The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-01-09
it best from the British side. Run YOUR

there's Goats Island, snug IN the
midst of the mighty plunge. Can you
see a small, fiat speck of rock not sc
many yards off its shoresp No. know
it, as you'll hear. Our American fall
beyond knuckles under q little to this
nearer to us. But it's a mighty respect
able watershed, too,. twelve hundred
feet in breadth, ), one hundred and
fifty feet high. Your know-alls guess
that, every passing minute, some seven
river water roll over that rock into
spray and foam in the dim gulf below
''As boy, used to see beauty as
we'll as wonder in all this. Where it's
not hid with white foam, see what a
clear sea-green the flood is as it shoots
over. You can measure the force of a
rush of waters, for the curve of the
shining sheet is fifty feet from the wall
of rock it slips down.
| Chow does it strike you? You see
it, dare say, as l saw it twoscore
years ago. To you it is terrible, but
not all terror. It's lovely, too. And
to me, well, to me it is horror only: it
has been so since that day when hung
on its very brink for hours, and thought
of.it as one may think, in nightmare
dream. of some hideous thing, incon-
ceivable, unutterable, that held one in
its mighty grasp. But mime was no
vision of the night, to be laughed at
when awakened. Those hours grizzled
the then brown locks of my young
head into the iron-gray you see it now.
Their iron entered into my soul, as
they say. 1t has lived there ever since,
| night and day, season and season.
There it will stay till the death-rattle
| kills the memory of all this side of my
| coffin.
Il hunted and tished then. That's
how l lived. Visitors came pretty
plentiful to see the wonder. l could
get ready sale for what 1 caught,
whether it was fur or fin. had canoed
it from when l could recollect any
thing. and was pretty spry, tell you,
with the paddles, and pretty venture
some, too, l became, until thought l
was strong enough and skilled enough
to run risks hereabouts that others
would have shuddered from.
II thought I knew Niagara too well
to be in any danger from it. l was so
familiar with it, l thought of it with
| none of the scare newcomers found in
it. l used to laugh at their genuine
fears at the very sound of it. knew
it by night, when the calm moonlight
poured down light through the silvered
spray-clouds that hung over it; by day.
When the glad sun danced rainbows
above its flashing floods. Then it was
too old friend to be dreaded by me.
"One day changed all this. and l
knew it for the hungry monster that it
is-pitiless, craving for its human prey.
:" 1t was one Wednesday in August.
The hotels were full. Fish was in re-
quest, rs much as could bring. Price
didn't matter. Pleasure-seekers bleed
freely. was paid we'll for what could
be charged for as they liked. I had
found that the nearer the rapids l got
the finer seemed what 1 caught, and
the more freely the bait was taken. l
had so often gone where most were too
timid to venture that l had come to be-
lieve that could skim anywhere.
Even now, think, had my paddle
been sound should have come off safe.
"Wel, that morning l was out at
sunrise, and pretty successful was. 1
steadied my course, letting the canoe
drift little by little toward the rapids
that frothed and rayed some miles. l
felt that at any moment [ could shoot
it out of the strength of the current
into the smoother waters by the shore.
81 got fully employed with my lines.
for, as glided down the stream, my
take was rapid, and that of the finest.
SO eager was I that l failed to pay
that attention to the drift of my canoe
which was soneedful.
at was with start at last felt I
was far too much in the full deep river
current, and that its strength would
need my utmost efforts to escape from
its grasp. For the first time felt real
dread, for the boiling and hiss of the
seething waters could almost be heard
below me. piled the paddles strongly,
and for while l had hopes of safety,
though l had never known the need of
the exertions was now using to draw
myself out of the mighty force of the
flood that sped onward to it's fearful
fall.
"Inch by inch 1 fought my way up
stream and toward the shore where 1
was to sell my mornings takings. Ev-
cry inch was won by strain that
made the perspiration start from every
pore. 1t was for life fought, for dear
life. 1t was death that pulled against
and such a death! for it was as if a
curtain was suddenly withdrawn to
show me all the danger l had so long
been running unconsciously. 1t flashed
into my thoughts how l had played in
the very jaws of destruction that now
seemed to hunger for me.
LAS l toiled frantically against the
rushing waters, they were living things
whose clutch sought to drag me with
them to share their awful doom. l had
grown so used to the roar of the cata-
ract Gas l now recollected, so near!)
that my thoughts had ceased to be
cognizant of it; now it almost stunned
me.
Il talk stagily, don't L? 1 tell you,
stranger. if you want to wake up your
fancy really we'll, just try an hours
pull against Niagara, with the feeling
that perhaps fate is against you. You'll
be far from cool and commonplace in
though hit or speech if you think or utter
anything.
"Minutes that had seemed hours had
passed, and still [ was struggling fran
tically. streaming with my frenzied ex-
ertions. l had won some way. l had
edged some distance from the central
rush of the river, and safety would be
found in the slower waters that skirted
the bank, could but reach them.
81 bent still more madly to the eff
fort. In moment had lost my hold
on existence. and was rushing, help
less. and hopeless, to the dreadful fate
l had been fighting against. One of
my paddles, overstrained, had broken.
and, at the mercy of the mighty flood, 1
was speeding every moment more swift
ly to what knew so well-what saw
as plainly with my minds eye as 1 had
thousands of times seen it with my liv-
ing sight.
."How I saw all we were looking
down on here! Not sight, not a
sound, we are seeing and hearing, but