The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1878-11-27

against Niagara, with the feeling that
perhaps fate is against you. QUILL be
far from cool and mmonplace Is
thoughtsor speech, if1you think or Ut
ter any thing sa
Minutes thathad seemed hours had
passed, and still was struggling franti.
cally, steaming with my frenzied exer.
lions. had won some way. l had
edged some distance from the central
rush Of the river and safety would bc
found in the slower waters that skirted
the bank, could but reach them. s..s s.s...
II bent still more madlY to the effort
In moment ! had lost my hold on ex-
istence, and was rushing, helpless and
hopeless, to the dreadful fate I'had been
fighting against. One of nv paddles,
overstrained, had broken, and, at the
mercy OF the mighty flood, ] was speed.
ing every minute more swiftly to what
knew so well-what I saw as plainly
with my mind $ eye as I had thousands
Of times seen it with my living sight,
"How l saw all we are looking
down on here! Not sight, not a sound,
we are seeing and hearing, but was in
that moment heard and seen bv me more
wildly than now. | was literally be
wildered with the roar I now hear so
calmly. ~.#
81 shrieked aloud in my agony as I
claspcd my useless hands over my sight,
valnly, to shut out the smooth slide of the
inland sea, as l saw it flashing back the
morning sun as it leapy into the misty
gulf into whose thunder it shot.
"a few moments bore me down to the
rapids. A few minutes, and I was
through them-safely. How ESCAPED
wreck among them puzzles me. / was
too paralyzed with horror to use nv one
paddle' to IN any way steer my light
craft through the foaming currents on
which it tossed. Its lightness must have
saved it. Had it been heavier built
boat it would have been dashed to shreds
score of times before we reached smooth
water. AS it was, it danced along, frolick-
ing as it seemed to me, with CHASTITY de.
lance of the destiny to which it 80 sure
ly hurried. ...s..........<..
"Out of the Kissing! out of the frothing
foam! We were CD the calm, majestic
mass OF watcrs-the sea tide, you might
surely call it, that was to hurl itself and
me to atoms. "'
"How oddly the mind acts in such
moments of horror! Would you believe
it? tradition of Niagara actually &C.
Cured to me as I flashed along. 1t was
an Indian legend. I remembered how
an Indian squaw, long the favorite of a
famous Chief, found a young maiden was
to supplant her in her wigwam. Irecol-
lect---I swear saw it as plainly as if
Imagination and reality were one--she
bore the best loved child she had borne
to its father from her forest home till.
she reached a canoe: Then she padded
herself and her boy into tue full stream
and cast the paddles from her, and with
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.
"Even while this was for an instant
flashing THROUGH my bewildered brain
was entering the very heart Of the thun-
der OF the fail. 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 n <s b III III
II dared not await seated the awfu,
last moment that was so near. | faced
my fate; turned; l stood up: I looked
straight ahead to where the curving wa
tiers were to launch me to peace eternal.
1.-The FLOOD had scarcely ripple on its
surface. u. .,..y .... "a -.l-~
"Was It real2 Within few Yards Of
the awful brink the canoe had shot by a |
Hat speck of rock that off the shores of
Goat Island lay stirless on the very edge
of the abyss.
@'With hardly conscious effort in pass
ing l had sprang to its slippery surface.
That moment had saved me from instant !
annlhllation. The canoe was gone. II
was standing as yet, while almost wash
ing my very feet, the sea of waters hur-
rled on--on-on either side of me, and |
'-s5lL
IL gasped a cry of blessing for deliver
ance: Dellverance? Was it deliverance?
For how ong? yet breathed, but who
would, who could, save me from the rush
ing flood that tore past me, from the
Numbering cataract that fell almost with.
III reach of my touch?
ooh heaven! What had saved life for?
For prolonged agony? For such misery
as must end in starvation, madness, sui-
eide? Could my mind long bear the strain
now upon it? How could it, f'5%
7 |'Let your eye skirt the rounding q Ice
OF this nearest fall. You can see the very
rock was on. It looks but wards from
the larger space OF Goat Island, bu5 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 escape?
Dared hope there were any? I was al
most two wild with terror to think at all.
Yet the brain seemed fevered with life in
such moments, .. s+} a@. g f.s. .s4.
"Should be starved2 Should I slide
into the rushing tide from cold and ex-
haust'on2 Would sheer, unbearable ter
MY inn k~ i l