Duffy. But the boy stood
wordless, as the irresistible giant current caught the trusting birds
and swept them, with a hideous, overpowering force, to the very brink
of the Horseshoe Fall. The boy, thrilling with the horror of it, shut
his eyes, and flung himself, face downward, on the rocks. A strange,
inarticulate moan left the man's lips. The boy lifted his head, lifted
his eyes, but the river was empty.
They ran breathlessly across the cobwebby bridges, around Goat Island,
then to the shore, then to the elevator, and descended to the
ice-bridge; but, above the angry battle of Niagara, arose the plaintive,
dying cries of scores of snow-white birds, the shouts of gathering
sightseers. Against the ruthless edges of ice lay, bleeding and broken,
what was left of that superb company homeward bound. Their poor, twisted
legs, their crushed heads, their flattened bodies, their pitiful, dying
struggles, would melt a heart of stone. No more those graceful throats
would whistle through the April airs, beneath the early suns and the
late morning stars.
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