e face of the earth in about twenty-five
seconds! It first made a clean break from stem to stern, carrying
everything along with it. The first thing I saw was old Judge Piper,
puttin' on his best licks to get away from a big can of strawberry ice
cream that was trundling after him and trying to empty itself on his
collar, whenever a bigger wave lifted it. He was followed by what was
left of the brass band; the big drum just humpin' itself to keep
abreast o' the ice cream, mixed up with camp-stools, music-stands, a few
Chinamen, and then what they call in them big San Francisco processions
'citizens generally.' The hull thing swept up the canyon inside o'
thirty seconds. Then, what Captain Fairfax called 'the reflex action in
the laws o' motion' happened, and darned if the hull blamed procession
didn't sweep back again--this time all the heavy artillery, such as
camp-kettles, lager beer kegs, bottles, glasses, and crockery that was
left behind takin' the lead now, and Judge Piper and that ice cream can
bringin' up the rear. As the jedge passed us the second time, we noticed
that that ice cream can--hevin' swallowed water--was kinder losing its
wind, and we encouraged the old man by shoutin' out, 'Five to one on
him!' And then, you wouldn't believe what followed. Why, darn my skin,
when that 'reflex' met the current at the other end, it just swirled
around again in what Captain Fairfax called the 'centrifugal curve,' and
just went round and round the canyon like ez when yer washin' the dirt
out o' a prospectin' pan--every now and then washin' some one of the
boys that was in it, like scum, up ag'in the banks.

"We managed in this way to snake out the judge, jest ez he was sailin'
round on the home stretch, passin' the quarter post two lengths ahead
o' the can. A good deal o' the ice cream had washed away, but it took
us ten minutes to shake the cracked ice and powdered salt out o' the
old man's clothes, and warm him up again in the laurel bush where he
was clinging. This sort o' 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' kep'
on until most o' the humans was got out, and only the furniture o'
the picnic was left in the race. Then it got kinder mixed up, and went
sloshin' round here and there, ez the water kep' comin' down by the
trail. Then Lulu Piper, what I was holdin' up all the time in a laurel
bush, gets an idea, for all she was wet and draggled; and ez the things
went bobbin' round, she calls out the figures o' a cotillon t