The Kentucky Gazette

An Unknown Hero.

It is refreshing to record an occasional heroic act which contains no elements but bravery and pure disinterestedness. Men often risk their lives and fortunes for notoriety, and their names always get into the papers. In Milwaukee they have an unknown hero, who has eluded all efforts to find out his name. A young girl runs rapidly out on the shore-ice and plunges into the lake. Several men are near, looking at her in horror. All but one run off calling for help. The one ran toward the spot where the girl had disappeared beneath the dark waters, and plunged in to rescue her. He succeeded by manful struggles in bringing the girl to shore alive. He placed her in charge of some good people, who took the poor thing into a warm room, put her in a warm bed, rubbed and chafed her into consciousness. The reporters got on the track of the incident and found out everything but one—who the preserver of the girl was. He was wet and the weather was very cold, and he hurried away to get on a suit of dry clothes, and nobody knew him or saw where he went. The girl was the daughter of a wealthy man in the suburbs of the city. She had been deceived, and sought death to hide her shame. Her father knows all now, and has taken her back to his home and heart. He wishes to reward the preserver of his child, but cannot find him. What if he was her destroyer also? The best thing he could do under such circumstances would be to go to that house, make that kind of reparation for wrongs of which a noble nature alone is capable, and crown his act of heroism with justice.