ghtened up, my hat flew more than sixty yards behind me,
and the way I came down into the bottom of the boat was anything but
pleasant. Away we tore down towards the outlet, the boat cuttin' and
plowin' through the water, pilin' it up in great furrows ten feet high
on each side. There is, as you know, sixty feet fall between the Upper
Saranac and Round Lake, and the river goes boilin' and roarin',
tumblin' and heavin' down the rapids and over the rocks, pitchin' in
some places square down a dozen feet among the boulders. No sensible
man would think of travellin' that road in a little craft like mine,
unless he'd made up his mind to see how it would seem to be drowned,
or smashed to pieces agin the rocks. But right down the rapids we
went, swifter than an eagle in his stoop, down over the boilin'
eddies, down over the foamin' surge, down the perpendicular falls, as
if the old Nick himself was kickin' us on end. How we got down I won't
undertake to say, but when I got breath and looked out over the side
of the boat I saw the old woods and rocks along the shore below the
falls, rushin' up stream like a racehorse.

"Wal, we entered Round Lake, crossed it in five minutes, and down the
river we rushed over the little falls at a bound, and into the Lower
Saranac. I'd got a little used to it by this time, and though it was
mighty hard work to catch my breath in such a wind as we made by our
flight, yet I managed to sit up and look around me. It was curious to
see how the islands on the Lower Saranac danced about, and how the
shores ran away behind while I was looking at 'em; and how the forest
trees dodged, and whirled, and jumped about one another, as we tore
along. After tearin' about the lake a spell, we came to something like
a halt, and old Mossyback stuck his head out of water, and openin' his
great glassy eyes like the moon in a mist, 'How do you like that?'
said he, in a jeerin' sort of way. 'All right,' said I; 'go it while
you're young.' I didn't care about appearin' skeered or uneasy, but
I'd have given a couple of month's wages just then, to have been on
dry land. 'Well,' said he, 'I guess we'll be gittin' towards home.'
And away he started for the Upper Saranac, and up the river, across
Round Lake, and right up over the rapids we went. Two or three times I
made up my mind that I was a goner, as the water piled up around me
along over the falls; but somehow our very speed made our boat glance
upward at such times, a