Nevada County picayune., 1886-01-07

CT got into tight place like this, an couldn't see any other way out of it.
 But that would be be certain death. 1 exclaimed, in amazement.
 Not sartin, though I low the chances are agin' us, said the trap. per. with awful calmness.
 l began to think the man was mad.
 Did any one ever perform the feat and live? l asked.
 Never as 1 knows or. Eff we do it we'll be the fust, I reckon. You couldn't do 1t alone ef ye're not handy with canoe. You must leave its management to me. You sec how we're fixed, stranger, thar's cligs all around us; We can't go ahead on foot, an it would be sartin death to turn back. Thar's nothin' fuI it but to shoot the ken yon; an by the etarnal we hain't got minute to lose, Come quick!
 At that instant another yell rose on the air, much nearer than be- fore.
 l hesltated no longer, but with a desperate resolve, strode forward with the trapper to the brink of the canyon. The water was twenty feet below us, boom- ing along at terrible rate, and flashing it's turbid waves into foam against the jagged rock. It seem. ed like entering the jaws of death to go down there, but, as Nick Pi- per had said, it was our only hope; and as the blood. .curdling war. whoOp of the savages was growing unpleasantly near, there was no time to lose.
 1 reckon they won't follow us, said the trapper, with q gleeful chuckle, though they have got a couple of canoes a little furder up the river.
 l did not join in his levity; it seemed terribly out of place at such a time. We clambered down the perilous descent, and entered the canoe that lay there among the rocks. We pushed it out into the boiling flood. In an instant it darted down stream like an arrow from the bow, and we felt our selves whirled along with friehtful velocity at the mercy Of the raging torrent.
 l turned to look at my conpan- ion. There was actually a grim smile on his rugged features as he knelt in the bottom of the boat and yielded the only paddle it contain ed, while his wiry form swayed to and fro in his skillful efforts to keep the frail vessel from being dashed to pieces on the stones.
 We were in the midst of a seeth- ing caldron of writhing foam and dashing spray, of a dizzying, dis tracing whirl of waters, of a din that was deafening.
 Could anything short of a mira cle save us from the fate we had provoked by so rash a yenture' To my excited mind it seemed that every second must be our last, and l scarcely breathed in my constant expectation of the crash that was to end our lives. But the canoe dashed on with unabated speed, and its annoyed pilot kept it straight with the current, though several times it just grazed the projecting points that invited it to destruction. Not a word was ex- changed; once l began to say something, but l could not hear my own voice, and did not attempt 1t again.
 We were now rushing through the deepest part of the canyon. On either side the cliffs rose like solid walls, hundreds of feet in night, and the gloom that sur. rounded us was like that of night.
 But after awhile.-it was was an age of suspense to me-the walls grew further apart, the river began to widen, and the current became less swift and dangerous. The change was so sudden, out of the fierce and dangerous rapid into stretch of water where the current was only five or six miles an hour, that for moment l could scarcely realize that we had passed through the danger in safety.