“O, dear me!” he said, decidedly. “You can’t go down!”
“Why?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t let you go down for a thousand dollars! you would be drowned, certain. Just step this way and take a look down.—Did you lose your leg in the army?”
“Yes,” I replied, as we walked to the head of the wooden stairway, “at the battle of Antietam, in Meade’s Division, Hooker’s Corps—got struck with a rifle ball, and the leg was amputated the same day about six hours after; I draw a pension of eight dollars a month, but can’t wear an artificial leg on account of the shortness of the stump; I am never troubled by change of weather—am twenty-two years old and my name is John Smith.—That place down there is the Cave of the Winds, is it?—Well, it’s a much milder looking place than I had expected to find it.”
It will be perceived that I gave all this voluntary information to save time, by sparing the guide the trouble of asking the usual questions; for every hour a man stays at Niagara costs him from two to five dollars, if he is economical.
“What do you think of it?” he asked, in a loud voice, so as to be heard above the roar of the cataract.
“A fine place,” I coolly shouted.
“Wouldn’t think of going down, now, I hope?”
“I’ll go down now, by all means,” I calmly yelled.
“O, no; it would be recklessness,” he shouted. “We’ve never lost any one here yet, and we don’t want to.”