“Jump! jump! I tell you!” called out Little Rifle, rushing into the water to his knees, in his extreme solicitude, “throw your gun aside, and you can do it. Wait a dozen seconds more and you are lost!” The boy did wait the dozen seconds. He must have understood the words that were shouted to him, for he sat back in the stern of the canoe, folded his arms, and looking intently at Little Rifle, sadly shook his head, and then raising his hand waved it in greeting toward him. And as he did so, he could not have spoken more plainly, had he used the word. “I understand your advice; but it is too late! I must go over the falls to my death, and good-by!” It was a strange and impressive sight to see this mere boy, after fighting so bravely against fate, meet his doom with the stoicism of an Indian war-chief. There was no wailing or outcry, no frenzied flinging of himself in the boat, as it might be expected that such a one would do, when he saw himself gliding so swiftly and irresistibly toward death; but he sat back in the position we have described, and after his salutation to Little Rifle, turned his face away, and looked at the waterfall before him. The action of the doomed lad awed and thrilled the heart of Little Rifle, who felt that it was no ordinary character that he saw before him; for not one boy in a thousand could meet death with such heroism. For one instant, the agonized watcher closed his eyes to shut out the dreadful sight, and then yielding to an overmastering attraction, he leaped back out of the water, and dashed at headlong speed, down the bank, over rocks and through undergrowth, until he reached a point directly below the falls, from which he could look up and see the vast sheet of water, as it poured over the ledge into the seething, furious hell of foam and froth below. Here he paused and gazed upward.