"I want you to show me where you rode off the cliff into the river," said Little Snap's companion, very much to his surprise. "Oh, I heard of that a long way from here. Such news travels far and fast. Jerusalem! is it possible you went off there and came out alive? I never should have dared to do that. Now, you must tell me all about it. I am interested."
The postboy retold his thrilling adventure, and as he began to talk he grew animated, and before Salt Works was reached he had given Mr. Goings a more extended account of himself and his adventures than he had realized while telling it.
"It is a great satisfaction to have met you, Dix, and if I can arrange my business in season I am going back with you as far as Diamond."
These were Mr. Goings' parting words, and as Little Snap left Salt Works, where he had changed horses, he said, to himself:
"I don't know whether I am anxious or not for your company, Mr. Goings. If you do go back with me, I shall ask you a few questions in regard to yourself."
Below Salt Works the road wound down the valley for a couple of miles, when the base of Flat Top Mountains was reached, where a long ascent had to be made.
As at the Narrows, though the passage was wider, the Great Kanawha found its way along a rocky gorge, the banks of which were in places hundreds of feet in height.
Near the summit of the post road's greatest elevation, was a shelf of rock overhanging the stream, that was called "Lover's Leap," one of the three hundred dizzy crags in the United States bearing that favorite name.
After passing this spot, the post road, in making its descent on the west side of the mountain, wound away from the Kanawha, until the sullen roar of that river was supplanted by the musical ripple of a smaller stream, called Tripping Waters.
About two-thirds the way up this narrow valley the road led across this river, following its west bank to its outlet into the Kanawha at a point where the rugged mountain defile opened out into the broad basin of the western slope.