time, although frightfully near
the most dangerous part of the river. The rush of waters here was
tremendous, and no one had ever dared to approach it, even in a canoe,
lest he should be dashed to pieces. The youth redoubled his exertions.
Three times he was about to grasp the child, when some stronger eddy
would toss it from him. One final effort he makes; the child is held
aloft by his strong right arm, but a cry of horror bursts from the lips
of every spectator as boy and man shoot over the falls and vanish in
the seething waters below.

"There they are!" shouted the mother a moment later, in a delirium of
joy. "See! they are safe! Great God, I thank Thee!" And sure enough
they emerged unharmed from the boiling vortex, and in a few minutes
reached a low place in the bank and were drawn up by their friends, the
boy senseless, but still alive, and the youth almost exhausted. "God
will give you a reward," solemnly spoke the grateful woman. "He will
do great things for you in return for this day's work, and the
blessings of thousands besides mine will attend you."

The youth was George Washington.

"Your Grace has not the organ of animal courage largely developed,"
said a phrenologist, who was examining Wellington's head. "You are
right," replied the Iron Duke, "and but for my sense of duty I should
have retreated in my first fight." That first fight, on an Indian
field, was one of the most terrible on record.

In the reverses which followed Napoleon, he met the allies at Arcis. A
live shell having fallen in front of one of his young battalions, which
recoiled and wavered in expectation of an explosion, Napoleon, to
reassure them, spurred his charger toward the instrument of
destruction, made him smell the burning match, waited unshaken for the
explosion, and was blown up. Rolling in the dust with his mutilated
steed, and rising without a wound amid the plaudits of his soldiers, he
calmly called for another horse, and continued to brave the grape-shot,
and to fly into the thickest of the battle.

When General Jackson was a judge and was holding court in a small
settlement, a border ruffian, a murderer and desperado, came into the
court-room with brutal violence and interrupted the court. The judge
ordered him to be arrested. The officer did not dare to approach him.
"Call a posse," said the judge, "and arrest him." But they also shrank
in fear from the ruffian. "Call me, then," said Jackson; "this c