Year: 1878

81 shrieked aloud in my agony az ]
clasped my useless hands over my sight
vainly, to shut out the smooth slide of The
inland sea, as saw it flashing back tile
morning sun as it leaps into the misty
guilt into whose thunder it shot.
IA few moments bore me down to the
rapids. A few minutes, and I was
through them safely. How l escaped
wreck among them puzzles me. was
too paralyzed with horror to use nv one
paddle, to in any way steer nv light
craft through the foaming currents on
! which it tossed. It's lightness must have
saved it. Had it been a heavier bailt
boat it would have ;oeen 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 ghastly de-
fiance OF the destiny to which it so sure
" hurried.


"Out of the Kissing! out of the frothine
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.


Glow oddly the mind acts in such
moments of horror! Would you believe
it? tradition of Niagara actually oc-
cured to me as flashed along. It 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--1 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 canoe. Then she padded
herself and her boy into the full stream
and cast the paddles from her, and with
heavy heart, nerved by hate and revenge
and misery unendurable, 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.


II dared not await seated the awful
last moment that was so near. l faced
my fate; | turned; stood up: l looked
straight ahead to where the curving wa
tiers were to launch me to peace eternal.


"The iiood had scarcely ripple on its
surface.


'Was It real? Within few wards of
the awful brink the canoe had shot by a
flat speck of rock that of the shores of
Goat Island lay stirless on the very edge
OF the abyss.


with hardly conscious effort in pass
ing | had sprang to its slippery surface.
That moment had saved me from instant
annlhliatlon. The canoe was gone. |
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.


Il gasped cry of blessing for deliver
ancc. Deliverance? Was it deliverancei
For how !ong2 yet 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 touch?


ooh heaven! What had saved life fori
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 It?


"Let your eye skirt the rounding edge
OF this nearest fall. You can see the very
rock was on. It looks but wards from
the larger space OF Goat Island, bur 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 any9 was al
most two wild with terror to think at all
Yet the brain seemed fevered with life in
such moments.


"Should [ be starved? Should I slide
into the rushing tide from cold and ex.
haustion2 Would sheer, unbearable ter.
ror fling me to death from my utter in.
ability to endure the horror that possessed
me?


"What could be done for me? Was res.
cue possible? Could boat be hoated in
any way down to me2 Even if it could be
guided to so small point, could dart
to trust myself to it?


"WOuld any rope be strong enough tc
bear the force that the mighty flood would
require it to endure and overcome9


An instant's relaxation of the strain on
the rope that might hold it till it towed
it to shore, and I, 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 mes


''All these thoughts were in nv brain
in that instant, even while the very powe,
to think seemed frozen in me.


''How could dare to see? l 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 il
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, I saw 8
throng of excited spectators. was seen
and who could see human being in
such peril, and not family share the
terror that I felt?


81 could hear the calls of men to me tc
have heart. / could catch cries to mt
that I should be saved. / could SEE
women wild with pity. All, what could
their pity do for me? Yet that, perhaps
was the saving of my life. Any thing