ng itself in that basin for
another effort, gives another leap down its path, and then, gathering
itself once more in the lower basin, shoots away to the protecting
woods!"

"Capital name! Just the thing, Mr. Paddock!" again broke out the chorus
of girls, like a dangling of silver bells.

"The Falls of the Bounding Deer be it then!"

The name being thus satisfactorily settled, we all commenced
scrutinizing more closely the lovely lair of the "Bounding Deer."

A dazzling display of tints was on the thickly mantling trees, changing
the whole scene into a gorgeous spectacle. The most striking
contrasts--the richest colors glowing side by side, flashed upon the
delighted vision every where.

The elm dripping with golden foliage from head to foot, in a way which
only that most beautiful tree can show (the drooping naiad of the
brook), shone beside the maple in a splendid flush of scarlet--the
birch, garbed in the richest orange, bent near the pine gleaming with
emerald--the beech displayed its tanny mantle by the dogwood robed in
deepest purple, whilst every nook, crevice, shelf, and hollow of the
umber banks and gray rocks blazed with yellow golden rods and sky-blue
asters.

How beautiful, how radiant, how glorious, the American foliage in
autumn! No pen, unless dipped in rainbows, can do it justice. And,
amidst this brilliant beauty, down her pointed rocks, down flashed the
"Bounding Deer," white with the foam of her eager and headlong speed.

The boys now prepare for another excursion amongst the rocks of the
"Falls."

Some climb the dangling grape vines; some clutch the roots of the
slanting pine trees; and some find footing in the narrow fissures. Soon
the gray rocks and yellow banks are scattered over with them. Ascending
the very loftiest pinnacle by the roots of trees and the profuse bushes,
the scene was wild, picturesque, and romantic in the extreme. A little
below, bristled the points of the rocks with cedars, dwarf pines, and
towering hemlocks shooting from the interstices. At one side, through
its deep gully, flashed the "Bounding Deer"--the waters pouring in its
first deep dark basin, cut in the granite like a goblet, thence twisting
down in another bold leap into the second basin. Not a foam flake was on
the surface of either sable cup, nothing but the wrinkles produced by
the ever circling eddies. Below--past broken edge, grassy shelf, yawning
cleft, and jutting ledge, was the broad deep hollow thro