Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1878-11-28

a heavy heart, nerved BY hate and revenge
and misery uncomfortable, stood up
| chanting her death song that recounted
her wrong and her misery, and welcomed
her coming escape from, it, till they shot
into eternity amid the hell Of waters below.
ssEven while this was for an instant
! flashing through my bewildered brain l.
was entering the very heart of the thun-
der of the fall. Moments only separated
me from my release from agony. ) But
the Indian stoicism was foreign to me; I
could have yelled aloud in the terror that
possessed me 81 ~ ''':~''' 81
II dared not await seated the awful
last moment that was so near. > J. faced
my fate; Il turned; I stood up: I looked
straight ahead to where the curving Wa
tiers were to launch me to peace eternal.
"The f1ood had scarcely ripple on its
surface. - u j. ":H1t
"Was :t~real2 Within. a - few yards of
the awful brink the canoe had shot by a
fat speck of rock that off the shores Of
Goat Island lay stirless on the very edge
of the abyss. - 49, -
"With hardly conscious effort in pass
ing l had sprang to its slippery surface.
That moment had saved me from instant
annih1lation. The canoe was gone. 1
was standing as yet, while almost wash
ing my very feet, the sea Of waters hur-
ried on-on-on either side of me, and
disappeared.
81 gasped cry Of blessing for deliver
ance. Deliverance2 Was it deliverance2
| For how !ong2 I Jet breathed, but who
would, who could. save me from the rush
ing flood that tore past me, from the
| laundering cataract that fell almost with.
in reach Of my touch9
"Oh heaven What had 1 saved life for2
For prolonged agony9 For such misery
as must end in starvation, madness, sui
eide? Could my mind long bear the strain
now upon it? How could ita - -. -
"Let your eye skirt the rounding edge
of this nearest fall. You can see the very
rock was on. 1t looks but yards from
| the larger space o. Goat Island, but those
yards were as bad as miles. They were
an impossible gulf between me and the
| stretch of rock that seemed so near
| "What were my chances of escape2
| Dared l hope there were any? was al
most two wild with terror to think at all.
| Yet the brain seemed fevered with life in
such moments,
'Should be starved2 Should I slide
into the rushing tide from cold and ex-
| haust'ons Would sheer, unbearable ter
ror fling me to death from my utter in
ability to endure the horror that possessed
me2
"What could be done for me2 Was res
cue possible2 Could boat be foated in
any way down to me2 Even if it could be
guided to so small point, could I dare
to trust myself to it,
"Would any rope be strong enough to
bear the force that the mighty flood would
require it to endure and overcome?
An instant's relaxation of the strain on
the rope that might hold it till it lowed
it to shore, and !, if not it, would be
where my own canoe had gone.
"Would human strength, could human
endeavor, snatch me from the doom that
had so nearly already ingulfed me2
"All these thoughts We're in nv brain
in that instant, even while the very power
to think seemed frozen in me.
How could I dare to see? I shrieked
to be senseless. Oh, for madness. if mad
ness would rid me of the terror in my
brain, in my very, blood, tina: was, as it
seemed, my life-that 80 possessed me,
that existence had room for nothing but
unutterable horror!
II looked to this very rock on which
we stand: Here, on this spot, saw a
throng of excited spectators. was seen;
and who could see human being in
such peril, and not family share the
terror that felt?
II could hear the calls of men to me to
have heart. could catch cries to me
that I should be saved. I could see
women wild with pity. All, what could
their pity do for me9 Yet that, perhaps,
was the saving of my life. Any thing
any thing-to make me forget the ever
rus..--- waters tina Increasingly flashed
by my feet and disappeared.
''Men were crowding the river bank.
They were consulting, could see, ex-
citedly, debating what should be Gone
"There is rush of some from the
crowd. Time passes, ages to me, in my
agony. At last boat comes borne on the
shoulders of boatmen at run. They lay
it at the waters edge. Delay! delay
Oh, God! Oh, God! There is a rush of
others with coil of cable, not rope: rope
they knew would be murder.
IL see them boring the boats sides
passing the cable notwithstanding it
| mailing it securely.
''The boat is towed along the still side
water far up the stream. The crowd fol-
low it. What will they do2 God! what
will they do7 What sane being will ven
ture his life to save mine7 Delay delay !!
They have stopped. Talk! chatter! will
they never act? Oh, dear God, help him
bless him! A canoe pulls out from
! shore, with the boat in tow. The canoe
as we'll as the boat, has cable secured to
| it, by which those on the bank regulate
| its drift down stream. How strongly it
struggles up and out into the full flood
Both cables are secured round trees and
paid out by numbers.
"Fighting up and across the tide, drift
ed down it as the, cables slack their
length, I watch--with = what hungering
eyes! The canoe steals inch By inch to
| where it and the boat holds are in
line with my feet. The set of some cur
rent drifted me to the rock I stand on.
The boatis detached, straining on the Ca
BILE, guided, too, by a rope from the near
ly stationary canoe. The current sets it
toward me. 1t is brought up by the
strain Of the cable ashore. Still it drifts
nearer and nearer.
"There are moments in life that swal-
low up all the rest Of existence in our
memories. They haunt US. awake, We
dream! them always. If I should be
Methuselah with centuries of breath it
seems to mo one thought would always
absorb all others, as Aaron's snake de-
voured Pharoah's magician's serpents.
remember nothing else but that I
woke out of dream of hell in bed at
Forsyth's was told I had been in death
agony with brain fever. What mattered
that2 I was out of the torment of the
damned. l felt the blessedness of peace,
of safety, of life wruDg from death.
"They dared not tell me it was real
that all I am now telling you had been
awful reality--that l had dared as the
boat drifted abreast of me to risk leap
into it--that, On the very edgd and utter
brink Of perdition, the strength of scores
| ashore had overpoWered the rushing flood