The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-06-23

the course of my afternoons ramble. A
] nameless presentiment had again drawn
! me th;ther, after leaving Eliot's pulpit
II showed my companions where | had
found the handkerchief, and pointed to
two or three footsteps, impressed into the
clayey margin, and tending towards the
water. Beneath its shallow vcrge, among
the water-weeds, there were further traces,
as yet unobliterated by the sluggish cur
rent, which was there almost at stand
still. Silas Foster thrust his face down
close to these footsteps, and picked up a
shoe that bad escaped my observation,
being half imbedded in the mud.
"There's kid shoe that never was
made OH a Yankee last" observed he.
g. know enough of shoemaker's craft to
tell that. French manufacture; aud, see
what high instep! and how evenly she
trod IN it! There never was woman
tlat slept handsomer in her shoes than
Zenobia did. Here" he added, address
sing Hollingsworth; would you like to
keep the shoe?"
Hollingsworth started back.
"Give it to me, Foster" said I.
dabbled it in the water, to rinse off
the mud, and have kept it ever since.
Not far from this spot lay an old leaky
punt, drawn up on the oozy river side,
and generally half full of water. It SER
we'd the angler to 90 in quest of pickcrel,
or the sportsman to pick up bis wild
ducks. Setting this crazy bark afoat, I
seated myself in the stern with the pad
die, while Hollingsworth sat in the bows
with the hooked pole, and Silas Foster
amid-ships with a hay-rake.
at puts me in mind of my young
days" remarked Silas, "when I used to
steal out of bed to 90 bobbing for horn
pouts and eels. Heigh-ho well, life
aud death together make sad work for us
all Then l was a boy, bobbing for fish;
and now am getting to be an old fellow,
and here be, grop;ng for a dead body!
l tell you what, lads, if I thought any
thing had really happened to Zenobia,
| should feel kind o sorrowful."
81 wish, at least, you would hold your
tongue" mu.tered |.
The moon, that night, though past the
full, was still large and oval, and having
risen between eight and nine O'Clock, now
shone as.antwise over the river throwing
the high, opposite bank, with its woods,
into deep shadow, but lighting up the
hIther shore pretty efeetualiy. Not a
ray appeared to fall on the river Itself.
1t Iapsed imperceptibIy away, broad,
black, inscrutable depth, keeping lite own
secrets from the eye Of man, as impene-
trably as mid-ocean could.
"Well, Mics CoyerdaIe," said Foster,
"you are the helmsman. How do yon
mean to manage this business"
81 sh;l: let the boat drift, broads'de
foremost, past that stump" | replied
| know the bottom, having sounded il in
fishing. The shore, on this side, after the
first step or two, goes off very abruptly;
and there is pool just by the stump,
twelve or fifteen feet deep. The current
could not have force to sweep any sunken
object, even if partially buoyant, out of
that hollow"
"Come, them" said Silas; "but I
doubt whether l can touch bottom with
this hay-rakc, if it's as deep as you say.
Mr.. Holllngsworth, think you'll be the
lucky man tonight, such luck as it is"
We foated past the stump. Silas
Foster pied . H:s isse manfully, pokingg :. :.
rs far as he could into the water, and
immersing the whole length of his arm
besides. Hollingsworth at first sat mo-
tionless, with the crooked pole elevated in
the air. Brit, by and by, with nervous
and jerky movement, he began to plunge
it into the blackness that upbore us, set
ting bis teeth, and making precisely such
thrusts, methought, as if he were stab
bing at deadly enemy. I bent over
the side of the boat. So obscure, how
ever, so awfully mysterious, was that dark
stream, that-and the thought made me
SILVER like leaf-I might as well have
tried to look into the enigma Of the eter-
nal world, to discover what had become
of Zenobia's soul, as into the rivers depths
to find her body. And there, perhaps,
she lay, with her face upward, while the
shadow of the beat and my own pale
face peering downward, passed slowly
betwixt her and the sky!
Once, twice, thrice, | paddlcd the boat
up stream, and again padded the boat
nm stream, and again suffered it to glide,
with the rivers slow, fuaereal motion,
downward. Silas Foster had raked up a
large mass of stuff, which. as it came to-