“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.” He didn’t want me “lost.” “No danger,” I shrieked. “I can’t give my consent,” he yelled, decidedly. “If you don’t,” I screamed, “I’ll jump down without it. I’ve traveled eighteen hundred miles for the sole purpose of going down in the Cave of the Winds, and I’ll not return to my free home in the Rocky Mountains without it! Give me a water-proof suit!” That began to tell on him. A man who lived in a free home among the Rocky Mountains might be dangerous. So he yelled, in a softer tone: “Well, if you will only go to the foot of the stairs, and will not try to follow the walk to that heap of stones out there, I’ll give you the water-proof clothes, and you may go down.” “John Smith never rejected any thing like a reasonable compromise,” I replied; “so I will promise to go no further than the foot of the steps. Get me the water-proofs.”