Will’s father tells the reporters. “She’d pull the moon out of orbit if we could get a tether on it. As for her length, if you care to walk from locomotive to caboose, it’s more than seven miles. According to our manifest we have 6,495 souls aboard for the journey. And I think I’m all out of statistics, gentlemen!”
    Applause and good-natured laughter erupt from the churning crowd. Will’s never seen the station so utterly crammed. Half of Halifax has turned out for the send-off.
    Will looks at his father enviously. He would’ve been tongue-tied, and yet his father answers with such ease, in full sentences, without faltering. Will has grown used to seeing his father in fine suits and in the company of other important gentlemen. But even now he still feels a bit bewildered at how different his father is—and how much all their lives have changed in the last three years.
    At the back of the crowd, several photographers are busy taking photos, their cameras perched high atop tripods. Will hopes the reporters are done with them—but it’s not to be just yet.
    â€œMr. Everett, is it true that just before his death Mr. Van Horne handpicked you to expand his empire across the Pacific? Even though his board recommended someone with more experience?”
    Will notices his father’s nostrils narrow as he inhales.
    â€œI’m very honored that Mr. Van Horne gave me such a position of trust,” he answers. “And it’s my ardent goal to make sure his