per; the column
staggered and reeled backward, and the valiant grenadiers were appalled
by the task before them. Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon
placed himself at their head, and his aids and generals rushed to his
side. Forward again over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and a
quick run counted by seconds only carried the column across two hundred
yards of clear space, scarcely a shot from the Austrians taking effect
beyond the point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap. _The
guns of the enemy were not aimed at the advance. The advance was too
quick for the Austrian gunners_. So sudden and so miraculous was it all,
that the Austrian artillerists abandoned their guns instantly, and their
supports fled in a panic instead of rushing to the front and meeting the
French onslaught. This Napoleon had counted on in making the bold
attack.

What was Napoleon but the thunderbolt of war? He once journeyed from
Spain to Paris at seventeen miles an hour in the saddle.

"Is it _possible_ to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers
who had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard.

"Perhaps," was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of
_possibility_."

"_Forward, then_."

Yet Ulysses S. Grant, a young man unknown to fame, with neither money
nor influence, with no patrons or friends, in six years fought more
battles, gained more victories, captured more prisoners, took more
spoils, commanded more men, than Napoleon did in twenty years. "The
great thing about him," said Lincoln, "is cool persistence."

"DON'T SWEAR--FIGHT."

When the Spanish fire on San Juan Hill became almost unbearable, some of
the Rough Riders began to swear. Colonel Wood, with the wisdom of a good
leader, called out, amid the whistle of the Mauser bullets: "Don't
swear--fight!"

In a skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy's guns were pouring shot
into his regiment, Sir William Napier's men became disobedient. He at
once ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire. The
men yielded at once, and then marched three miles under a heavy
cannonade as coolly as if it were a review.

When Pellisier, the Crimean chief of Zouaves, struck an officer with a
whip, the man drew a pistol that missed fire. The chief replied:
"Fellow, I order you a three days' arrest for not having your arms in
better order."

The man of iron will is cool in the hour of danger.

"I HAD TO RUN LIKE A CYC