Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet

particularly bad place I allude to, my desire was to form some judgment as
to the speed we were making. If the truth must be spoken, I was really
scared almost out of my reason, but if I were on my way to eternity I
wanted to know exactly how fast I went, so I huddled close to Fair, and
turned my eyes toward the hills. Every object I placed my eyes upon was
gone before I could plainly see what it was. Mountains passed like visions

---

and shadows. It was with difficulty that I could get my breath. I felt that I
did not weigh a hundred pounds, although I knew in the sharpness of
intellect that I tipped the scales at two hundred. Mr. Flood and Mr.
Hereford, although they started several minutes later than we, were close
upon us. They were not so heavily loaded, and they had the full sweep of
the water, while we had it rather at second-hand. Their boat finally struck
ours with a terrible crash. Mr. Flood was thrown upon his face, and the
waters flowed over him. What became of Hereford I do not know, except
that when we reached the terminus of the flume he was as wet as any of us.
This only remains to be said: We made the entire distance in less time than
a railway train would ordinarily make, and a portion of the distance we
went faster than a railway train ever went. Fair said we went at least a mile
a minute. Flood said that we went at the rate of a hundred miles an hour,
and my deliberate belief is that we went at a rate that annihilated time and
space. We were a wet lot when we reached the terminus of the flume.
Flood said that he would not make the trip again for the whole
Consolidated Virginia mine. Fair said that he should never again place
himself upon an equality with timber and wood, and Hereford said he was
sorry that he ever built the flume. As for myself, I told the millionaires that
I had accepted my last challenge. When we left our boats we were more
dead than alive. The next day neither Flood nor Fair were able to leave their
beds. For myself, I have only the strength to say that I have had enough of
flumes.

---