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 through which the "Deer" (mottled with sunshine and shadow) leaped away to the woods beyond, whilst in the meadow was seen the little "Fawn" tripping along its green banks until lost in the verdure of the valley. Add to these, the glittering tints that had been showered from autumn's treasury, and the effect was complete. But, where are the girls?
"Oui, oui!" exclaimed the Count de ——(a French nobleman of illustrious descent, and a most amiable, intelligent, and accomplished gentleman), "where de demoiselles—I no see 'em!"
"The what?" asked Jobson.
"De demoiselles; de—de—what you call 'em, Monsieur Job?"
"Girls," answered Jobson.