"I claps on the brake, but she's so heavy she don't pay no 'tention to it, though I makes smoke 'long them planks, I tell yer. She scoots ahead faster'n ever, an' bows to the scenery, this way an' that, like she was crazy, an' a-hummin' harder than ever.
"'Slow her down! Ease her down!' hollers Jud, grittin' his teeth an' holdin' onto her with all his hundred an' eighty pounds weight. But 't ain't no good. I gits a holt oncet, but the water backs up behind us an' we goes a-scootin' down on a big wave that sloshes out o' the flume on both sides an' sends us flyin' toward that Horn fer further orders.
"When we gits to the sharpest curve we knows we're there all right. She wabbles on one side an' then on the other, so I can see chunks o' sky ahead right under her. An' then, all of a sudden, she gives a whoopin' big jump right off the top o' the boat, an' over the side o' the flume she goes, her strings all a-singin' like mad, an' sailin' down four hundred feet. Jud had a holt of her before she dropped, an' if I hadn't 'a' grabbed him he'd 'a' gone over, too.
"You might not believe it, pardner, but we run a quarter of a mile down that there flume before we hears her strike. Jeroosalem! What a crash! I ever heer'd one o' them big redwoods that made half so much noise when she dropped. How she did roar! An' I tell yeh what was strange about that there noise: it seemed like all the music that everybody had ever expected to play on that pianner for the nex' hundred years come a-boomin' out all to oncet in one great big whoop-hurray that echered up an' down that cañon fer half an hour.
"'We've lost somethin',' says I, cheerful-like, fer I thinks the' 's no use cryin' over spilt pianners.
"But Jud he never says nothin',—jest sets there like he was froze plumb stiff an' couldn't stir a eyelid—sets there, starin' straight ahead down the flume. Looks like his face is caught in the air and held that way.
"Of course, now our load's gone, the brake works all right, an' I hooks a-holt onto the side about a hundred feet from where Jess stands like a marble statute, lookin' down inter the gulch.
"'Come on, Jud,' says I, layin' my hand onto his arm soft-like; 'we gits out here.'
"He don't say nothin', but tries to shake me off. I gits him out at last, an' we goes over to where poor Jess stands, stiff an' starin' down inter the gulch. When she hears our feet on the side planks, she starts up an' begins to beller like a week-old calf; an' that fetches Jud outer his trance for a while, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' he helps her back along the walk till we comes to a place where we gits down an' goes over to view the wreck.
"Great snakes, pardner, but it was a sight! The pianner had flew down an' lit onto a big, flat rock, an' the' wasn't a piece of her left as big as that there plate. There was all kinds o' wires a-wrigglin' aroun' on the ground an' a-shinin' in the sun, an' the' was white keys an' black keys an' the greatest lot o' them little woolly things that strikes the strings all mixed up with little bits o' mahogany an' nuts an' bolts an' little scraps o' red flannel an' leather, an' pegs an' bits o' iron that didn't look as if it had ever been any part o' the machine. It was the dernedest mess! I picked up somethin' Jess said was a pedal,—a little piece o' shiny iron about as long as that,—'n' that was the only thing that seemed to have any shape left to it. The litter didn't make any pile at all—jest a lot o' siftin' sawdust-stuff scattered aroun' on the rocks.