Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-07-16 | Page 11 | 'So Long' Cried Stephens as He Entered Cask

i 'SO LONG7 CRIED STEPHENS AS HE ENTERED CASK Rivermah's Wifc Will Send I ' Family Testament . He Read Before Start By RUSS slMoTo . E, Staff Corrcepondont. NIAGARA. nt . July H".. Til not say 'Good-bye;' only "So-long." " Charles G Stephens had plckcd u? thl.-. "Americanism" It was his last! word, 'mumbled through the oxygen mask bound acroae his mouth. Between the straps his wrinkled 'face smiled His bold, blue eyes were I fearless. Like a grotesque land turtle, of zebra-striping, tho barrel lay by the river bank. Stephens pulled his head inside. "Red," the rlverman, screwed Ihe cask shut with stubby fingers quick and tremulous. The tlnr gM launch pulled the bar- rel out 700 foot. "Red" stood In the bow, hanged the cask three times and cut the rope. The river look the barrel Swiftly It was borne in twisting circles through the red morning mist. "Seven-fifty flat." 3a!d the man with the stop watch and snapped it shut. Thus "Pri.f " Stephens, 58 barber of Bristol, Eng., went to his death "shooting the Horseshoe Falls.'' Stephens and his party had dashed out of Toronto at midnight, fearing some last moment opposition from the author!) i. k I At daybreak they reached the spot where "Red" and the cask were waiting wait-ing I "Red's" wife had given p-Mlo ' Iter bed to pack Stephens In bla bar- rel. Tho brave old Briton had pmiled WM his reassurance. WmM She was on the bank, twisting her IB fingers and i:ibblng her eyes with her IB apron after the white and black bar- iWm rel had bobbed from sight. IbbbbI Kept Tc lament r. r Family She had kept the pocket Testament Wm from which Stephens read the line: i "Cast thy bread upon the wuters. for f thou shalt find it after many days," 1b just before he crawled Into tho narrow Wm She will send th- Testament hack 3 to tc little cottage in Bristol. Eng... IH where Stephens' nrlefstrlcken wife and BH 11 children arc mourning. 'My wife wanted to come with me," Stephen told before he died. "She !?. Couldn't 'n account Of her asthma." H