The lost hero was a poor old negro who saved the Columbia express from destruction at the time of the Charleston earthquake, and vanished from human ken after his brave deed was accomplished, swallowed up, probably, in some yawning crevice of the envious earth. The story is written with that simplicity which is the perfection of art, and its subtle pathos is given full and eloquent expression. But noble as the book is, viewed as a literary performance, it owes not a little of its peculiar attractiveness to the illustrations with which it is now adorned after drawings by Frank T. Merrill.—The Beacon.