rs rushed over the rocks; the sight of the wreck of the mysterious
bridge, foreshadowing the direst calamities,--all this awed the wild
children of the desert. They approached the falls slowly and
cautiously.

A brief command from Snoqualmie, and they landed on the northern side
of the river, not far from the foot of the falls. There they must
disembark, and the canoes be carried around the falls on the shoulders
of Indians and launched above.

The roar of the Cascades roused Wallulah from her stupor. She stepped
ashore and looked in dazed wonder on the strange new world around her.
Snoqualmie told her briefly that she must walk up the bank to the
place where the canoe was to be launched again above the falls. She
listened mutely, and started to go. But the way was steep and rocky;
the bank was strewn with the debris of the ruined bridge; and she was
unused to such exertion. Snoqualmie saw her stumble and almost fall.
It moved him to a sudden and unwonted pity, and he sprang forward to
help her. She pushed his hand from her as if it had been the touch of
a serpent, and went on alone. His eyes flashed: for all this the
reckoning should come, and soon; woe unto her when it came.

The rough rocks bruised her delicately shod feet, the steep ascent
took away her breath. Again and again she felt as if she must fall;
but the bitter scorn and loathing that Snoqualmie's touch had kindled
gave her strength, and at last she completed the ascent.

Above the falls and close to them, she sat down upon a rock; a slight,
drooping figure, whose dejected pose told of a broken heart.

Before her, almost at her feet, the pent-up river was widened to a
vast flood. Here and there a half-submerged pine lifted its crown
above it; the surface was ruffled by the wind, and white-crested waves
were rolling among the green tree-tops. She looked with indifference
upon the scene. She had not heard that the Bridge had fallen, and was,
of course, ignorant of these new cascades; and they did not impress
her as being strange.

Her whole life was broken up; all the world appeared shattered by the
blow that had fallen on her, and nothing could startle her now. She
felt dimly that some stupendous catastrophe had taken place; yet it
did not appear unnatural. A strange sense of unreality possessed her;
everything seemed an illusion, as if she were a shadow in a land of
shadows. The thought came to her that she was dead, and that her
spirit was passing