Year: 1873

| SHOOTING RAPIDS ONE HUNDRED AND
FORTY MILES IN TWO HOURS.


Clear Creek is a miniature river that runs
through the canon of the same name. It
dred feet per mile, with here and there
| fall over rocky precipice fifteen or twenty
feet in height. Large boulders forty and
fifty feet in diameter, and weighing thous-
ands of tons, impede its dashing progress
every two or three hundred yards, while


it's curves are so sharp and SO frequent
that the stream can nowhere be seen for a
distance of thousand feet. Granite cliffs
two and three miles high project over it
on either side, and give frightful, roman
tic and dangerous appearance to the rush
ing torrent beneath.


Just below Black Hawk, on the side Of
the stream, small reservoir has been con-
structed in which is kept an ordinary skiff.
Last Sunday two little sons of Martin F.
Walker, aged respectively ten and twelve
years, got into the boat, and were splash
ing the water with stick, when the fasten-
ings gave way and the boat went drifting
towards the rapidly running current
The little boys soon discovered their dang
er but were powerless to avert it: SO they
clutched hold of the side Of the boat, and
with pallid countenances awaited their
doom. Soon the boat was caught by tho
current and began descending at a fearful
rate, over Black Hawk rapids they went
81, Nf ,~fx
feet at single dash. Lighting again on
the torrent surface the boat seemed to have
gained new impetus, and shot by the
boulders and around the rocky points with
celebrity of sunbeam.


At distance of about six miles below
the starting point conductor Gibbons, who
was standing on the rear platform of the
down c. G. train, saw the boat coming, and
Immediately stopped the train. All hands
| repaired to the waters edge, and did every
| thing in their power to arrest the flying
boat, but past them she went like bullet
from rifle, and was out of sight in mo-
ment. The conductor then ordered the
engineer to put on full head of steam
and follow as rapidly as possible, which
he did, constantly sounding the alarm of
danger. He did not get another glimpse
of the boat, but the alarm brought the
employees at Beaver Creek Station to the
lookout, and quickly making a slip-noose
they sought to throw it over the bow of
| the boat AS she came under the bridge
This they succeeded in doing, but could no
more hold it than they could have held a
thunderbolt, and over Beaver Creek Falls
she went with the speed of the lightning.
The falls are about thirty feet high, and at
the foot are a number of large boulders,
but the velocity of the boat was such that
it cleared them easily, and struck the
water some twenty feet beyond.


| From here no one saw the boat, or its
living freight, until it reached point one
hundred miles below Denver. Through
| Golden into the Platte river, and under
the Denver bridges she went, unnoticed,
nor slackened her pace until she lodged in
drift at the distance below Denver above
mentioned. The Platte does not run very
rapidly, but the boat had acquired such a.
wonderful speed in its descent from the
mountains that it far outrode the current.
A Mr.. Walsh, who lives on farm near
the drift where the boat lodged, discover
ed the boys still in the boat which was
nearly full of water, and took them to his
home. They were restored to their over
joyed parents the following evening after
having accomplished the most perlous
journey, in the quickest time ever before
| maue Ny any human oeihS VINO escaPeu
alive. The distance travelled was one
hundred and forty miles in two hours, but
how it was ever done, or how the boat
escaped being dashed to pieces upon some
Of the huge boulders or rocky cliffs which
everywhere intercept the course Of Clear
| Creek, is nothing short of providential
miracle. Probably not again in thous-
and years could the journey be made with
the best appliances, and by the most skill
full marinsrs.-CeStra! City, (Col.) Coach.