They rolled on through the dark, faster now, no longer having to feel their way. Once the awkwardness of a buried age had been run off the handcard, it went smoothly. The boy tried to do his share, and the gunslinger allowed him small shifts-but mostly he pumped by himself, in large and chest-stretching rises and fallings. [...] The gunslinger estimated they were making anywhere from ten to fifteen miles an hour, always on a shallow, almost imperceptible uphill grade that wore him out deceptively.
- The Gunslinger page 219