Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1914 — DICK SPENCERS LUCKY IDEA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DICK SPENCERS LUCKY IDEA

Dick Spencer lived in a town near a great gorge, through which .there ran a river frill of rapids sq fierce that no man had ever been able to devise a boat that could live In the

swirl. As a result, whenever people wanted to cross from one side of the gorge to- the other they had to go many miles around by way of a ford-near the head of the river, Much time was wasted In this way, and at last the town authorities sent to a firm of engineers and gave them a contract to build a fine steel bridge across the place. Within a few months the steel girders and beams were unloaded at the edge of the gorge, aud then men came to erect the bridge. But they had hardly beguii before they stopped again, for they realized suddenly that, while their plans provided for everything that was necessary to build a bridge, they had not devised a way to get the first beams across. The gorge was nearly half a mile wide, and there was no beam or plank long enough in/ the whole world, of course, to lay across the chasm so that men could begin to work. Dick's father was the Mayor of the town, and when he went down to the river to see the engineers they told him their trouble. "We wish that you would let us have the best kite-flyer among the hoys of the towp, We may be able do what was done at the Niagara gorge, where the engineers got the first cable across by flying a kite from one bank to the other, and then by means of the kite string they hauled a heavier string over, and so on, until they got a string heavy enough to haul a rope over, and then the rope pulled the first wire cable across.”

Dick, who held the honor of being the best kite-flyer, hurried home and returned with his biggest kite; but though he flew it with all his skill, It was Impossible to get the kite,over the gorge. Whichever way the wind blew, there was an eddy over the rapids that drove the kite back every time. That night at supper Dick’s father said that he was much worried. ’‘The town need* the bridge very badly, Indeed,” said he, "and we all lose a great deal of time and money because we have none. But the building of that dam is going to cost more than $60,000, and that means that we will have to increase taxes heavily and keep them up for a good many years to come. The town council is to meet to-morrow, and I hardly know what to say to them. It seems too bad that we should have to spend $50,000 just because we can’t get a line across the gorge.” The next morning Dick went fishing for bass In the gorge. The bass did not,bite and gradually he allowed his line to run out farther and farther into the current. Suddenly he noticed that after it had gone about a hundred feet an eddy would seize the bait and pull It straight toward a rock that showed above the worst part of the rapids In the very middle of the river.

He tried It again and again. Then he reeled In hurriedly and ran home. Soon he was back again In the gorge with a long reel of braided line and a great piece of wood, to which he had affixed a score of old fish-hooks. He threw It Into the current and played the line out swiftly until the wood lodged against the rock In the middle of the rapids. Then he made his end of the line fast to a tree and scrambled up the ellfla and harried around to the ford three miles above. He came down to the raplda again opposite to where he had been standing. Here he tossed out another piece of wood similar te the first and let It run with the current After repeating It half a dosen times, a swirl took It against the very rook where the first piece of wood lay lodged; and by clever manipulation of his line he succeeded at last In floating the two together, so that thotf many hooks became inttfloeked. Then he secured the end of the line to a tree, just as he had secured the first line on the other bank, and there was the solution of the problem that had baffled the engines**!