“My parents--my brothers and sisters--if I have any, and something seems to tell me that I have. I tell you, Uncle Ruff, that strange dreams often come to me, not by night only, but by daytime. Sometimes when I am gliding over the stream in my canoe, or following the windings of the river, I forget your caution about keeping my wits about me, and I fall to thinking of the past, and of the future. I have done it of late very frequently, and a feeling comes over me that I can hardly describe. It has settled down into the belief that something strange is going to happen--something which is to change the whole course of my life, and make me really another person.” “What is it going to be?” asked the old hunter, looking at the lad, with a scared look, as if he dreaded to reply. “I have no more idea of its nature than have you, but I know it’s coming, for all that. And then too,” he added, with more animation, “by my trying so much to think of the past. I have succeeded at last.” “What!” exclaimed the astonished hunter, moving away from the table, “what can you call to mind?” “I remember when you found me. I was lying asleep upon some furs in an Indian lodge, when I opened my eyes, and saw a man dressed in a hunter’s dress, leaning over me. I remember that I was so frightened that I cried, and you took me up in your arms to quiet me, and you carried me away with you.” “That’s it exactly,” replied the hunter; “and the qu’arest thing about that business was that when I come to that lodge, standing by itself, there wasn’t a red-skin to be seen anywhar near. I walked in, picked you up, and walked away ag’in, and never cotched so much as a glimpse of a copper-skin. I went back arter a month or so to see if I could l’arn any thing, and found the lodge burned to the ground.” “How far was that from here?” “Hundreds of miles up along the Saskatchewan, on the trapping-grounds of the Hudson Bay Company. You see arter I got hold of you, I took such a fancy to you that I was afeard some of the red-skins would make a hunt fur you, so I emigrated, and come down into Oregon. Arter I got here, I felt troubled thinking maybe your parents or friends might be up in them parts. So I left you with some friends at Fort Abercrombie, and went up there to find out.” “And learned nothing?”