The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-24

been one or two corpses ready for the
coroner.
You don't know what a cloudburst
is? Well! that is astonishing. A cloud
/ burst is what we call a sort of Noah's
| flood without any ark. You see some
| big cloud, that holds perhaps a mill
lion tons of water, suddenly goes to
pieces, and the water all comes down
at once, the same as it does at Niagara
| Fails There's the same difference be-
tween an ordinary rain and a cloud
burst that there is between sprinkling
cabbage with watering pot and
dumping whole wash tub full of
water over it. Thisyer cloudburSt that
I'm speaking of took place 80 or 40
miles above here, and the whole lot of
water ran into the PompOnoosuc river
and swelled II into raging torrent
that swept everything before it. L
heard it coming just before it reached
me, and / went for the hill yonder as
fast as | could run and just managed :
to reach ii in time. Before l started l
hailed The captain and told him TO run
While he could, but he pretended not
10 hear me. and remarked, as if he
was speaking to the universe and all
the rest of mankind, that the curse of
thisyer country was the COMPOUNDED
impertinence of the lower classes. He
was one of those men that nobody can
help except with club, he was that
Martin saw what was going TO hap
pen as we'll as 1 did. and just before
the flood struck his house l saw him
trying to rig up a sort of steering oar
by flashing plank to one of the YER
anda posts. Then the flood, which
came down like a wall six feet high,
burst on the house. and away IL
whirled. The captains steering oar
wasn't of the least use, and before he
went out of sight he dropped it, and
sat down on the railing of his veranda
with an arm around the post, and his
pipe in his mouth, as comfortable as
you please. l watched him for the
best part of a mile. and l couldn't see
but what the house was doing very
well, and that the chances were that
1t would bring up in some safe locality
before reaching the Muskingum Falls.
which are Il miles from here Anyway.
L says to myself, here's an end of
trespassing on my property, and block
ing up the public road, and an end of a
mighty disagreeable neighbour The
sheriff, when he came the next day
and found that there wasn't any work
for him TO do, said pretty much the
same thing
What became Of Captain Martin?
Well, his house fioated ashore down
nigh onto Il miles from here and the
captain never so much as got his feet
Wet. When the water went down it
LETT the house on the most valuable
corner lot in West Antioch, Just where
the people had calculated TO put up a
new opera house. OF course the owner
of the lot made trouble for Martin. and
Martin made trouble for him. There
was no less than 10 separate law suits
going on at the same time between
them, and the prospect was that they
would both die of old age before the
courts would find out who was in the
right. Captain Martin made an ar
rangement with the grocer in the town
TO heave in all his supplies through
a window, and he loopholed the walls
of his house and made it shot-prOof,
and swore that he would never leave it
alive. He never did, for one day he
got so particularly mad that he had a
stroke, and when the coroner broke
into. the house few days later, he
found Martin lying on the floor dead.
Yes, sir, what with cyclones, and =
and prairie fires. and bliz-
yards, and such like. northern Mime
sofa is middling lively place. How
ever, we folks that live here never al
lows ourselves to worry over what
may happen tomorrow, and then again,
may not happen for the next 20 years.
Besides, it would take a first-class cy-
clone, or a tremendous big flood. to
move a house that is built as solid as
this hotel is, so you needn't be afraid
that you'll find yourself sailing through
the air. or floating down the POmpOn-
OOsuc-that is. so long as you pays
your board regular, as / am free to
say you always has done, and 1 pre-
sumo you always will do"