than this, and it is worth while to
correct it. The bravest man I ever knew was so timid that he shrunk
from a shower bath and jumped like a girl if any one clapped hands
suddenly behind him. Cowardice is a matter of character. Brave men are
they who face danger coolly when it is their duty to do so, not
because they do not fear danger but because they will not run away
from a duty. Cowards often go into danger boastfully and without
seeming to care a fig for it, merely because they are conscious of
their own fault and afraid that somebody will find it out. Cowards are
men or women or boys, who lack character, and a genuine coward is very
sure to show his lack of moral character in other ways than by
shunning danger. They lie, because they fear to tell the truth, which
is a thing that requires a good deal of moral courage sometimes. They
are apt to be revengeful, too, because they resent other people's
superiority to themselves, and are not strong enough in manliness to
be generous. They seek revenge for petty wrongs, real or imaginary, in
sly, sneaking, cowardly ways because--well because they are cowards.
Jake Elliott was a boy of this sort. He was always a bully, and people
who imagined that courage is best shown by fighting and blustering,
thought Jake a very brave fellow. If they could have known him
somewhat better, they would have discovered that all his fighting was
done merely to conceal the fact that he was afraid to fight. He
measured his adversaries pretty accurately, and in ordinary
circumstances he would have fought Sam, when that young man talked to
him as he did in the beginning of this story. There was that in Sam's
bearing, however, which made Jake afraid to resist the imperious will
that asserted itself more in the quiet tone than in the threatening
words. He was Sam's full equal physically, but he had quailed before
him, and he could scarcely determine why. It annoyed him sorely as he
remembered the loud cheering of the boys. He chafed under the
consciousness of defeat, and dreaded, the hints he was sure to receive
whenever he should bully any of his companions, that he had a score
still unsettled with Sam Hardwicke. He knew that he was a coward, and
that the other boys had found it out, and he almost groaned as he lay
there in the silence and darkness, meditating revenge.

A little after midnight he got up silently and crept along the river
bank to the clump of bushes where Sam lay soundly sleeping.