368 
A GHASTLY ATTEMPT AT A SMILE. 
and nearing the tide-rip rapidly. I was eitlior tlie worst- 
scared man of the party, or was enabled to outstrip them 
from the fact of having no gun to retard me; and I 
remember this thought flashing through my mind and 
causing me to smile as I looked ahead to the next break- 
fast-table and heard Hartman say, “ Oh ! but you should 
see II run ; zat vos te best of it all.” 
I heard this speech in the future, I say, and smiled; 
but it was doubtless a most ghastly attempt. At any 
rate, it was of but short duration : it fled before the 
increasing roar of the advancing tide, and left me with 
a feeling of startled alarm that fortunately but added 
to my speed. I think now that it was even more than 
a “ feeling of startled alarm I think it was much more 
like a very bad scare, — the feeling which possessed me 
as my left foot just then sunk into a streak of “the 
mixture” and caused me to measure my length on what 
fortunately proved to be good hard sand. A few bruises 
were nothing; but it would have been decidedly un- 
pleasant to have found myself sticking up upon “all 
fours,” as had been the case with the flreman who 
followed his shovel down the embankment. 
The particular streak over which I now fell was 
fortunately a narrow one, and ray momentum was 
suflicient to carry me over it. After picking myself 
up, therefore, I took time to be thankful for this as 
well as to rub my bruised elbows, after which I con- 
tinued the race with any thing but decreased speed. 
Thei'e were two high points between our starting-point 
and the boat, that ran down across the beach to about 
lialf-tide mark, and I had now arrived at the first of 
