sight, and hidden alleys down which the waters pass with a stealthy step, 
so that you may pass and repass and not know that you and the brook 
are neighbors,—such a confederation of beauty, entrancing as autumn 
when it frequents the hills, is all but without competitor. This St. Croix 
region more nearly reaches this faroff beauty than Rocky Mountain or 
Sierra or any place | have lit on in my Western wanderings. Here the 
St. Croix falls down a gorge with multitudinous music. What in old 
times was perchance a falls is now a turbulent rapids, but is spend- 
thrift in music; and what more could we require? and I love, sleeping 
lightly with head at the window so as to miss no music when | wake, if 
THE WALLED ROCKS 
but for a moment (and the waters seem scarcely disquieted, the rapids 
being not turbulent now nor precipitous) to hear the voices as if an 
angel shook music from his mantle. The bed and banks of the river 
are a red granite worn by the polishing of the waters smooth as the pol- 
ished shaft which tells where lies some blessed sleeper dead, but not 
forgotten. So polished are these rocks you must step with watchfulness 
or lame you for your carelessness. Knots of rocks stand in the current 
of the stream like some sturdy spirit in turbulent wars when others have 
forgotten to be brave. Some of the wall rocks on the bank are yellow 
as ocher; and against these dash crests of spray as the stream foams 
113 
