The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-08-14

party would be found
All that day Westerman and Curley
Bowers had lain and watched the rap
ids and the cataract from those high
grounds of Canada, where one can see
them best. The immensely of the thing,
which grows upon one gazing, did not
daunt but fascinated them. Perhaps
the very insigniicance of any human
atom going down that watery road
made the thought of the descent less
terrifying. Yet even to those dare
devils the attempt could have promised
hardly better than magnificent death.
Bowers tells me that his companion
talked strangely when he talked at all,
and that there was look upon his face
all day not to be understood.
He was a genuine product Of the
streets and the water fronts without
settled trade and without relatives, so
far as Lean learn. 1t is said that he
had tried unsuccessfully to enlist in the
army. He surely had the courage.
Unsuccessful in most things, he no
doubt had been a street arab who
dreamed young man who picked up
livelihood, as Curley said, doing odd
jobs of work and the minor feats of
daring. 1t was not the training to
make him refuse when Skitters came
with his glittering offers to find him
money and notoriety if he would pre-
tend to do the hugest feat of all. West
erman was as much piece OF drifting
Wpnn1y0Dn in tho . fSnIloh q
had been drawn into the Niagara and
carried down to the brink from the city
up above, but the more that he watch
ed and studied the river the more did
the strange fascination of it and the
longing to conquer it-and I cannot
help thinking also certain deep hon
esty of nature-preserve him from the
fakir's part. He and Skitters, on the
whole, were working at cross purposes
and with very different minds.
For Skitters in the meantime had
been making his arrangements for the
fraud with a cheerful, tireless industry.
Day after day had seen him down at
the scene of action, taking measure
ments and fixing people," The pneu-
cessfully over the Canadian falls. Skit-
ters, 1 believe, had persuaded certain
men upon that side that the same
thing would merely be done again this
day. Artful stage management and
the gift of CAB would make 1t appear
that man had been inside the suit
this time, and such, truly enough, was
the programme as Skitters planned it.
The one element to interfere, the in
fatuated daring of man of the old
Germanic war breed, Skitters could not
estimate. "This kind of thing needs a
head like mine to do it." said he when
he saw me come, and he mopped a
streaming brow, 'but it's all figured
out now"
see, but not to take part. The char
acters were already grouped for the
play, which might become a tragedy.
1t was too late for me to interfere with
the performance had known how AS
Skitters and l walked up past Table
rock he pointed ahead toward the
wooded shore that borders the Cana
dian rapids. We looked across wild
waters, and saw even at that moment
two men come suddenly out of the
bushes close by the river and bend over
something which lay between them on
the ground. "That's he," said Skitters,
"and the professor, old crank! He's so
dead afraid his suit may get hurt. He
doesn't care so much about the man."
For the inventor also, it seemed, was
in the cast, and his part was to put
Westerman in and afterward to let
him out again, not so publicly, an easy
thing to do with nobody very near. A
car on the trolley road had stopped
some distance away, and the people in
it were staring suspiciously and with
that half hypnotic bewilderment which
a mystery causes. "See 'em rubber"
Skitters said complacently. "They
think this is genuine. Well be in the
papers tomorrow" He turned and
started back to look to his arrange
ments, for he had boat all ready on
the lower waters to assist in the decep-
ton. Westerman had instructions to
hurry down along the bank and be
fished out of the stream below, ana the
press agent would do the rest.
But just above the point where one
enters the elevator l met Curley Bow
ers, and his eyes We're alight with a
strange excitement. "He swears he's
goin' to do it; he swears he's goin' to do
it!' cried the lad in something between
terror and delight IAN nobody knows
but me-" We stood in line with the
cataract and stared at it rather blank
ly while the spray drenched and the
roar deafened us. Before us we could
see the point where the precipice re-
treats and forms almost a funnel, the
apex of the so called Horseshoe fall.
Volume of water was what Westerman
desired. and out there the water wall
was green with depth where the lakes
went toppling down. There are hours
of the day when the Canadian shore
appears almost deserted, and this was
one of them. The few people walking
about seemed like little puppies. We
ourselves seemed puppets in a stage
scene, and with that scenery! The
whole business was unreal, with those
two burly figures up the river bank,