'Good mornin',' says I, back again. 'How goes it?' says he. 'All
right,' says I. 'Step this way and I'll take the hook out of your
gums.' 'Thank you for nothing,' says he, and he opened his month like
the entrance to a railroad tunnel, and blame me, if he hadn't taken a
double hitch of the line around his eye tooth, while the hook hung
harmless beside his jaw.
"'I've a little business down in the lower lake,' says he, 'and must
be movin',' and away he bolted like a steam engine, down the lake.
When he straightened up, my hat flew more than sixty yards behind me,
and the way I came down into the bottom of the boat was anything but
pleasant. Away we tore down towards the outlet, the boat cuttin' and
plowin' through the water, pilin' it up in great furrows ten feet high
on each side. There is, as you know, sixty feet fall between the Upper
Saranac and Round Lake, and the river goes boilin' and roarin',
tumblin' and heavin' down the rapids and over the rocks, pitchin' in
some places square down a dozen feet among the boulders. No sensible
man would think of travellin' that road in a little craft like mine,
unless he'd made up his mind to see how it would seem to be drowned,
or smashed to pieces agin the rocks. But right down the rapids we
went, swifter than an eagle in his stoop, down over the boilin'
eddies, down over the foamin' surge, down the perpendicular falls, as
if the old Nick himself was kickin' us on end.
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