Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-01-15

Then the wind turned, and blast
right out O. the refractory strucl ne,
and snowf1akes, hard like hailstohes,
beat up my face and hands. But at
last 1 reached the top. / knew it was
the top, because the clouds swung
off to the left, and hung over the
! Faulhorn like washing on line.
well, it was worse goin' down.
And there was more of it. l slid and
rolled and tumbled, and doubled UP
! the bike and dragged it, aDd plunged
! down and down and down. After a
while it got dark No moon, no stars.
Nothing but clouds and gray NOM
tain above, and dark trees below,
and black gorges, and raarin' floods,
and the rocky footpath crawlin' down
I among 'em.
cat last found myself on smooth,
solid highway. 1t was glorious coast
in'-the road doublin' up sharp on
the edge of the cliffs and wrigglin'
away in the blackness, just a faint,
! gray line. But hair-raisin'! No fen
ces-rock wall on one side, and jump
/ in'-off places on the other. After
caught myself two or three times
on the edge Of a precipice, l got OFF
and walked again. My eyes had be
gun to see roads in the air.
''Then the rain came on-a deluge
crawled into a hole alongside the
road and stayed there for an hour or
two. Then it stopped rainin', and ]
moved on, scratchin' with my heel
to feel whether I was on the road.
''But at last the lights on Merlin
gen sparkIed up through the pines. |
could see better now, and jumped on
my bike, and slid down that old noun
/ tainside regardless. Then that hub
brake got red-hot-it always does go
in down mountain sides-and there
was the cause of my catastrophe.
when a hub-brake gets hot you've
got to pour water on it. 1 saw that
cold, white column streakin' down
from the tail of the Rosenlaui glacier,
reachin' up out of sight and down out
/ of sight-straight as the rain-pipe
from the roof of house where good
sensible people live and are happy
without travelling.
81 never thought of the force of
that water. Just stopped with a jerk
at the inside of the road, where an
iron grating hung over the chute, and
swung the bike over so the ice water
would hit the hub.
''The water hit it all right. Grabbed
the bike, and bent it double, and
! oh hn fnciIn
the grating-and me with it!
cit happened so quick, you see, /
couldn't let loose. 1 remember bein'
snatched and crammed through a
hole. and then droppin' downtown
and sort O. wonderin' how long it
would take that ice water to reach
the boilin' point when we struck
Hades.
we'll didn't land in Hades. 1
woke up in-the top of a tree! You
needn't laugh. 1t wasn't funny! The
| top of a tree way down at the foot
/ of the mountain-me hangin' limp and
numb across the branches, kind o.
wonderin' what had happened, and
whether 1 was alive. After a while
I noticed little stars twinklin' through
the boughs up above, then a bunch of
lights off to the left-and it dawned
on me that there was a place called
Meiringen.
81 rubbed some of the deafness out
o. me, and felt myself all over. Then
a few more clouds drifted off my
brain, and I realized that cold spray
was dashin' over me, and there at
my feet was a white, roarin' basin,
where that solid water column had
chewed a hole in the granite and
was hammerin' away like it wanted
to bore clear to hell.
81 saw then what had happened to
me. I'd slid down that toboggan slide
like a wet spider, and instead o.
bein' mashed on the rocks, I'd simply
been ducked and tossed up into a
handy tree.
Then all at once a chill struck me
that wasn't the chill of the water. 1t
made me crazy, guess, and I turned
and ran-anywhere to get away from
that horrible roar 1 stumbled over
powders, and thrashed through bush
es, and scrambled and leaped and
rolled. And so at last, somehow,
reached the town. And they dried
me, and doped me, and mended me
and here l am
Jones' l exclaimed, ''your adven-
ture is the browning glory Of your
trip. A man might travel and look
for tr0lble for nine lives, and not
have such an experience. Think OF
the story you've got to tell your
friends back in Zanesville!"
He looked at me with the sorrow
deepening around his eyes, and said
brokenly:
'The crowning misfortune! There's
a limit to all things. It's Gods own
truth-and they won't believe it'll
The Outing Magazine.