Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1873 — One Hundred and Forty Miles in Two Hours. [ARTICLE]

One Hundred and Forty Miles in Two Hours.

Clear Creek is a miniature river that runs through the canon of the same name. It descends upon a down grade of 400 feet per mile, with here and there a fall over a rocky precipice’fifteen or twenty feet in height. Large boulders, forty and fifty feet in diameter, and weighing thousands of tons, impede its dashing progress every two or three hundred yards, while its curves are so sharp and so frequent that the stream can nowhere be seen for a distance of a thousand feet. Granite cliffs two and three ffiiles high project over it on either side, and give a frightful, romantic and dangerous appearance to the rushing torrent beneath. Just below Black Hawk, on the side of the stream, a small reservoir has been constructed, 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 splashing the water with a stick, when the fastenings gave way and the boat went drifting toward the rapidly-running current. The little boys soon discovered their danger, but were powerless to avert it; they clutched hold of the sides of the boat, and, with pallid countenances, awaited their doom. Soon the boat was caught by the current, and began descending at a fearful rate. On she went, the boys’ hats blew off, and their hair stood straight up; over Black Hawks Rapids they went like an arrow, clearing a distance of sixty feet at a single dash. Lighting again on the torrent surface the boat seemed to have gained a new impetus, and shot by the boulders and around the rocky points with the celerity of a sunbeam. At a distance of about six miles below the starting point, Conductor Gibbons, who was standing on the rear platform of the down C. C. train, saw the boat coming, and immediately stopped the train. All hands repaired to the water's edge, and did everything in their power to assist the flying boat, but past them she went like a bullet from a rifle, and was out of sight in a moment. The conductor then ordered the engineer to put on a 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 employes at Beaver Creek Station to the look-out, and quickly making a slip-noose sought to throw it over (he bow of the boat as she came under llie bridge. This they succeeded in doing, but could no more hold it than they could have held a thun der-bolt, and over Beaver Creek Falls she went with the speed of the lightning. The falls are about thirty feet high, and at tlie 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 mortal eve saw the boat or its living freight until it had reached a 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 a drift at the distance betow 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 a farm near the drift where the boat had lodged, discovered the boys stili in the boat, which was nearly full of water, and took them to his home. They were restored to their overjoyed parents the following evening, after having accomplished the most perilous journey, in the quickest time ever' made by any human being who escaped alive. The distance traveled was-140 miles in two hours; but how it was ever done, or how the boat escaped being dashed upon some of the huge boulders or rocky cliffs which everywhere intercept the course of Clear Creek is nothing short of a providential miracle. Probably not again in a thousand years could the journey be made with the best appliances and by the most skillful mariners.—Central City (Col.) Coach. As Mr. Wm. Stockdale was returning from visiting the circus at Peterboro’, Canada, he and the young lady who accompanied him met, says the Bobcaygeon Independent, with a rather singular accident. He was driving jn a one-horse buggy and going at a good smart pace when, from seme unexplained cause, he did not see a four-year-old steer that was lying in the road, and before he was aware of it drove over the animal. The steer rose up suddenly with the buggy on his back, ana for a few yards horse, buggy, lovers, and steer went together harmoniously at frill trot, but the steer diverging destroyed the equilibrium, and buggy, steer,young lady, horse, and Wm. btockuale retired into the ditch. Happily no bones were broken, though some bruises were received, some fright occasioned, and a parasol injured beyond all possibility of cure. Reading, Pa:, has recently been the scene of an incident which gilds with a tinge of romance a shadow of the darkest crime. A young lady enters Bishop's Bank in that city, presents her father’s bank book, with a ojbeck for the balance at his credit, and receives the money. He having occasion, shortly afterward, to use it, misses his bank book, and goes immediately to tin bank to make known his loss. l, Your book is not lost,” says the teller; “your daughter brought H with her when she drew out the money." “Drew out what money?” retorts the astonished father; when the truth is incontinently forced upon him that he has been robbed by his own daughter, and that uw ** a forger of the cleverest kind. Subsequent disclosures reveal the fact that ane bas eloped ,with a distinguished foreigner, and left for parts unknown.